Quick Start w/ Docker

We've prepared a Docker image that will allow you to quickly spin up a new PostgreSQL database with PostgresML already installed. It also includes some Scikit toy datasets so you can easily experiment with PostgresML workflows without having to import your own data.

You can skip to Installation for production installation instructions.

• OS X
• Linux
• Windows

1. Clone the repo:

   git clone https://github.com/postgresml/postgresml
   

2. Start Dockerized services. PostgresML will run on port 5433, just in case you already have Postgres running:

   cd postgresml && docker-compose up
   

3. Connect to Postgres in the container with PostgresML installed:

   psql postgres://postgres@localhost:5433/pgml_development
   

4. Validate your installation:

   • SQL
   • Output

   SELECT pgml.version();
   

    version
   ---------
    2.0.0
   (1 row)
   

5. Browse the dashboard on localhost:8000

Basic Workflow

Here is a simple PostgresML example to get you started. We'll import a Scikit dataset, train a couple models on it and make real time predictions, all of it using only SQL.

Importing a Dataset

PostgresML comes with a few built-in datasets. You can also import your own CSV files. Let's import the digits dataset from Scikit:

• SQL
• Output

SELECT * FROM pgml.load_dataset('digits');

INFO:  num_features: 64, num_samples: 1797, feature_names: ["sepal length (cm)", "sepal width (cm)", "petal length (cm)", "petal width (cm)"
 table_name  | rows
-------------+------
 pgml.digits | 1797
(1 row)

Trainig a model

Now that we have a dataset, we can train a model on it. Let's train a simple XGBoost model:

• SQL
• Output

SELECT * FROM pgml.train('My First PostgresML Project',
    task => 'classification',
    relation_name => 'pgml.digits',
    y_column_name => 'target',
    algorithm => 'xgboost',
    hyperparams => '{
        "n_estimators": 25
    }'
);

INFO:  Snapshotting table "pgml.digits", this may take a little while...
INFO:  Snapshot of table "pgml.digits" created and saved in "pgml"."snapshot_1"
INFO:  Dataset { num_features: 64, num_labels: 1, num_rows: 1797, num_train_rows: 1348, num_test_rows: 449 }
INFO:  Training Model { id: 15, algorithm: xgboost, runtime: rust }
INFO:  Hyperparameter searches: 1, cross validation folds: 1
INFO:  Hyperparams: {
  "n_estimators": 25
}
INFO:  Metrics: {
  "f1": 0.88522536,
  "precision": 0.8835865,
  "recall": 0.88687027,
  "accuracy": 0.8841871,
  "mcc": 0.87189955,
  "fit_time": 0.44059604,
  "score_time": 0.005983766
}
           project           |      task      | algorithm | deployed 
-----------------------------+----------------+-----------+----------
 My first PostgresML project | classification | xgboost   | t
(1 row)

Training a LightGBM model is equally simple:

• SQL
• Output

SELECT * FROM pgml.train('My First PostgresML Project',
    task => 'classification',
    relation_name => 'pgml.digits',
    y_column_name => 'target',
    algorithm => 'lightgbm'
);

INFO:  Snapshotting table "pgml.digits", this may take a little while...
INFO:  Snapshot of table "pgml.digits" created and saved in "pgml"."snapshot_18"
INFO:  Dataset { num_features: 64, num_labels: 1, num_rows: 1797, num_train_rows: 1348, num_test_rows: 449 }
INFO:  Training Model { id: 16, algorithm: lightgbm, runtime: rust }
INFO:  Hyperparameter searches: 1, cross validation folds: 1
INFO:  Hyperparams: {}
INFO:  Metrics: {
  "f1": 0.91579026,
  "precision": 0.915012,
  "recall": 0.9165698,
  "accuracy": 0.9153675,
  "mcc": 0.9063865,
  "fit_time": 0.27111048,
  "score_time": 0.004169579
}
           project           |      task      | algorithm | deployed 
-----------------------------+----------------+-----------+----------
 My first PostgresML project | classification | lightgbm  | t
(1 row)

Making predictions

After training a model, you can use it to make predictions. PostgresML provides a pgml.predict function that takes a model name and a feature vector, and returns the predicted label:

• SQL
• Output

SELECT 
    target,
    pgml.predict('My First PostgresML Project', image) AS prediction
FROM pgml.digits
LIMIT 5;

 target | prediction 
--------+------------
      0 |          0
      1 |          1
      2 |          2
      3 |          3
      4 |          4

The following common machine learning tasks are performed automatically by PostgresML:

1. Snapshot the data so the experiment is reproducible
2. Split the dataset into train and test sets
3. Train and validate the model
4. Save it into the model store (a Postgres table)
5. Load it and cache it during inference

Check out our Training and Predictions documentation for more details. Some more advanced topics like hyperparameter search and GPU acceleration are available as well.

Dashboard

The Dashboard app is available at localhost:8000. You can use it to write experiments in Jupyter-style notebooks, manage projects, and visualize datasets used by PostgresML.