Merge pull request #3029 from liuzhe-lz/v2.0-merge

Merge master into v2.0

docs/en_US/NAS/ClassicNas.md

@@ -24,9 +24,9 @@ At this point, trial code is ready. Then, we can prepare an NNI experiment, i.e.
 
 A file named `nni_auto_gen_search_space.json` is generated by this command. Then put the path of the generated search space in the field `searchSpacePath` of the experiment config file. The other fields of the config file can be filled by referring [this tutorial](../Tutorial/QuickStart.md).
 
-Currently, we only support [PPO Tuner](../Tuner/BuiltinTuner.md), [Regularized Evolution Tuner](#regulaized-evolution-tuner) and [Random Tuner](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/tuners/random_nas_tuner) for classic NAS. More classic NAS algorithms will be supported soon.
+Currently, we only support [PPO Tuner](../Tuner/BuiltinTuner.md), [Regularized Evolution Tuner](#regulaized-evolution-tuner) and [Random Tuner](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/tuners/random_nas_tuner) for classic NAS. More classic NAS algorithms will be supported soon.
 
-The complete examples can be found [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/classic_nas) for PyTorch and [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/classic_nas-tf) for TensorFlow.
+The complete examples can be found [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/classic_nas) for PyTorch and [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/classic_nas-tf) for TensorFlow.
 
 ## Standalone mode for easy debugging
 

docs/en_US/NAS/DARTS.md

@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ The above-mentioned example is meant to reproduce the results in the paper, we d
 
 ### CNN Search Space
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/darts)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/darts)
 
 ```bash
 # In case NNI code is not cloned. If the code is cloned already, ignore this line and enter code folder.

docs/en_US/NAS/ENAS.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Implementation on NNI is based on the [official implementation in Tensorflow](ht
 
 ### CIFAR10 Macro/Micro Search Space
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/enas)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/enas)
 
 ```bash
 # In case NNI code is not cloned. If the code is cloned already, ignore this line and enter code folder.

docs/en_US/NAS/Overview.md

@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ The procedure of classic NAS algorithms is similar to hyper-parameter tuning, us
 
 |Name|Brief Introduction of Algorithm|
 |---|---|
-| [Random Search](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/tuners/random_nas_tuner) | Randomly pick a model from search space |
+| [Random Search](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/tuners/random_nas_tuner) | Randomly pick a model from search space |
 | [PPO Tuner](https://nni.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Tuner/BuiltinTuner.html#PPOTuner) | PPO Tuner is a Reinforcement Learning tuner based on PPO algorithm. [Reference Paper](https://arxiv.org/abs/1707.06347) |
 
 Please refer to [here](ClassicNas.md) for the usage of classic NAS algorithms.

docs/en_US/NAS/PDARTS.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 ## Examples
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/pdarts)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/pdarts)
 
 ```bash
 # In case NNI code is not cloned. If the code is cloned already, ignore this line and enter code folder.

docs/en_US/NAS/Proxylessnas.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ trainer = ProxylessNasTrainer(model,
 trainer.train()
 trainer.export(args.arch_path)
 ```
-The complete example code can be found [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/proxylessnas).
+The complete example code can be found [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/proxylessnas).
 
 **Input arguments of ProxylessNasTrainer**
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ The complete example code can be found [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/t
 
 The implementation on NNI is based on the [offical implementation](https://github.com/mit-han-lab/ProxylessNAS). The official implementation supports two training approaches: gradient descent and RL based, and support different targeted hardware, including 'mobile', 'cpu', 'gpu8', 'flops'. In our current implementation on NNI, gradient descent training approach is supported, but has not supported different hardwares. The complete support is ongoing.
 
-Below we will describe implementation details. Like other one-shot NAS algorithms on NNI, ProxylessNAS is composed of two parts: *search space* and *training approach*. For users to flexibly define their own search space and use built-in ProxylessNAS training approach, we put the specified search space in [example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/proxylessnas) using [NNI NAS interface](NasGuide.md), and put the training approach in [SDK](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/src/sdk/pynni/nni/nas/pytorch/proxylessnas).
+Below we will describe implementation details. Like other one-shot NAS algorithms on NNI, ProxylessNAS is composed of two parts: *search space* and *training approach*. For users to flexibly define their own search space and use built-in ProxylessNAS training approach, we put the specified search space in [example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/proxylessnas) using [NNI NAS interface](NasGuide.md), and put the training approach in [SDK](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/src/sdk/pynni/nni/nas/pytorch/proxylessnas).
 
