Add start run by name

[m-blasiak]

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pip install git+https://github.com/mlflow/mlflow.git@refs/pull/11896/merge

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gh pr checkout 11896

Related Issues/PRs

Resolve https://github.com/mlflow/mlflow/issues/11783

What changes are proposed in this pull request?

Creates new function to start an mlflow run start_run_by_name. Similarly to start_run this will attempt to resume a run (by performing an exact name lookup), if no runs exist with the specified name, a new run will be created.

In case lookup returns multiple runs with the specified name, an exception is raised

How is this PR tested?

• [X] Existing unit/integration tests
• [X] New unit/integration tests
• [ ] Manual tests

Does this PR require documentation update?

• [ ] No. You can skip the rest of this section.
• [X] Yes. I've updated:
  • [X] Examples
  • [ ] API references
  • [ ] Instructions

Release Notes

Is this a user-facing change?

• [ ] No. You can skip the rest of this section.
• [X] Yes. Give a description of this change to be included in the release notes for MLflow users.

Adds start_run_by_name function to make it easier to resume existing runs.

What component(s), interfaces, languages, and integrations does this PR affect?

Components

• [ ] area/artifacts: Artifact stores and artifact logging
• [ ] area/build: Build and test infrastructure for MLflow
• [ ] area/deployments: MLflow Deployments client APIs, server, and third-party Deployments integrations
• [ ] area/docs: MLflow documentation pages
• [ ] area/examples: Example code
• [ ] area/model-registry: Model Registry service, APIs, and the fluent client calls for Model Registry
• [ ] area/models: MLmodel format, model serialization/deserialization, flavors
• [ ] area/recipes: Recipes, Recipe APIs, Recipe configs, Recipe Templates
• [ ] area/projects: MLproject format, project running backends
• [ ] area/scoring: MLflow Model server, model deployment tools, Spark UDFs
• [ ] area/server-infra: MLflow Tracking server backend
• [X] area/tracking: Tracking Service, tracking client APIs, autologging

Interface

• [ ] area/uiux: Front-end, user experience, plotting, JavaScript, JavaScript dev server
• [ ] area/docker: Docker use across MLflow's components, such as MLflow Projects and MLflow Models
• [ ] area/sqlalchemy: Use of SQLAlchemy in the Tracking Service or Model Registry
• [ ] area/windows: Windows support

Language

• [ ] language/r: R APIs and clients
• [ ] language/java: Java APIs and clients
• [ ] language/new: Proposals for new client languages

Integrations

• [ ] integrations/azure: Azure and Azure ML integrations
• [ ] integrations/sagemaker: SageMaker integrations
• [ ] integrations/databricks: Databricks integrations

How should the PR be classified in the release notes? Choose one:

• [ ] rn/none - No description will be included. The PR will be mentioned only by the PR number in the "Small Bugfixes and Documentation Updates" section
• [ ] rn/breaking-change - The PR will be mentioned in the "Breaking Changes" section
• [X] rn/feature - A new user-facing feature worth mentioning in the release notes
• [ ] rn/bug-fix - A user-facing bug fix worth mentioning in the release notes
• [ ] rn/documentation - A user-facing documentation change worth mentioning in the release notes

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Yes should be selected for bug fixes, documentation updates, and other small changes. No should be selected for new features and larger changes. If you're unsure about the release classification of this PR, leave this unchecked to let the maintainers decide.

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• Patch release: a release that increments the third part of the version number (e.g., 1.2.0 -> 1.2.1). Bug fixes and doc updates usually go into patch releases.

• [ ] Yes (this PR will be cherry-picked and included in the next patch release)
• [X] No (this PR will be included in the next minor release)

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[daniellok-db]

@harupy what do you think about this? it looks fine to me (after lint errors are fixed). it's basically to add a convenience function to allow resuming a run by name (see discussion in #11783, the run_name param in the existing mlflow.start_run() only allows you to create a new run, not resume an existing one).

[m-blasiak]

@daniellok-db @harupy Any chance to get it reviewed soon? The lint errors should be fixed now

[daniellok-db]

After some discussion, the team decided that since this function serves a fairly specific purpose, it's better if this is kept as user code, rather than being included in the library. Sorry for the delays on this!