What problem does it solve?
This Skill eliminates the guesswork and costly mistakes when adapting large language models to custom tasks, helping you avoid common anti-patterns like using fine-tuning for factual knowledge injection or skipping baseline prompting tests.
Core Features & Use Cases
- Decision Framework: Clear matrix to choose between prompting, RAG, and fine-tuning based on task requirements, avoiding wasted effort on the wrong approach.
- PEFT Implementation: Guidance on LoRA, QLoRA, DoRA, and IA3 methods with exact hyperparameter recommendations and hardware requirements for models from 7B to 70B parameters.
- End-to-End Workflow: Complete instructions for dataset preparation, training (Python with Unsloth/TRL or Hugging Face PEFT, Java/Kotlin serving patterns), evaluation (quantitative metrics, A/B testing, regression testing), and production deployment (LoRA merging, quantization, vLLM serving).
- Use Case: Use this Skill to fine-tune a 7B LLM to match your company's customer support tone and response format, cutting inference costs by 75% compared to using a larger base model.
Quick Start
Use the fine-tuning-llms skill to guide me through fine-tuning a Llama 3 8B model for my customer support team's response style, including dataset preparation, LoRA training, and deployment to vLLM.