Summarize Experiment Results

VerifiedSafe

Generates a summary.md file capturing key metrics from a completed experiment (fine-tuning and evaluation). Extracts training losses, accuracies, and creates a lightweight results summary.

Sby Skills Guide Bot
Data & AIIntermediate
406/2/2026
Claude Code
#experiment#summary#metrics#fine-tuning#evaluation

Recommended for

Our review

Generates a textual summary of experiment results by parsing training losses from SLURM outputs and evaluation accuracies from .eval files.

Strengths

  • Automates extraction of key metrics across multiple runs.
  • Handles partial results.
  • Maps evaluation epochs via SLURM job names.
  • Produces a standardized summary.md file.

Limitations

  • Depends on inspect-ai's parse_eval_log.py script.
  • Relies on specific naming conventions for SLURM job names.
  • May fail with non-standard experiment directory structures.
When to use it

Use after completing fine-tuning and evaluation runs to compile a concise report of model performance.

When not to use it

Do not use for real-time monitoring during experiments; the skill requires completed runs with output files in place.

Security analysis

Safe
Quality score90/100

The skill only reads existing experiment files, runs local Python scripts, and uses standard shell commands (sacct, grep) to extract metrics. No destructive actions, exfiltration, or obfuscated payloads.

No concerns found

Examples

Summarize current experiment
Summarize the experiment results in the current directory.
Summarize by path
Generate a summary.md for the experiment in /path/to/experiment.
Summarize after run-experiment
Create a summary of the experiment we just ran, including training losses and evaluation accuracies.

name: summarize-experiment description: Create a lightweight summary of experiment results from a completed (fine-tuned and evaluated) experiment. Use after run-experiment to capture key metrics from the experiment in textual form.

Summarize Experiment

Generate a summary.md file capturing key metrics from a completed experiment. Think R's summary() for experiment results.

Your Task

Create a lightweight summary of experiment results:

  1. Parse run status from experiment_summary.yaml
  2. Extract final training loss from SLURM stdout
  3. Extract accuracy from inspect-ai .eval files
  4. Generate summary.md in experiment directory
  5. Log the process in logs/summarize-experiment.log

Prerequisites

  • experiment_summary.yaml exists
  • At least some runs have completed (partial results acceptable)
  • run-experiment has been executed (or manual SLURM jobs run)
  • Conda environment activated - The parse_eval_log.py script requires inspect-ai. Activate the conda environment from claude.local.md before running extraction commands.

Workflow

1. Locate Experiment

Find the experiment directory:

  • If in an experiment directory (contains experiment_summary.yaml): use current directory
  • Otherwise: ask user for path

2. Parse Run Status

Read experiment_summary.yaml to identify runs:

From runs: section:

  • name: Run identifier
  • type: "fine-tuned" or "control"
  • model: Model name
  • parameters: Dict of hyperparameters (empty for control runs)

From evaluation.matrix: section:

  • run: Run name
  • tasks: List of evaluation task names
  • epochs: List of epochs to evaluate (null for control runs)

Determine status by checking filesystem:

  • Fine-tuning: Check for {output_base}/ck-out-{run_name}/ and SLURM outputs
  • Evaluation: Check for {run_dir}/eval/logs/*.eval files

3. Extract Training Loss

For each COMPLETED fine-tuning run:

  1. Find SLURM stdout in the output directory:
    • Parse experiment_summary.yaml "Output" section for output_dir_base
    • Look in: {output_dir_base}/ck-out-{run_name}/slurm-*.out
    • If multiple files, use most recent by modification time
  2. Extract final loss using regex: (\d+)\|(\d+)\|Loss: ([0-9.]+)
    • Pattern matches: {epoch}|{step}|Loss: {value}
    • Take the LAST match to get final loss
    • The step number (group 2) from the last match is the total training steps
  3. Record: run_name, final_loss, total_steps, epoch, step

Note: Training SLURM outputs are in the output directory, NOT the run directory.

If SLURM stdout missing:

  • Log warning
  • Record "N/A" for loss
  • Continue with other runs

4. Extract Evaluation Accuracy

For each COMPLETED evaluation:

  1. Find .eval files: {run_dir}/eval/logs/*.eval
  2. For each .eval file, run:
    python tools/inspect/parse_eval_log.py {path}
    
  3. Parse JSON output for accuracy
  4. Map to epoch using SLURM job names (see below)
  5. For binary tasks, also run summary_binary.py to get balanced accuracy and F1
  6. Record: run_name, task, epoch, accuracy, balanced_accuracy, f1, samples

Script output format:

{
  "status": "success",
  "task": "capitalization",
  "accuracy": 0.85,
  "samples": 100,
  "scorer": "exact_match",
  "model": "..."
}

Mapping Epochs via SLURM Job Names

The .eval files don't currently store epoch information directly. To reliably map each evaluation to its epoch:

  1. Find SLURM output files in the eval directory: {run_dir}/eval/slurm-*.out
  2. Extract job IDs from filenames (e.g., slurm-2773062.out → job ID 2773062)
  3. Query job names via sacct:
    sacct -j {job_ids} --format=JobID,JobName%50
    
  4. Parse epoch from job name - scaffold-inspect names jobs like eval-{task}-{run}-ep{N}:
    • eval-general_eval-lowlr-ep0 → epoch 0
    • eval-general_eval-lowlr-ep9 → epoch 9
  5. Extract accuracy from SLURM output:
    grep -oP 'match/accuracy: \K[0-9.]+' slurm-{jobid}.out
    

