# feather -- a Python SDK to share and deploy models

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.02838 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.02838/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 5 of its 15 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 5 Aug 2023.

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [PyTorch: An Imperative Style, High-Performance Deep Learning Library](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.01703/) (2019)
- [Deep reinforcement learning from human preferences](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03741/) (2017)
- [Gradio: Hassle-Free Sharing and Testing of ML Models in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1906.02569/) (2019)
- [Understanding Guided Image Captioning Performance across Domains](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.02339/) (2020)
- [Guiding Visual Question Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.08226/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

At its core, feather was a tool that allowed model developers to build shareable user interfaces for their models in under 20 lines of code. Using the Python SDK, developers specified visual components that users would interact with. (e.g. a FileUpload component to allow users to upload a file). Our service then provided 1) a URL that allowed others to access and use the model visually via a user interface; 2) an API endpoint to allow programmatic requests to a model. In this paper, we discuss feather's motivations and the value we intended to offer AI researchers and developers. For example, the SDK can support multi-step models and can be extended to run automatic evaluation against held out datasets. We additionally provide comprehensive technical and implementation details. N.B. feather is presently a dormant project. We have open sourced our code for research purposes: https://github.com/feather-ai/