dvc exp show

Display experiments with their metrics, parameters, and metadata

Description

Display a table of experiments with their parameters and metrics. This command provides a comprehensive view of all experiments, allowing you to compare results across different runs and identify the best performing configurations.

Use --only-changed to focus on metrics and parameters that vary across experiments, making it easier to identify what impacts performance.

Usage

dvc exp show [options]

Options

Filtering Options

-a, --all-branches · boolean · default: "false"

Show experiments derived from the tip of all Git branches.

dvc exp show --all-branches

-T, --all-tags · boolean · default: "false"

Show experiments derived from all Git tags.

dvc exp show --all-tags

--all-commits · boolean · default: "false"

Show experiments from all Git commits (not just latest).

--rev · string[]

Show experiments derived from specific Git revisions.

dvc exp show --rev main --rev feature-branch

--num · integer · default: "1"

Show experiments from the last N commits.

dvc exp show --num 5

--hide-failed · boolean · default: "false"

Hide failed experiments in the table.

dvc exp show --hide-failed

--hide-queued · boolean · default: "false"

Hide queued experiments in the table.

dvc exp show --hide-queued

--hide-workspace · boolean · default: "false"

Hide workspace row in the table.

Display Options

--only-changed · boolean · default: "false"

Only show metrics and parameters with values varying across experiments. Very useful for identifying what parameters affect results.

dvc exp show --only-changed

--drop · string[]

Remove columns matching the specified regex pattern. Can be used multiple times.

dvc exp show --drop 'params.yaml:data.*' --drop 'metrics.json:train.*'

--keep · string[]

Preserve only columns matching the specified regex pattern. Can be used multiple times.

dvc exp show --keep 'metrics.*' --keep 'params.yaml:model.*'

--param-deps · boolean · default: "false"

Show only parameters that are stage dependencies (defined in dvc.yaml).

dvc exp show --param-deps

--no-pager · boolean · default: "false"

Do not pipe output into a pager. Useful when redirecting output or in CI/CD.

dvc exp show --no-pager

--sha · boolean · default: "false"

Always show Git commit SHAs instead of branch/tag names.

dvc exp show --sha

Sorting Options

--sort-by · string

Sort experiments by the specified metric or parameter.

dvc exp show --sort-by metrics.json:accuracy
dvc exp show --sort-by params.yaml:train.lr

--sort-order · string · default: "asc"

Sort order to use with --sort-by. Options: asc (ascending) or desc (descending).

dvc exp show --sort-by accuracy --sort-order desc

Output Format Options

--json · boolean · default: "false"

Print output in JSON format instead of a human-readable table.

dvc exp show --json > experiments.json

--csv · boolean · default: "false"

Print output in CSV format instead of a human-readable table.

dvc exp show --csv > experiments.csv

--md, --markdown · boolean · default: "false"

Show output in Markdown table format (GitHub Flavored Markdown).

dvc exp show --md

--precision · integer · default: "5"

Round metrics and parameters to N digits after the decimal point.

dvc exp show --precision 3

-f, --force · boolean · default: "false"

Force re-collection of experiments instead of loading from cache.

dvc exp show --force

Examples

Show all experiments

dvc exp show

Output:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Experiment        ┃ Created ┃ accuracy ┃ loss        ┃ lr     ┃ epochs  ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━┩
│ workspace         │ -       │ 0.92     │ 0.234       │ 0.001  │ 50      │
│ ├── exp-a1b2c     │ Mar 04  │ 0.89     │ 0.287       │ 0.01   │ 50      │
│ └── exp-d3e4f     │ Mar 03  │ 0.85     │ 0.312       │ 0.1    │ 50      │
│ main              │ Mar 02  │ 0.83     │ 0.351       │ 0.001  │ 30      │
└───────────────────┴─────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴────────┴─────────┘

Show only changed values

dvc exp show --only-changed

Output:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Experiment        ┃ accuracy ┃ loss        ┃ lr     ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━┩
│ workspace         │ 0.92     │ 0.234       │ 0.001  │
│ ├── exp-a1b2c     │ 0.89     │ 0.287       │ 0.01   │
│ └── exp-d3e4f     │ 0.85     │ 0.312       │ 0.1    │
│ main              │ 0.83     │ 0.351       │ 0.001  │
└───────────────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴────────┘

The epochs column is hidden because all experiments used the same value.

