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name: cli-and-operations description: "Guides agents using Axolotl CLI commands, launcher flags, agent-docs, config-schema, install checks, merge LoRA, inference, vLLM serving, evaluation, fetch, and quantize operations." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: Apache 2.0

CLI and Operations

Use this sub-skill when the task is about an axolotl command, CLI flags, command construction, agent-docs, config-schema, install checks, fetching examples, preprocessing runs, training launchers, inference, evaluation, LoRA merge, sharded FSDP merge, vLLM serving, cloud invocation, or post-training quantization.

Read First

• references/cli-reference.md for the command map, launcher argument placement, option syntax, and agent-docs/config-schema usage.
• references/operations.md for safe operational sequences from install checks through preprocess, train, evaluate, inference, merge, vLLM serve, fetch, and quantize.
• references/troubleshooting.md for symptom-driven fixes around missing entry points, broken imports, config paths, overrides, launcher args, chat/Gradio conflicts, adapter paths, vLLM, and cloud configs.
• scripts/axolotl_command_builder.py to build a safely quoted Axolotl command from a config path, command name, launcher, and JSON options without executing it.
• scripts/check_axolotl_install.py to check package metadata, top-level import, axolotl on PATH, and axolotl --help without starting training or loading a model.

Fast Workflow

1. Check the local install first when the task mentions command not found, import errors, or a failing help/schema command.
2. Use axolotl agent-docs --list, axolotl agent-docs <topic>, and axolotl config-schema --field <name> for installed-package truth before guessing config keys.
3. Build commands with config path first, Axolotl overrides before the -- separator, and launcher-specific args after --.
4. Prefer axolotl preprocess config.yml --debug before long training when dataset formatting, chat_template, labels, packing, or tokenization is uncertain.
5. Route field-level YAML, dataset, method, model, adapter, DeepSpeed, FSDP, or performance tuning questions to the matching sibling sub-skill after the command route is clear.

Boundaries

This sub-skill owns Axolotl CLI entry points, safe command construction, install/entry-point checks, operational sequencing, fetch, agent-docs, config-schema, cloud flags, inference/evaluation/merge/vLLM/quantize command routes, and common CLI failures. Route detailed config fields and dataset shapes to data-and-configs, method recipes to SFT/pretraining or RL/preference sub-skills, model/adapters to model-loading-and-adapters, and distributed/performance backend tuning to distributed-and-performance.