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This page is the shortest path from a fresh checkout to a running SilentSwarm cluster and one experiment sweep.

1. Install the project

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -U pip
pip install -e ".[dev,docs]"

Check the CLI:

swarm --version
swarm --help

2. Start a local cluster

swarm start-cluster --fellows 2
swarm nodes
swarm fellows

The local leader listens on http://localhost:8080 by default. Runtime logs are written to .swarm/runtime-logs/.

Docker Compose users usually operate through the frontend gateway instead:

docker compose --profile local-fellow up -d --build
swarm --leader-url http://localhost:3000 nodes

3. Run one smoke sweep

swarm --leader-url http://localhost:8080 sweep \
  --config exp/configs/exp_distributed_smoke_v1.json

List jobs and watch a running job:

swarm --leader-url http://localhost:8080 jobs
swarm --leader-url http://localhost:8080 watch <job_id>

4. Inspect results

Experiment artifacts are written under exp/runs/<run_id>/ and include:

  • manifest.json
  • config_resolved.json
  • topology_snapshot.json
  • train_progress.ndjson
  • metrics_summary.json

5. Stop the cluster

swarm stop-cluster

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