Papers › Gradient-based Hyperparameter Optimization through Reversible Learning

Gradient-based Hyperparameter Optimization through Reversible Learning

11 Feb 2015arXiv:1502.03492archive 2025-07-28

Dougal Maclaurin, David Duvenaud, Ryan P. Adams

Tuning hyperparameters of learning algorithms is hard because gradients are usually unavailable. We compute exact gradients of cross-validation performance with respect to all hyperparameters by chaining derivatives backwards through the entire training procedure. These gradients allow us to optimize thousands of hyperparameters, including step-size and momentum schedules, weight initialization distributions, richly parameterized regularization schemes, and neural network architectures. We compute hyperparameter gradients by exactly reversing the dynamics of stochastic gradient descent with momentum.

PaperPDFCode

In Syntology Open this paper in Syntology's Atlas, the map of the papers in Syntology's graph and their citations.

Code

HIPS/hypergrad officialmentioned in papermentioned on GitHub report

Repository list and official/mentioned flags are the archive's, frozen 2025-07-28. Reachability, where shown, is from one Syntology probe window (2026-09-16 to 2026-09-18); repositories not probed show nothing. GitHub stars are not tracked.

Code Syntology ran Syntology

Not run by Syntology. Nothing on this page verifies that the listed code works.

Tasks

Hyperparameter Optimization

Results from the paper archive 2025-07-28

No leaderboard rows for this paper in the archive.

Report a problem or propose a change · a person checks every report against the paper or source before anything changes; decisions are listed on /corrections