Migrate from Axolotl to Soup CLI

Axolotl is a popular fine-tuning framework. Soup CLI can import Axolotl configs directly with soup migrate.

One-line migration

bash
soup migrate --from axolotl path/to/axolotl_config.yml

Field mapping

AxolotlSoup CLI
base_modelbase.model
datasets[0].pathdata.train
datasets[0].typedata.format
sequence_lentraining.max_seq_length
micro_batch_sizetraining.batch_size
gradient_accumulation_stepstraining.gradient_accumulation_steps
num_epochstraining.epochs
adapter: lora / qloratraining.lora.enabled: true (+ quant: 4bit for qlora)
lora_r / lora_alphatraining.lora.r / training.lora.alpha
load_in_4bit: truetraining.quant: 4bit
flash_attention: true(auto-enabled in Soup)

Example conversion

Axolotl:

yaml
base_model: mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.3
load_in_4bit: true
adapter: qlora
datasets:
  - path: tatsu-lab/alpaca
    type: alpaca
sequence_len: 2048
micro_batch_size: 2
gradient_accumulation_steps: 8
num_epochs: 3
learning_rate: 0.0002
lora_r: 16
lora_alpha: 32
flash_attention: true

Soup CLI (after `soup migrate`):

yaml
base:
  model: mistralai/Mistral-7B-v0.3

task: sft

data:
  train: tatsu-lab/alpaca
  format: alpaca

training:
  backend: unsloth
  quant: 4bit
  epochs: 3
  learning_rate: 2.0e-4
  batch_size: 2
  gradient_accumulation_steps: 8
  max_seq_length: 2048
  lora:
    enabled: true
    r: 16
    alpha: 32

What you gain

  • One CLI for train / chat / eval / serve / export instead of separate tools
  • Native Unsloth backend (automatic 2–5× speedup on supported models)
  • GGUF / Ollama / vLLM / SGLang export and serving built-in
  • Loss watchdog, curriculum learning, sample packing, freeze training

Dry-run

bash
soup migrate --from axolotl axolotl.yml --dry-run

Related

  • [Migrate from LLaMA-Factory](/docs/migrate-from-llamafactory)
  • [Training methods](/docs/training)