 ![](../../img/proxylessnas.png)
 

docs/en_US/NAS/SPOS.md

@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ Implementation on NNI is based on [official repo](https://github.com/megvii-mode
 
 Here is a use case, which is the search space in paper, and the way to use flops limit to perform uniform sampling.
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/spos)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/spos)
 
 ### Requirements
 

docs/en_US/NAS/SearchSpaceZoo.md

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 
 ## DartsCell
 
-DartsCell is extracted from [CNN model](./DARTS.md) designed [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/darts). A DartsCell is a directed acyclic graph containing an ordered sequence of N nodes and each node stands for a latent representation (e.g. feature map in a convolutional network). Directed edges from Node 1 to Node 2 are associated with some operations that transform Node 1 and the result is stored on Node 2. The [Candidate operators](#predefined-operations-darts) between nodes is predefined and unchangeable. One edge represents an operation that chosen from the predefined ones to be applied to the starting node of the edge. One cell contains two input nodes, a single output node, and other `n_node` nodes. The input nodes are defined as the cell outputs in the previous two layers. The output of the cell is obtained by applying a reduction operation (e.g. concatenation) to all the intermediate nodes. To make the search space continuous, the categorical choice of a particular operation is relaxed to a softmax over all possible operations. By adjusting the weight of softmax on every node, the operation with the highest probability is chosen to be part of the final structure. A CNN model can be formed by stacking several cells together, which builds a search space. Note that, in DARTS paper all cells in the model share the same structure.
+DartsCell is extracted from [CNN model](./DARTS.md) designed [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/darts). A DartsCell is a directed acyclic graph containing an ordered sequence of N nodes and each node stands for a latent representation (e.g. feature map in a convolutional network). Directed edges from Node 1 to Node 2 are associated with some operations that transform Node 1 and the result is stored on Node 2. The [Candidate operators](#predefined-operations-darts) between nodes is predefined and unchangeable. One edge represents an operation that chosen from the predefined ones to be applied to the starting node of the edge. One cell contains two input nodes, a single output node, and other `n_node` nodes. The input nodes are defined as the cell outputs in the previous two layers. The output of the cell is obtained by applying a reduction operation (e.g. concatenation) to all the intermediate nodes. To make the search space continuous, the categorical choice of a particular operation is relaxed to a softmax over all possible operations. By adjusting the weight of softmax on every node, the operation with the highest probability is chosen to be part of the final structure. A CNN model can be formed by stacking several cells together, which builds a search space. Note that, in DARTS paper all cells in the model share the same structure.
 
 One structure in the Darts search space is shown below. Note that, NNI merges the last one of the four intermediate nodes and the output node.
 
@@ -17,7 +17,7 @@ The predefined operators are shown [here](#predefined-operations-darts).
 
 ### Example code
 
-[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/darts_example.py)
+[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/darts_example.py)
 
 ```bash
 git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/nni.git
@@ -61,7 +61,7 @@ All supported operators for Darts are listed below.
 
 ## ENASMicroLayer
 
-This layer is extracted from the model designed [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/enas). A model contains several blocks that share the same architecture. A block is made up of some normal layers and reduction layers, `ENASMicroLayer` is a unified implementation of the two types of layers. The only difference between the two layers is that reduction layers apply all operations with `stride=2`.
+This layer is extracted from the model designed [here](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/enas). A model contains several blocks that share the same architecture. A block is made up of some normal layers and reduction layers, `ENASMicroLayer` is a unified implementation of the two types of layers. The only difference between the two layers is that reduction layers apply all operations with `stride=2`.
 
 ENAS Micro employs a DAG with N nodes in one cell, where the nodes represent local computations, and the edges represent the flow of information between the N nodes. One cell contains two input nodes and a single output node. The following nodes choose two previous nodes as input and apply two operations from [predefined ones](#predefined-operations-enas) then add them as the output of this node. For example, Node 4 chooses Node 1 and Node 3 as inputs then applies `MaxPool` and `AvgPool` on the inputs respectively, then adds and sums them as the output of Node 4. Nodes that are not served as input for any other node are viewed as the output of the layer. If there are multiple output nodes, the model will calculate the average of these nodes as the layer output.
 
@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ The Reduction Layer is made up of two Conv operations followed by BatchNorm, eac
 
 ### Example code
 
-[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/enas_micro_example.py)
+[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/enas_micro_example.py)
 
