Lineage maps and audit history

Use a lineage map to visualize a linked artifact’s history. Audit a collection’s history to track changes made to artifacts in that collection.

Lineage maps

Within a collection in the W&B Registry, you can view a history of the artifacts that an ML experiment uses. This history is called a lineage graph.

A lineage graph shows:

• If a run used an artifact as an input.
• If a run created an artifact as an output.

In other words, a lineage graph shows the input and output of a run.

For example, the following image shows a typical lineage graph for artifacts created and used throughout an ML experiment:

From left to right, the image shows:

1. Multiple runs log the split_zoo_dataset:v4 artifact.
2. The “rural-feather-20” run uses the split_zoo_dataset:v4 artifact for training.
3. The output of the “rural-feather-20” run is a model artifact called zoo-ylbchv20:v0.
4. A run called “northern-lake-21” uses the model artifact zoo-ylbchv20:v0 to evaluate the model.

Track the input of a run

Mark an artifact as the input (or dependency) of a run with the wandb.Run.use_artifact() method. Specify the name of the artifact and an optional alias to reference a specific version of that artifact. The name of the artifact is in the format <artifact_name>:<version> or <artifact_name>:<alias>.

Replace values enclosed in angle brackets (< >) with your values:

import wandb

# Initialize a run
with wandb.init(entity="<entity>", project="<project>") as run:
  # Get artifact, mark it as a dependency
  artifact = run.use_artifact(artifact_or_name="<name>", aliases="<alias>")

Track the output of a run

Use wandb.Run.log_artifact() to declare an artifact as an output of a run. First, create an artifact with the wandb.Artifact() constructor. Then, log the artifact as an output of the run with wandb.Run.log_artifact().

Replace values enclosed in angle brackets (< >) with your values:

import wandb

# Initialize a run
with wandb.init(entity="<entity>", project="<project>") as run:
  
  # Create an artifact
  artifact = wandb.Artifact(name = "<artifact_name>", type = "<artifact_type>")
  artifact.add_file(local_path = "<local_filepath>", name="<optional-name>")

  # Log the artifact as an output of the run
  run.log_artifact(artifact_or_path = artifact)

For more information on about creating artifacts, see Create an artifact.

View lineage graphs in a collection

View the lineage of an artifact linked to a collection in the W&B Registry.

1. Navigate to the W&B Registry.
2. Select the collection that contains the artifact.
3. From the dropdown, select the artifact version you want to view its lineage graph.
4. Select the Lineage tab.
5. Select a node to view detailed information about the run or artifact.

The following image shows the expanded detailed view of a run (rural-feather-20) when you select a node in the lineage graph:

The following image shows the expanded detailed view of an artifact (zoo-ylbchv20:v0) when you select an artifact node in the lineage graph:

Audit a collection’s history

View actions that members of your organization take on that collection. You can view:

• If an alias was added or removed from an artifact version.
• If an artifact version was added or removed from a collection.

For both actions, you can view the user that performed the action and the date the action occurred.

To view a collection’s action history:

1. Navigate to the W&B Registry.
2. Select the collection you want to view its action history.
3. Select the dropdown menu next to the collection name.
4. Select the Action History option.