examples: drive VMEC++ from external optimizers (internal basis)#8
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krystophny wants to merge 8 commits into
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examples: drive VMEC++ from external optimizers (internal basis)#8krystophny wants to merge 8 commits into
krystophny wants to merge 8 commits into
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Treat the equilibrium as the root problem F(x) = 0, where F is the raw internal-basis force (gradient of VMEC's augmented functional) exposed by evaluate(precondition=False). Wire it to two solvers that reuse VMEC++'s forward model: native-style preconditioned descent and Jacobian-free Newton-Krylov (matrix-free Hessian information). Both reach the native solver's equilibrium. This is the external-differentiability path: VMEC++ as a differentiable equilibrium component an outside optimizer can drive. Quasi-Newton root-finders without a preconditioner diverge on this stiff system, which motivates exposing VMEC's preconditioner as an operator next. Tests assert both solvers reach force balance and recover the native energy and state.
This was referenced Jun 14, 2026
Satisfies the docformatter pre-commit hook (was failing CI).
The 'Compare benchmark result' step uses github-action-benchmark with comment-on-alert and the GITHUB_TOKEN, which is read-only for pull requests from forks -> 'Resource not accessible by integration'. Gate that step on the PR coming from the same repo so fork PRs still run the benchmarks but skip the write-back instead of failing.
The pinned vmec-0.0.6 cp310 wheel was f90wrapped against numpy 1.x. Under the numpy 2.x that the test env now resolves, importing it dies in the f90wrap array interface (f90wrap_vmec_input__array__rbc: 0-th dimension must be fixed to 2 but got 4), so test_ensure_vmec2000_input_from_vmecpp_input could never actually run on CI (and is currently red on main too, where the wheel's runtime libs are not even installed). Build VMEC2000 from upstream source with current f90wrap, which produces numpy-2-compatible bindings. The recipe mirrors SIMSOPT's own CI (hiddenSymmetries/VMEC2000, cmake/machines/ubuntu.json). An explicit 'import vmec' check in the install step surfaces any remaining problem here rather than as a confusing test failure.
With VMEC2000 built from current upstream source, the compatibility test runs for the first time and hits vmecpp indata fields that have no counterpart in the legacy VMEC2000 INDATA namelist (e.g. free_boundary_method), which raised AttributeError. The test explicitly checks only the common subset, so guard the lookup with hasattr and skip fields VMEC2000 does not have, instead of enumerating them one by one.
…mit pin Bring this stack branch up to the corrected CI baseline (from proximafusion#583/proximafusion#564): - tests.yaml: build VMEC2000 from the pinned source commit and cache the wheel; drop the unused FFTW/HDF5 dev packages. - benchmarks.yaml: skip the result upload on fork PRs (read-only token). - test_simsopt_compat.py: skip vmecpp-only INDATA fields. - CMakeLists: pin abseil to the 20260107.1 commit hash for Clang >= 21.
…hmark fork guard (proximafusion#564) * build: bump CMake abseil pin to 20260107.1 for Clang >= 21 The CMake FetchContent abseil pin (2024-08) fails to compile under Clang >= 21: absl::Nonnull SFINAE in absl/strings/ascii.cc and the numbers.cc nullability annotations are rejected by the newer frontend. Bump to the 20260107.1 LTS, which compiles cleanly under Clang 21.1.8 and GCC. Clang is the compiler required for the Enzyme autodiff build. The Bazel build keeps its own (BCR) abseil pin and is unaffected. * ci: skip benchmark result upload on fork PRs (token is read-only) The 'Compare benchmark result' step uses github-action-benchmark with comment-on-alert and the GITHUB_TOKEN, which is read-only for pull requests from forks -> 'Resource not accessible by integration'. Gate that step on the PR coming from the same repo so fork PRs still run the benchmarks but skip the write-back instead of failing. * ci: build VMEC2000 from source so the compat test runs on numpy 2 The pinned vmec-0.0.6 cp310 wheel was f90wrapped against numpy 1.x. Under the numpy 2.x that the test env now resolves, importing it dies in the f90wrap array interface (f90wrap_vmec_input__array__rbc: 0-th dimension must be fixed to 2 but got 4), so test_ensure_vmec2000_input_from_vmecpp_input could never actually run on CI (and is currently red on main too, where the wheel's runtime libs are not even installed). Build VMEC2000 from upstream source with current f90wrap, which produces numpy-2-compatible bindings. The recipe mirrors SIMSOPT's own CI (hiddenSymmetries/VMEC2000, cmake/machines/ubuntu.json). An explicit 'import vmec' check in the install step surfaces any remaining problem here rather than as a confusing test failure. * test: skip vmecpp-only indata fields in the VMEC2000 compat subset With VMEC2000 built from current upstream source, the compatibility test runs for the first time and hits vmecpp indata fields that have no counterpart in the legacy VMEC2000 INDATA namelist (e.g. free_boundary_method), which raised AttributeError. The test explicitly checks only the common subset, so guard the lookup with hasattr and skip fields VMEC2000 does not have, instead of enumerating them one by one. * build: pin abseil to the 20260107.1 commit hash Pin the FetchContent abseil dependency to commit 255c84d (the exact commit behind the 20260107.1 LTS tag) instead of the tag itself, so a moved tag cannot change the dependency under us. * ci: cache and pin the VMEC2000-from-source build Use the canonical recipe (cache the built wheel keyed on the pinned source commit 728af8b, drop the unused FFTW/HDF5 dev packages) instead of rebuilding VMEC2000 unpinned on every run.
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What
Drive a VMEC++ equilibrium from an external optimizer by treating the raw
internal-basis force
F(x)(PR #7) as the residualF(x)=0, and wire it togeneral-purpose solvers in
examples/external_optimizers.py:direction),
newton_krylov).Force evaluations are counted inside VMEC++ (
force_eval_count) for a faircomparison across methods, including evaluations hidden in Krylov matvecs.
Verification (force evals counted in VMEC++, solovev ns=11)
Both converge to the native equilibrium energy. Unpreconditioned JFNK needs more
force evaluations than VMEC's preconditioned descent on this stiff system;
exposing VMEC's preconditioner as an operator so the Krylov solver can use it
(PR #9) cuts JFNK to 507 evals.
Stacked on #7 (internal gradient).