 ```bash
 git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/nni.git
@@ -136,7 +136,7 @@ To describe the whole search space, NNI provides a model, which is built by stac
 
 ### Example code
 
-[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/enas_macro_example.py)
+[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/enas_macro_example.py)
 
 ```bash
 git clone https://github.com/Microsoft/nni.git
@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ The search space of NAS Bench 201 is shown below.
 
 ### Example code
 
-[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/nas_bench_201.py)
+[example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/search_space_zoo/nas_bench_201.py)
 
 ```bash
 # for structure searching

docs/en_US/NAS/TextNAS.md

@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ The following link might be helpful for finding and downloading the correspondin
 
 ### Search Space
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/textnas)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/textnas)
 
 ```bash
 # In case NNI code is not cloned. If the code is cloned already, ignore this line and enter code folder.

docs/en_US/Release.md

 # ChangeLog
 
+# Release 1.9 - 10/22/2020
+
+## Major updates
+
+### Neural architecture search
+* Support regularized evolution algorithm for NAS scenario (#2802)
+* Add NASBench201 in search space zoo (#2766)
+
+### Model compression
+* AMC pruner improvement: support resnet, support reproduction of the experiments (default parameters in our example code) in AMC paper (#2876 #2906)
+* Support constraint-aware on some of our pruners to improve model compression efficiency (#2657)
+* Support "tf.keras.Sequential" in model compression for TensorFlow (#2887)
+* Support customized op in the model flops counter (#2795)
+* Support quantizing bias in QAT quantizer (#2914)
+
+### Training service
+
+* Support configuring python environment using "preCommand" in remote mode (#2875)
+* Support AML training service in Windows (#2882)
+* Support reuse mode for remote training service (#2923)
+
+### WebUI & nnictl
+
+* The "Overview" page on WebUI is redesigned with new layout (#2914)
+* Upgraded node, yarn and FabricUI, and enabled Eslint (#2894 #2873 #2744)
+* Add/Remove columns in hyper-parameter chart and trials table in "Trials detail" page (#2900)
+* JSON format utility beautify on WebUI (#2863)
+* Support nnictl command auto-completion (#2857)
+
+## UT & IT
+* Add integration test for experiment import and export (#2878)
+* Add integration test for user installed builtin tuner (#2859)
+* Add unit test for nnictl (#2912)
+
+## Documentation
+* Refactor of the document for model compression (#2919)
+
+## Bug fixes
+* Bug fix of naïve evolution tuner, correctly deal with trial fails (#2695)
+* Resolve the warning "WARNING (nni.protocol) IPC pipeline not exists, maybe you are importing tuner/assessor from trial code?" (#2864)
+* Fix search space issue in experiment save/load (#2886)
+* Fix bug in experiment import data (#2878)
+* Fix annotation in remote mode (python 3.8 ast update issue) (#2881)
+* Support boolean type for "choice" hyper-parameter when customizing trial configuration on WebUI (#3003)
+
 # Release 1.8 - 8/27/2020
 
 ## Major updates
@@ -158,7 +203,7 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
 * Improve PBT on failure handling and support experiment resume for PBT
 
 #### NAS Updates
-* NAS support for TensorFlow 2.0 (preview) [TF2.0 NAS examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/nas/naive-tf)
+* NAS support for TensorFlow 2.0 (preview) [TF2.0 NAS examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/nas/naive-tf)
 * Use OrderedDict for LayerChoice
 * Prettify the format of export
 * Replace layer choice with selected module after applied fixed architecture
@@ -168,7 +213,7 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
 
 #### Training Service Updates
 * update pai yaml merge logic
-* support windows as remote machine in remote mode [Remote Mode](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/TrainingService/RemoteMachineMode.md#windows)
+* support windows as remote machine in remote mode [Remote Mode](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/TrainingService/RemoteMachineMode.md#windows)
 
 ### Bug Fix
 * fix dev install
@@ -183,26 +228,26 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
 
 #### Hyper-Parameter Optimizing
 
-* New tuner: [Population Based Training (PBT)](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/Tuner/PBTTuner.md)