Example workflow:

# Get job names for all eval jobs
sacct -j 2773062,2773063,2773065 --format=JobID,JobName%50

# Output shows epoch in job name:
# 2773062  eval-general_eval-lowlr-ep0
# 2773063  eval-general_eval-lowlr-ep1
# 2773065  eval-general_eval-lowlr-ep2

This approach is reliable because:

  • Job names are set by scaffold-inspect and include epoch info
  • Works regardless of submission order or timing
  • Survives job failures and resubmissions

If extraction fails:

  • Script returns {"status": "error", "message": "..."}
  • Log the error
  • Record "ERROR" for accuracy
  • Continue with other evaluations

Computing Balanced Accuracy and F1 (Binary Classification)

For binary classification tasks (0/1 targets), use summary_binary.py to compute additional metrics:

python tools/inspect/summary_binary.py {path_to_eval_file} --json

JSON output format:

{
  "status": "success",
  "path": "/path/to/file.eval",
  "samples": 100,
  "accuracy": 0.85,
  "balanced_accuracy": 0.83,
  "f1": 0.82,
  "precision_1": 0.80,
  "recall_1": 0.84,
  "recall_0": 0.82,
  "confusion_matrix": {"tp": 42, "tn": 43, "fp": 7, "fn": 8, "other": 0}
}

Why these metrics matter for imbalanced data:

  • Balanced Accuracy = (Recall_0 + Recall_1) / 2 — not inflated by majority class
  • F1 Score = harmonic mean of precision and recall — penalizes class imbalance

Note: For non-binary tasks, only accuracy is reported (Bal. Acc and F1 shown as "-").

5. Generate summary.md

Create {experiment_dir}/summary.md with the following structure:

# Experiment Summary

**Experiment:** `{experiment_name}` | **Generated:** {timestamp} | **Status:** {X}/{Y} complete

## Run Status

| Run | Type | Fine-tuning | Evaluation |
|-----|------|-------------|------------|
| rank4_lr1e-5 | Fine-tuned | COMPLETED | COMPLETED |
| rank8_lr1e-5 | Fine-tuned | COMPLETED | COMPLETED |
| base_model | Control | N/A | COMPLETED |

## Training Results

| Run | Final Loss | Total Steps | Epochs | Duration |
|-----|------------|-------------|--------|----------|
| rank4_lr1e-5 | 0.234 | 250 | 2 | 8m 15s |
| rank8_lr1e-5 | 0.198 | 250 | 2 | 9m 02s |

**Notes:**
- Base model runs have no training loss (control)
- Duration from SLURM elapsed time (if available)

## Evaluation Results

| Run | Task | Epoch | Accuracy | Bal. Acc | F1 | Samples |
|-----|------|-------|----------|----------|------|---------|
| rank4_lr1e-5 | capitalization | 0 | 0.85 | 0.83 | 0.82 | 100 |
| rank4_lr1e-5 | capitalization | 1 | 0.88 | 0.86 | 0.85 | 100 |
| rank8_lr1e-5 | capitalization | 0 | 0.82 | 0.80 | 0.78 | 100 |
| rank8_lr1e-5 | capitalization | 1 | 0.91 | 0.89 | 0.88 | 100 |
| base_model | capitalization | - | 0.45 | 0.50 | 0.31 | 100 |

**Best performing:** rank8_lr1e-5 (epoch 1) with 89% balanced accuracy

## Incomplete Runs

| Run | Stage | Status | Notes |
|-----|-------|--------|-------|
| rank16_lr1e-5 | Fine-tuning | FAILED | Check slurm-12345.out |

## Next Steps

1. View detailed evaluation results: `inspect view --port=$(get_free_port)`
2. Export raw data: `inspect log export {run_dir}/eval/logs/*.eval --format csv`
3. Full analysis: `analyze-experiment` (when available)

---
*Generated by summarize-experiment skill*

6. Create Log

Document the process in {experiment_dir}/logs/summarize-experiment.log.

See logging.md for action types and format.

Error Handling

If SLURM stdout missing

  • Log warning with action type EXTRACT_LOSS
  • Record "N/A" for loss in summary
  • Continue with other runs

If .eval file cannot be parsed

  • Log error with file path
  • Record "ERROR" for accuracy in summary
  • Continue with other evaluations

If all runs failed

  • Generate summary noting all failures
  • Include failure states in "Incomplete Runs" section
  • Suggest troubleshooting steps

If partial results

  • Generate summary with available data
  • Clearly indicate which runs are missing in "Incomplete Runs" section
  • Still identify best performing run from available data

Idempotency

Running summarize-experiment multiple times overwrites summary.md. This is intentional:

  • Allows re-running after fixing failed runs
  • Summary always reflects current state

Output Files

{experiment_dir}/
├── summary.md                    # Human-readable summary (new)
└── logs/
    └── summarize-experiment.log  # Process log (new)

Relationship to Other Skills

  • After: run-experiment (or manual execution)
  • Before: analyze-experiment (when available)
  • Optional hook: run-experiment can invoke this at completion

Future Compatibility

When analyze-experiment is built, summarize-experiment can either:

  • Remain as a quick summary option (text only, no plots)
  • Be deprecated in favor of richer output
  • Become a first stage that analyze-experiment builds upon
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