the recipe log
Recipes, not vibes.
A recipe names the failure mode, the data, the eval gate, the slice gate, and the stop rule. "Try DPO" is not a recipe — it's a wish. These are the named, reproducible post-training and packaging recipes the factory runs, plus cookbooks for real integrations. Companion logs: the devlog and the attempt ledger.
Post-training recipes
Method vs recipe — the standard
Why "try DPO" isn't a plan. A recipe names the failure mode, the data, the eval gate, the slice gate, and the stop rule.
Open recipe →Distill a specialist from a bigger model
Teacher → student on a local machine. KL + NLL mix, temperature, α, rejection sampling on a checker.
Open recipe →Distill function-calling: Phi-3-mini → tiny
The full function-calling distillation arc — the recipe behind the frontier-parity result.
Open recipe →From .atraj rollouts to a trained specialist
Turn agent trajectories into SFT data: filter, dedupe (MinHash), emit ChatML, train. The self-improving loop.
Open recipe →eval-gate as a CI / pre-commit gate
Wire a frozen eval into CI so a regression exits non-zero. The discipline that keeps main honest.
Open recipe →Balanced training mix
Mixing corpora without one domain drowning the others — ratio search with a micro-AutoMixer.
Open recipe →Micro-AutoMixer for data-mix ratios
Search data-mix ratios cheaply before committing compute to a full run.
Open recipe →ScaleDown — extractive context compression
A specialist that compresses context extractively — smaller prompts, same answer.
Open recipe → packagingMLX export
Package a trained adapter/model for the MLX runtime — the last mile before it serves.
Open recipe →Cookbooks — real integrations
Character specialist
Train a small model with a consistent voice/persona, end to end.
Open cookbook →Personal code specialist
A code model tuned on your own repos and conventions.
Open cookbook →posttrainllm + Pydantic AI
Drive a local posttrainllm model from Pydantic AI via the OpenAI-compatible endpoint.
Open cookbook →posttrainllm + smolagents
Run smolagents against a local specialist — agents on one machine, no cloud.
Open cookbook →Technique registry
SQL technique backlog
The live ledger of SQL recipes tried and queued — each with its reward surface.
Open →TrainLoop teardown
What was learned (and stolen) from an external post-training platform.
Open →Audit 2026 technique inventory
Row-level treatment of every technique in the 2026 audit: keep, experimental, flagged, delete.
Open →