+* New tuner: [Population Based Training (PBT)](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/Tuner/PBTTuner.md)
 * Trials can now report infinity and NaN as result
 
 #### Neural Architecture Search
 
-* New NAS algorithm: [TextNAS](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/NAS/TextNAS.md)
-* ENAS and DARTS now support [visualization](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/NAS/Visualization.md) through web UI.
+* New NAS algorithm: [TextNAS](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/NAS/TextNAS.md)
+* ENAS and DARTS now support [visualization](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/NAS/Visualization.md) through web UI.
 
 #### Model Compression
 
-* New Pruner: [GradientRankFilterPruner](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/Compressor/Pruner.md#gradientrankfilterpruner)
+* New Pruner: [GradientRankFilterPruner](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/Compressor/Pruner.md#gradientrankfilterpruner)
 * Compressors will validate configuration by default
 * Refactor: Adding optimizer as an input argument of pruner, for easy support of DataParallel and more efficient iterative pruning. This is a broken change for the usage of iterative pruning algorithms.
 * Model compression examples are refactored and improved
-* Added documentation for [implementing compressing algorithm](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/Compressor/Framework.md)
+* Added documentation for [implementing compressing algorithm](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/Compressor/Framework.md)
 
 #### Training Service
 
 * Kubeflow now supports pytorchjob crd v1 (thanks external contributor @jiapinai)
-* Experimental [DLTS](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/master/docs/en_US/TrainingService/DLTSMode.md) support
+* Experimental [DLTS](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/docs/en_US/TrainingService/DLTSMode.md) support
 
 #### Overall Documentation Improvement
 
@@ -355,7 +400,7 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
     - Support Auto-Feature generator & selection    -Issue#877  -PR #1387
          + Provide auto feature interface
          + Tuner based on beam search
-         + [Add Pakdd example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/auto-feature-engineering)
+         + [Add Pakdd example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/auto-feature-engineering)
     - Add a parallel algorithm to improve the performance of TPE with large concurrency.  -PR #1052
     - Support multiphase for hyperband    -PR #1257
 
@@ -602,8 +647,8 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
 
 ### New examples
 
-* [FashionMnist](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/network_morphism), work together with network morphism tuner
-* [Distributed MNIST example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/mnist-distributed-pytorch) written in PyTorch
+* [FashionMnist](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/network_morphism), work together with network morphism tuner
+* [Distributed MNIST example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/mnist-distributed-pytorch) written in PyTorch
 
 ## Release 0.4 - 12/6/2018
 
@@ -611,7 +656,7 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
 
 * [Kubeflow Training service](TrainingService/KubeflowMode.md)
   * Support tf-operator
-  * [Distributed trial example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/mnist-distributed/dist_mnist.py) on Kubeflow
+  * [Distributed trial example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/mnist-distributed/dist_mnist.py) on Kubeflow
 * [Grid search tuner](Tuner/GridsearchTuner.md)
 * [Hyperband tuner](Tuner/HyperbandAdvisor.md)
 * Support launch NNI experiment on MAC
@@ -680,8 +725,8 @@ and [examples](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/blob/v1.7/docs/en_US/NAS/Benchma
   docker pull msranni/nni:latest
   ```
 
-* New trial example: [NNI Sklearn Example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/sklearn)
-* New competition example: [Kaggle Competition TGS Salt Example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/kaggle-tgs-salt)
+* New trial example: [NNI Sklearn Example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/sklearn)
+* New competition example: [Kaggle Competition TGS Salt Example](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/kaggle-tgs-salt)
 
 ### Others
 

docs/en_US/TrainingService/AMLMode.md

@@ -62,7 +62,11 @@ Note: You should set `trainingServicePlatform: aml` in NNI config YAML file if y
 
