Logging and Monitoring#

This guide describes how to configure logging in Megatron Bridge. It introduces the high-level LoggerConfig, explains experiment logging to TensorBoard and Weights & Biases (W&B), and documents console logging behavior.

LoggerConfig Overview#

LoggerConfig is the dataclass that encapsulates logging‑related settings for training. It resides inside the overall bridge.training.config.ConfigContainer, which represents the complete configuration for a training run.

Timer Configuration Options#

Use the following options to control which timing metrics are collected during training and how they are aggregated and logged.

timing_log_level#

Controls which timers are recorded during execution:

  • Level 0: Logs only the overall iteration time.

  • Level 1: Includes once-per-iteration operations, such as gradient all-reduce.

  • Level 2: Captures frequently executed operations, providing more detailed insights but with increased overhead.

timing_log_option#

Specifies how timer values are aggregated across ranks. Valid options:

  • "max": Logs the maximum value across ranks.

  • "minmax": Logs both minimum and maximum values.

  • "all": Logs all values from all ranks.

log_timers_to_tensorboard#

When enabled, the framework records timer metrics to supported backends such as TensorBoard.

Diagnostic Options#

The framework provides several optional toggles for enhanced monitoring and diagnostics:

  • Loss Scale: Enables dynamic loss scaling for mixed-precision training.

  • Validation Perplexity: Tracks model perplexity during validation.

  • CUDA Memory Statistics: Reports detailed GPU memory usage.

  • World Size: Displays the total number of distributed ranks.

Logging Options#

Use the following options to enable additional diagnostics and performance monitoring during training.

  • log_params_norm: Computes and logs the L2 norm of model parameters. If available, it also logs the gradient norm.

  • log_energy: Activates the energy monitor, which records per-GPU energy consumption and instantaneous power usage.

Experiment Logging#

Both TensorBoard and W&B are supported for metric logging. When using W&B, it’s recommended to also enable TensorBoard to ensure that all scalar metrics are consistently logged across backends.

TensorBoard#

What Gets Logged#

TensorBoard captures a range of training and system metrics, including:

  • Learning rate, including decoupled LR when applicable

  • Per-loss scalars for detailed breakdowns

  • Batch size and loss scale

  • CUDA memory usage and world size (if enabled)

  • Validation loss, with optional perplexity

  • Timers, when timing is enabled

  • Energy consumption and instantaneous power, if energy logging is active

Enable TensorBoard Logging#

  1. Install TensorBoard (if not already available):

pip install tensorboard

  1. Configure logging in your training setup. In these examples, cfg refers to a ConfigContainer instance (such as one produced by a recipe), which contains a logger attribute representing the LoggerConfig:

from megatron.bridge.training.config import LoggerConfig

cfg.logger = LoggerConfig(
    tensorboard_dir="./runs/tensorboard",
    tensorboard_log_interval=10,
    log_timers_to_tensorboard=True,   # optional
    log_memory_to_tensorboard=False,  # optional
)

Note

The writer is created lazily on the last rank when tensorboard_dir is set.

Set the Output Directory#

TensorBoard event files are saved to the directory specified by tensorboard_dir.

Example with additional metrics enabled:

cfg.logger.tensorboard_dir = "./logs/tb"
cfg.logger.tensorboard_log_interval = 5
cfg.logger.log_loss_scale_to_tensorboard = True
cfg.logger.log_validation_ppl_to_tensorboard = True
cfg.logger.log_world_size_to_tensorboard = True
cfg.logger.log_timers_to_tensorboard = True

Weights & Biases (W&B)#

What Gets Logged#

When enabled, W&B automatically mirrors the scalar metrics logged to TensorBoard.
In addition, the full run configuration is synced at initialization, allowing for reproducibility and experiment tracking.

Enable W&B Logging#

  1. Install W&B (if not already available):

pip install wandb

  1. Authenticate with W&B using one of the following methods:

  • Set WANDB_API_KEY in the environment before the run, or

  • Run wandb login once on the machine.

  1. Configure logging in your training setup. In these examples, cfg refers to a ConfigContainer instance (such as one produced by a recipe), which contains a logger attribute representing the LoggerConfig:

from megatron.bridge.training.config import LoggerConfig

cfg.logger = LoggerConfig(
    tensorboard_dir="./runs/tensorboard",   # recommended: enables shared logging gate
    wandb_project="my_project",
    wandb_exp_name="my_experiment",
    wandb_entity="my_team",                 # optional
    wandb_save_dir="./runs/wandb",          # optional
)

Note

W&B is initialized lazily on the last rank when wandb_project is set and wandb_exp_name is non-empty.

W&B Configuration with NeMo Run Launching#

For users launching training scripts with NeMo Run, W&B can be optionally configured using the bridge.recipes.run_plugins.WandbPlugin.

The plugin automatically forwards the WANDB_API_KEY and by default injects CLI overrides for the following logger parameters:

  • logger.wandb_project

  • logger.wandb_entity

  • logger.wandb_exp_name

  • logger.wandb_save_dir

This allows seamless integration of W&B logging into your training workflow without manual configuration.

Progress Log#

When logger.log_progress is enabled, the framework generates a progress.txt file in the checkpoint save directory.

This file includes:

  • Job-level metadata, such as timestamp and GPU count

  • Periodic progress entries throughout training

At each checkpoint boundary, the log is updated with:

  • Job throughput (TFLOP/s/GPU)

  • Cumulative throughput

  • Total floating-point operations

  • Tokens processed

This provides a lightweight, text-based audit trail of training progress, useful for tracking performance across restarts.

Console Logging#

Megatron Bridge uses the standard Python logging subsystem for console output.

Configure Console Logging#

To control console logging behavior, use the following configuration options:

  • logging_level sets the default verbosity level. It can be overridden via the MEGATRON_BRIDGE_LOGGING_LEVEL environment variable.

  • filter_warnings suppresses messages at the WARNING level.

  • modules_to_filter specifies logger name prefixes to exclude from output.

  • set_level_for_all_loggers determines whether the logging level is applied to all loggers or only a subset, depending on the current implementation.

Monitor Logging Cadence and Content#

To monitor training progress at regular intervals, the framework prints a summary line every log_interval iterations.

Each summary includes:

  • Timestamp

  • Iteration counters

  • Consumed and skipped samples

  • Iteration time (ms)

  • Learning rates

  • Global batch size

  • Per-loss averages

  • Loss scale

When enabled, additional metrics are printed:

  • Gradient norm

  • Zeros in gradients

  • Parameter norm

  • Energy and power per GPU

Straggler timing reports follow the same log_interval cadence, helping identify performance bottlenecks across ranks.

Minimize Timing Overhead#

To reduce performance impact, set timing_log_level to 0.
Increase to 1 or 2 only when more detailed timing metrics are required, as higher levels introduce additional logging overhead.