xai2cloud

Overview

The xai2cloud package automates the process of deploying model explainers to the cloud. Create a web API from an DALEX explainer and deploy it with just one R function. Deployment can be done either locally or directly to the DigitalOcean’s cloud, which can be achievied after a quick setup. The whole step by step guide can be found below.

Installation

# Install the development version from GitHub:
devtools::install_github("ModelOriented/xai2cloud")

Functionality

The main function is called deploy_explainer which creates a REST API and a swagger for it based on the explainer. If you have an DigitalOcean account and a droplet with installed R 3.5+ it can also deploy the model directly to the cloud. At the time it supports five post/get functionalities:

  • Predict a result
  • Break Down plot
  • SHAP values plot
  • Ceteris Paribus plot
  • Break Down description
  • Ceteris Paribus description

How to use?

If you already have a DigitalOcean’s droplet with an appropriate R version (3.5+) or just want to plumb the explainer locally, skip the first section below.

How to create a new DigitalOcean droplet?

  1. If you don’t have an account on DigitalOcean, create one here.
  2. Install development version of plumber R package by using devtools::install_github("trestletech/plumber")
  3. Install analogsea R package by using install.packages("analogsea")
  4. Install ssh R package by using install.packages("ssh")
  5. Create an SSH key
  6. Deploy the SSH key to DigitalOcean
  7. Run analogsea::droplets() to check the connection to your DigitalOcean’s account.
  8. Run xai2cloud::do_setup(model_package = "name of package used to create the model - eg. randomForest, gbm, stats"). This will start a virtual machine (a new droplet) and install R with develompent version of plumber and all needed packages: DALEX, iBreakDown, ingredients, ggplot2 and the package specified in model_package parameter.
  9. Access port 8000 on your droplet’s IP. If you see a response from plumber, everything works so far.

How to plumb the explainer?

Now you are ready to use the function deploy_explainer. It requires only two parameters to deploy locally:

  • exp_name - name of an .rda file containing an explainer in your working directory or an explainer object.
  • model_package - name of the package used to create the explained model. The name must be accurate, letter case is important.

In order to deploy the explainer directly to the cloud, set up:

  • droplet - numeric - your DigitalOcean’s droplet number (check it by typing analogsea::droplets). If you wish to plumb it locally, set it to NA.
  • port - numeric - port that you would like to deploy your explainer to.

Additional parameters:

  • deploy - boolean telling whether the plumber file is run on set port. If set to false, plumber file will be created but not run.
  • title - title to be seen in Swagger.

DigitalOcean

After using the deploy_explainer function with appropriate droplet’s ID, you can access the web API at: your_droplet_ip/your_explainers_name/swagger/

Local

If you didn’t put your droplet’s number, you have started the plumber’s swagger locally. You can access it at: http://127.0.0.1:port/__swagger__/