 Compared with [LocalMode](LocalMode.md) trial configuration in aml mode have these additional keys:
 * image
-    * required key. The docker image name used in job. The image `msranni/nni` of this example only support GPU computeTargets.
+    * required key. The docker image name used in job. NNI support image `msranni/nni` for running aml jobs.
+    ```
+    Note: This image is build based on cuda environment, may not be suitable for CPU clusters in AML.
+    ``` 
+
 
 amlConfig:
 * subscriptionId
@@ -72,11 +76,11 @@ amlConfig:
 * workspaceName
     * required key, the workspaceName of your account
 * computeTarget
-    * required key, the compute cluster name you want to use in your AML workspace. See Step 6.
+    * required key, the compute cluster name you want to use in your AML workspace. [refer](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/machine-learning/concept-compute-target) See Step 6.
 * maxTrialNumPerGpu
-    * optional key, used to specify the max concurrency trial number on a GPU device.
+    * optional key, default 1. Used to specify the max concurrency trial number on a GPU device.
 * useActiveGpu
-    * optional key, used to specify whether to use a GPU if there is another process. By default, NNI will use the GPU only if there is no other active process in the GPU.
+    * optional key, default false. Used to specify whether to use a GPU if there is another process. By default, NNI will use the GPU only if there is no other active process in the GPU.
 
 The required information of amlConfig could be found in the downloaded `config.json` in Step 5.
 
@@ -89,4 +93,4 @@ cd nni/examples/trials/mnist-tfv1
 
 nnictl create --config config_aml.yml
 ```
-Replace `${NNI_VERSION}` with a released version name or branch name, e.g., `v1.8`.
+Replace `${NNI_VERSION}` with a released version name or branch name, e.g., `v1.9`.

docs/en_US/TrainingService/KubeflowMode.md

@@ -196,7 +196,7 @@ Trial configuration in kubeflow mode have the following configuration keys:
   * gpuNum
   * image
     * Required key. In kubeflow mode, your trial program will be scheduled by Kubernetes to run in [Pod](https://kubernetes.io/docs/concepts/workloads/pods/pod/). This key is used to specify the Docker image used to create the pod where your trail program will run.
-    * We already build a docker image [msranni/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it.
+    * We already build a docker image [msranni/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it.
   * privateRegistryAuthPath
     * Optional field, specify `config.json` file path that holds an authorization token of docker registry, used to pull image from private registry. [Refer](https://kubernetes.io/docs/tasks/configure-pod-container/pull-image-private-registry/).
   * apiVersion

docs/en_US/TrainingService/Overview.md

@@ -12,7 +12,7 @@ If the computing resource customers try to use is not listed above, NNI provides
 
 Training service needs to be chosen and configured properly in experiment configuration YAML file. Users could refer to the document of each training service for how to write the configuration. Also, [reference](../Tutorial/ExperimentConfig) provides more details on the specification of the experiment configuration file.
 
-Next, users should prepare code directory, which is specified as `codeDir` in config file. Please note that in non-local mode, the code directory will be uploaded to remote or cluster before the experiment. Therefore, we limit the number of files to 2000 and total size to 300MB. If the code directory contains too many files, users can choose which files and subfolders should be excluded by adding a `.nniignore` file that works like a `.gitignore` file. For more details on how to write this file, see [this example](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/mnist-tfv1/.nniignore) and the [git documentation](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore#_pattern_format).
+Next, users should prepare code directory, which is specified as `codeDir` in config file. Please note that in non-local mode, the code directory will be uploaded to remote or cluster before the experiment. Therefore, we limit the number of files to 2000 and total size to 300MB. If the code directory contains too many files, users can choose which files and subfolders should be excluded by adding a `.nniignore` file that works like a `.gitignore` file. For more details on how to write this file, see [this example](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/mnist-tfv1/.nniignore) and the [git documentation](https://git-scm.com/docs/gitignore#_pattern_format).
 
 In case users intend to use large files in their experiment (like large-scaled datasets) and they are not using local mode, they can either: 1) download the data before each trial launches by putting it into trial command; or 2) use a shared storage that is accessible to worker nodes. Usually, training platforms are equipped with shared storage, and NNI allows users to easily use them. Refer to docs of each built-in training service for details.
 

docs/en_US/TrainingService/PaiMode.md

@@ -104,7 +104,7 @@ Compared with [LocalMode](LocalMode.md) and [RemoteMachineMode](RemoteMachineMod
 
   Optional key. In pai mode, your trial program will be scheduled by OpenPAI to run in [Docker container](https://www.docker.com/). This key is used to specify the Docker image used to create the container in which your trial will run.
 
-  We already build a docker image [nnimsra/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it. If it is not set in trial configuration, it should be set in the config file specified in `paiConfigPath` field.
+  We already build a docker image [nnimsra/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it. If it is not set in trial configuration, it should be set in the config file specified in `paiConfigPath` field.
 
 * virtualCluster
 

docs/en_US/TrainingService/PaiYarnMode.md

@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ Compared with [LocalMode](LocalMode.md) and [RemoteMachineMode](RemoteMachineMod
     * Required key. Should be positive number based on your trial program's memory requirement
 * image
     * Required key. In paiYarn mode, your trial program will be scheduled by OpenpaiYarn to run in [Docker container](https://www.docker.com/). This key is used to specify the Docker image used to create the container in which your trial will run.
-    * We already build a docker image [nnimsra/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it.
+    * We already build a docker image [nnimsra/nni](https://hub.docker.com/r/msranni/nni/) on [Docker Hub](https://hub.docker.com/). It contains NNI python packages, Node modules and javascript artifact files required to start experiment, and all of NNI dependencies. The docker file used to build this image can be found at [here](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/deployment/docker/Dockerfile). You can either use this image directly in your config file, or build your own image based on it.
 * virtualCluster
     * Optional key. Set the virtualCluster of OpenpaiYarn. If omitted, the job will run on default virtual cluster.
 * shmMB

docs/en_US/TrialExample/Cifar10Examples.md

@@ -73,12 +73,12 @@ We are ready for the experiment, let's now **run the config.yml file from your c
 nnictl create --config nni/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/config.yml
 ```
 
