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Luke Kim

Luke Kim

Founder and CEO of Spice AI
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Spice.ai v0.3.1-alpha

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

We are excited to announce the release of Spice.ai v0.3.1-alpha! 🎃

This point release focuses on fixes and improvements to v0.3-alpha. Highlights include the ability to specify both seed and runtime data, to select custom named fields for time and tags, a new spice upgrade command and several bug fixes.

A special acknowledgment to @Adm28, who added the new spice upgrade command, which enables the CLI to self-update, which in turn will auto-update the runtime.

Highlights in v0.3.1-alpha​

Upgrade command​

The CLI can now be updated using the new spice upgrade command. This command will check for, download, and install the latest Spice.ai CLI release, which will become active on it's next run.

When run, the CLI will check for the matching version of the Spice.ai runtime, and will automatically download and install it as necessary.

The version of both the Spice.ai CLI and runtime can be checked with the spice version CLI command.

Seed data​

When working with streaming data sources, like market prices, it's often also useful to seed the dataspace with historical data. Spice.ai enables this with the new seed_data node in the dataspace configuration. The syntax is exactly the same as the data syntax. For example:

dataspaces:
  - from: coinbase
    name: btcusd
    seed_data:
      connector: file
        params:
          path: path/to/seed/data.csv
      processor:
        name: csv
    data:
      connector: coinbase
        params:
          product_ids: BTC-USD
      processor:
        name: json

The seed data will be fetched first, before the runtime data is initialized. Both sets of connectors and processors use the dataspace scoped measurements, categories and tags for processing, and both data sources are merged in pod-scoped observation timeline.

Time field selectors​

Before v0.3.1-alpha, data was required to include a specific time field. In v0.3.1-alpha, the JSON and CSV data processors now support the ability to select a specific field to populate the time field. An example selector to use the created_at column for time is:

data:
  processor:
    name: csv
    params:
      time_selector: created_at

Tag field selectors​

Before v0.3.1-alpha, tags were required to be placed in a _tags field. In v0.3.1-alpha, any field can now be selected to populate tags. Tags are pod-unique string values, and the union of all selected fields will make up the resulting tag list. For example:

dataspace:
  from: twitter
  name: tweets
  tags:
    selectors:
      - tags
      - author_id
    values:
      - spice_ai
      - spicy

New in this release​

  • Adds a new spice upgrade command for self-upgrade of the Spice.ai CLI.
  • Adds a new seed_data node to the dataspace configuration, enabling the dataspace to be seeded with an alternative source of data.
  • Adds the ability to select a custom time field in JSON and CSV data processors with the time_selector parameter.
  • Adds the ability to select custom tag fields in the dataspace configuration with selectors list.
  • Adds error reporting for AI engine crashes, where previously it would fail silently.
  • Fixes the dashboard pods list from "jumping" around due to being unsorted.
  • Fixes rare cases where categorical data might be sent to the AI engine in the wrong format.

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Slack or by email to get involved. We will also be starting a community call series soon!

Spice.ai v0.2.1-alpha

· 2 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

Announcing the release of Spice.ai v0.2.1-alpha! 🚚

This point release focuses on fixes and improvements to v0.2-alpha. Highlights include the ability to specify how missing data should be treated and a new production mode for spiced.

This release supports the ability to specify how the runtime should treat missing data. Previous releases filled missing data with the last value (or initial value) in the series. While this makes sense for some data, i.e., market prices of a stock or cryptocurrency, it does not make sense for discrete data, i.e., ratings. In v0.2.1, developers can now add the fill parameter on a dataspace field to specify the behavior. This release supports fill types previous and none. The default is previous.

Example in a manifest:

dataspaces:
  - from: twitter
    name: tweets
    fields:
      - name: likes
        fill: none # The new fill parameter

spiced now defaults to a new production mode when run standalone (not via the CLI), with development mode now explicitly set with the --development flag. Production mode does not activate development time features, such as the Spicepod file watcher. The CLI always runs spiced in development mode as it is not expected to be used in production deployments.

New in this release​

  • Adds a fill parameter to dataspace fields to specify how missing values should be treated.
  • Adds the ability to specify the fill behavior of empty values in a dataspace.
  • Simplifies releases with a single spiceai release instead of separate spice and spiced releases.
  • Adds an explicit development mode to spiced. Production mode does not activate the file watcher.
  • Fixes a bug when the pod parameter epoch_time was not set which would cause data not to be sent to the AI engine.
  • Fixes a bug where the User-Agent was not set correctly from CLI calls to api.spicerack.org

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Slack or by email to get involved. We will also be starting a community call series soon!

Spice.ai v0.2-alpha is now available

· 4 min read
Luke Kim
Luke Kim
Founder and CEO of Spice AI

We are excited to announce the release of Spice.ai v0.2-alpha! 🎉

This release is the first major version since the initial v0.1 announcement and includes significant improvements based upon community and customer feedback. If you are new to Spice.ai, check out the getting started guide and star spiceai/spiceai on GitHub.

Highlights in v0.2-alpha​

Tagged data​

In the first release, the runtime and AI engine could only ingest numerical data. In v0.2, tagged data is accepted and automatically encoded into fields available for learning. For example, it's now possible to include a "liked" tag when using tweet data, automatically encoded to a 0/1 field for training. Both CSV and the new JSON observation formats support tags. The v0.3 release will add additional support for sets of categorical data.

Streaming data​

Previously, the runtime would trigger each data connector to fetch on a 15-second interval. In v0.2, we upgraded the interface for data connectors to a push/streaming model, which enables continuous streaming data into the environment and AI engine.

Interpreted data​

Spice.ai works together with your application code and works best when it's provided continuous feedback. This feedback could be from the application itself, for example, ratings, likes, thumbs-up/down, profit from trades, or external expertise. The interpretations API was introduced in v0.1.1, and v0.2 adds AI engine support providing a way to give meaning or an interpretation of ranges of time-series data, which are then available within reward functions. For example, a time range of stock prices could be a "good time to buy," or perhaps Tuesday mornings is a "good time to tweet," and an application or expert can teach the AI engine this through interpretations providing a shortcut to it's learning.

New in this release​

  • Adds core runtime and AI engine tagged data support
  • Adds tagged data support to the CSV processor
  • Adds streaming data support to the engine and data connectors
  • Adds a new JSON data processor for ingesting JSON data
  • Adds a new Twitter data connector with JSON processor support
  • Adds a new /pods//dataspaces API
  • Adds support for using interpretations in reward functions Learn more.
  • Adds support for downloading zipped pods from the spicerack.org registry
  • Adds support for adding data along with the pod manifest when adding a pod from the spicerack.org registry
  • Adds basic /pods//diagnostics API
  • Fixes pod period, interval, and granularity not being correctly set when trying to use a "d" format
  • Fixes the color scheme of action counts in the dashboard to improve readability

Resources​

Community​

Spice.ai started with the vision to make AI easy for developers. We are building Spice.ai in the open and with the community. Reach out on Slack or by email to get involved. We will also be starting a community call series soon!