Hi Simon,

There are two things going on:

CI perf measurements

Local machine perf measurements

I think that they are somehow handled differently (why?) but they are all muddled up on the wiki page.

They are handled differently because we do not want to compare local metrics with CI metrics. The exception is when local metrics don't exist, then we fall back to CI metrics as a baseline (see How baseline metrics are calculated).

My goal is this:

Start with a master commit, say from Dec 2019.

Implement some change, on a branch.

sh validate –legacy (or something else if you like)

Look at perf regressions.

Getting to the *raw data* should be easy:

Checkout an the <baseline> commit.
Use `git status` to double check git sees a clean working tree.
Run the performance tests.
Check out your <target> branch.
Use `git status` to double check git sees a clean working tree (else commit any changes)
Run the performance tests.
Compare metrics (filtering for `local` metrics and outputting a chart):

python3 testsuite/driver/perf_notes.py --chart chart.html --test-env local <baseline> <target>

see `python3 testsuite/driver/perf_notes.py --help` for more filtering options. This doesn't detect regressions automatically, it only shows you the raw data. Ideally we'd add an option to the testrunner to let you specify a baseline commit manually. I suspect that would be close to what you're looking for.

I believe I have first to utter the incantation

$ git fetch https://gitlab.haskell.org/ghc/ghc-performance-notes.git refs/notes/perf:refs/notes/ci/perf

Yes, this fetches the latest CI metrics into your git notes.

But then:

How do I ensure that the baseline perf numbers I get relate to the master commit I started from, back in Dec 2019? I don’t want numbers from Jan 2020.

see above.

If I rebase my branch on top of HEAD, say, how do I update the perf baseline numbers to be for HEAD

The test runner should use HEAD's metrics automatically (see How baseline metrics are calculated), though you will need to fetch CI metrics or run the perf tests locally on HEAD to get the relevant metrics.

Generally, how can I tell the commit to which the baseline numbers relate?

The test runner will output (per test) which baseline commit is used e.g. "... from local

baseline @ HEAD~2" says the baseline was a local run from 2 commits ago.

Also, in my tree I have a series of incremental changes; I want to see if any of them have perf regressions. How do I do that?

You can run the perf tests on each commit *in commit order*, and the previous commit will always be used as the baseline. You can also then chart the results:

python3 testsuite/driver/perf_notes.py --chart chart.html --test-env local <oldestCommit>..<newestCommit>

Sorry if this is a bit unoptimal, but I Hope that helps

- David E


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David Eichmann, Haskell Consultant
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