Sort by metric

dvc exp show --sort-by accuracy --sort-order desc --only-changed

Output:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Experiment        ┃ accuracy ┃ loss        ┃ lr     ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━┩
│ workspace         │ 0.92     │ 0.234       │ 0.001  │
│ ├── exp-a1b2c     │ 0.89     │ 0.287       │ 0.01   │
│ └── exp-d3e4f     │ 0.85     │ 0.312       │ 0.1    │
│ main              │ 0.83     │ 0.351       │ 0.001  │
└───────────────────┴──────────┴─────────────┴────────┘

Sorting by metrics helps quickly identify the best performing experiments.

Filter columns with regex

dvc exp show --keep 'metrics.*' --only-changed

Output:

┏━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━┳━━━━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃ Experiment        ┃ accuracy ┃ loss        ┃
┡━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━╇━━━━━━━━━━━━━┩
│ workspace         │ 0.92     │ 0.234       │
│ ├── exp-a1b2c     │ 0.89     │ 0.287       │
│ └── exp-d3e4f     │ 0.85     │ 0.312       │
│ main              │ 0.83     │ 0.351       │
└───────────────────┴──────────┴─────────────┘

Export to CSV

dvc exp show --csv > experiments.csv

Output (in experiments.csv):

Experiment,Created,accuracy,loss,lr,epochs
workspace,-,0.92,0.234,0.001,50
exp-a1b2c,Mar 04,0.89,0.287,0.01,50
exp-d3e4f,Mar 03,0.85,0.312,0.1,50
main,Mar 02,0.83,0.351,0.001,30

CSV output is useful for importing results into spreadsheets or data analysis tools.

Export to JSON

dvc exp show --json | jq '.[] | select(.data.metrics.accuracy > 0.9)'

JSON output works great with tools like jq for programmatic filtering and analysis.

Show experiments from multiple branches

dvc exp show --rev main --rev feature-branch --only-changed

Show last 10 commits with experiments

dvc exp show --num 10

Format for documentation

dvc exp show --md --only-changed --sort-by accuracy --sort-order desc

Output:

| Experiment   | accuracy | loss  | lr    |
|--------------|----------|-------|-------|
| workspace    | 0.92     | 0.234 | 0.001 |
| exp-a1b2c    | 0.89     | 0.287 | 0.01  |
| exp-d3e4f    | 0.85     | 0.312 | 0.1   |
| main         | 0.83     | 0.351 | 0.001 |

Understanding the Output

Experiment Tree Structure

Experiments are shown in a tree structure:

• Bold rows indicate baseline commits (Git commits)
• └── and ├── symbols show experiment hierarchy
• workspace shows current uncommitted changes

Column Types

Columns are color-coded by type:

• Experiment info (grey background): Experiment name, creation date, state
• Metrics (orange background): Performance metrics from your model
• Parameters (cyan background): Hyperparameters and configuration
• Dependencies (purple background): Input data checksums

Failed experiments show ! in the State column. Use --hide-failed to exclude them.

Common Workflows

Find best experiment

dvc exp show --sort-by metrics.json:accuracy --sort-order desc --only-changed | head -n 5

Compare specific parameters

dvc exp show --keep 'params.yaml:model.*' --keep 'metrics.json:accuracy'

Generate report for stakeholders

dvc exp show --md --only-changed --hide-failed --sort-by accuracy --sort-order desc > report.md

Related Commands

• dvc exp run - Create new experiments
• dvc exp diff - Compare two specific experiments
• dvc exp apply - Apply experiment to workspace
• dvc metrics show - View metrics without experiment context