-[1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch
+[1]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch
 [2]: https://pytorch.org/
 [3]: https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~kriz/cifar.html
-[4]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch
+[4]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch
 [5]: Trials.md
-[6]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/config.yml
-[7]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/config_pai.yml
-[8]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/search_space.json
-[9]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/main.py
+[6]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/config.yml
+[7]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/config_pai.yml
+[8]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/search_space.json
+[9]: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/cifar10_pytorch/main.py

docs/en_US/TrialExample/EfficientNet.md

@@ -6,7 +6,7 @@ Use Grid search to find the best combination of alpha, beta and gamma for Effici
 
 ## Instructions
 
-[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/efficientnet)
+[Example code](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/efficientnet)
 
 1. Set your working directory here in the example code directory.
 2. Run `git clone https://github.com/ultmaster/EfficientNet-PyTorch` to clone this modified version of [EfficientNet-PyTorch](https://github.com/lukemelas/EfficientNet-PyTorch). The modifications were done to adhere to the original [Tensorflow version](https://github.com/tensorflow/tpu/tree/master/models/official/efficientnet) as close as possible (including EMA, label smoothing and etc.); also added are the part which gets parameters from tuner and reports intermediate/final results. Clone it into `EfficientNet-PyTorch`; the files like `main.py`, `train_imagenet.sh` will appear inside, as specified in the configuration files.

docs/en_US/TrialExample/GbdtExample.md

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ Reference link:
 [lightgbm](https://lightgbm.readthedocs.io/en/latest/Parameters-Tuning.html) and [autoxgoboost](https://github.com/ja-thomas/autoxgboost/blob/master/poster_2018.pdf)
 
 ## 2. Task description
-Now we come back to our example "auto-gbdt" which run in lightgbm and nni. The data including [train data](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/data/regression.train) and [test data](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/data/regression.train).
+Now we come back to our example "auto-gbdt" which run in lightgbm and nni. The data including [train data](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/data/regression.train) and [test data](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/data/regression.train).
 Given the features and label in train data, we train a GBDT regression model and use it to predict.
 
