unsloth-dpo

name: unsloth-dpo description: Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) for aligning models with preference data without separate reward models. Triggers: dpo, preference optimization, rlhf, ref_model=none, patchdpotrainer, dpotrainer.

Overview

Direct Preference Optimization (DPO) in Unsloth provides a way to align models with human preferences using paired data (chosen/rejected). Unsloth optimizes this process by allowing ref_model=None, significantly reducing memory requirements while maintaining high performance.

When to Use

• When you have preference pairs (a better and worse response to the same prompt).
• When RLHF is desired but VRAM is limited (preventing the loading of a second reference model).
• When aligning reasoning or tone after a standard SFT phase.

Decision Tree

1. Do you have a reference model already loaded?
   • No: Set ref_model = None in DPOTrainer to save VRAM.
2. Is your GPU RTX 40 series or H100?
   • Yes: Use FP8 preference optimization for faster training.
3. Is the model collapsing or losing its original abilities?
   • Yes: Lower the learning rate to 5e-6 and adjust the beta parameter (e.g., 0.1).

Workflows

DPO Trainer Initialization

1. Run PatchDPOTrainer() before importing DPOTrainer from TRL.
2. Load the base model in 4-bit with FastLanguageModel and set ref_model=None in trainer arguments.
3. Specify the beta parameter (typically 0.1) to control the strength of preference adaptation.

Optimizing DPO VRAM Use

1. Enable use_gradient_checkpointing='unsloth' within get_peft_model.
2. Utilize FP8 precision if using L4 or RTX 40 series GPUs for further memory reduction.
3. Set gradient_accumulation_steps to 8 or 16 to maintain stability with low batch sizes.

Non-Obvious Insights

• Setting ref_model=None is an Unsloth-specific trick; the trainer internally calculates the log-probs from the base model instead of needing a separate frozen model copy.
• DPO requires much lower learning rates (e.g., 5e-6) than SFT (e.g., 2e-4). Higher rates often lead to catastrophic forgetting or model collapse.
• Unsloth provides specialized Triton kernels for preference optimization that support FP8 even on consumer hardware like the RTX 4090.

Evidence

• "PatchDPOTrainer () is required to use the reward modelling functions for DPO with Unsloth." Source
• "dpo_trainer = DPOTrainer(model = model, ref_model = None, ...)" Source

Scripts

• scripts/unsloth-dpo_tool.py: Python script for configuring DPOTrainer with Unsloth patches.
• scripts/unsloth-dpo_tool.js: Configuration builder for DPO training runs.

Dependencies

• unsloth
• trl
• torch

References

• [[references/README.md]]