 ## 3. How to run in nni
@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ if __name__ == '__main__':
 ```
 
 ### 3.3 Prepare your search space.
-If you like to tune `num_leaves`, `learning_rate`, `bagging_fraction` and `bagging_freq`, you could write a [search_space.json](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/master/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/search_space.json) as follow:
+If you like to tune `num_leaves`, `learning_rate`, `bagging_fraction` and `bagging_freq`, you could write a [search_space.json](https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/blob/v1.9/examples/trials/auto-gbdt/search_space.json) as follow:
 
 ```json
 {

docs/en_US/TrialExample/RocksdbExamples.md

@@ -8,9 +8,9 @@ The performance of RocksDB is highly contingent on its tuning. However, because
 
 This example illustrates how to use NNI to search the best configuration of RocksDB for a `fillrandom` benchmark supported by a benchmark tool `db_bench`, which is an official benchmark tool provided by RocksDB itself. Therefore, before running this example, please make sure NNI is installed and [`db_bench`](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/wiki/Benchmarking-tools) is in your `PATH`. Please refer to [here](../Tutorial/QuickStart.md) for detailed information about installation and preparing of NNI environment, and [here](https://github.com/facebook/rocksdb/blob/master/INSTALL.md) for compiling RocksDB as well as `db_bench`.
 
-We also provide a simple script [`db_bench_installation.sh`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/db_bench_installation.sh) helping to compile and install `db_bench` as well as its dependencies on Ubuntu. Installing RocksDB on other systems can follow the same procedure.
+We also provide a simple script [`db_bench_installation.sh`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/db_bench_installation.sh) helping to compile and install `db_bench` as well as its dependencies on Ubuntu. Installing RocksDB on other systems can follow the same procedure.
 
-*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom)*
+*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom)*
 
 ## Experiment setup
 
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ In this example, the search space is specified by a `search_space.json` file as
 }
 ```
 
-*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/search_space.json`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/search_space.json)*
+*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/search_space.json`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/search_space.json)*
 
 ### Benchmark code
 
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ Benchmark code should receive a configuration from NNI manager, and report the c
 * Use `nni.get_next_parameter()` to get next system configuration.
 * Use `nni.report_final_result(metric)` to report the benchmark result.
 
-*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/main.py`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/main.py)*
+*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/main.py`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/main.py)*
 
 ### Config file
 
@@ -56,11 +56,11 @@ One could start a NNI experiment with a config file. A config file for NNI is a
 
 Here is an example of tuning RocksDB with SMAC algorithm:
 
-*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_smac.yml`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_smac.yml)*
+*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_smac.yml`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_smac.yml)*
 
 Here is an example of tuning RocksDB with TPE algorithm:
 
-*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_tpe.yml`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_tpe.yml)*
+*code directory: [`example/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_tpe.yml`](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/config_tpe.yml)*
 
 Other tuners can be easily adopted in the same way. Please refer to [here](../Tuner/BuiltinTuner.md) for more information.
 
@@ -87,7 +87,7 @@ We ran these two examples on the same machine with following details:
 
 The detailed experiment results are shown in the below figure. Horizontal axis is sequential order of trials. Vertical axis is the metric, write OPS in this example. Blue dots represent trials for tuning RocksDB with SMAC tuner, and orange dots stand for trials for tuning RocksDB with TPE tuner. 
 
-![image](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/plot.png)
+![image](https://github.com/microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/trials/systems/rocksdb-fillrandom/plot.png)
 
 Following table lists the best trials and corresponding parameters and metric obtained by the two tuners. Unsurprisingly, both of them found the same optimal configuration for `fillrandom` benchmark.
 

docs/en_US/TrialExample/SquadEvolutionExamples.md

@@ -99,7 +99,7 @@ useAnnotation: false
 #Your nni_manager ip
 nniManagerIp: 10.10.10.10
 tuner:
-  codeDir: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/master/examples/tuners/ga_customer_tuner
+  codeDir: https://github.com/Microsoft/nni/tree/v1.9/examples/tuners/ga_customer_tuner
   classFileName: customer_tuner.py
   className: CustomerTuner
   classArgs: