tff.templates.AggregationProcess

A stateful process that aggregates values.

Inherits From: MeasuredProcess, IterativeProcess

tff.templates.AggregationProcess(
    initialize_fn: tff.Computation,
    next_fn: tff.Computation
)

This class inherits the constraints documented by tff.templates.MeasuredProcess.

A tff.templates.AggregationProcess is a tff.templates.MeasuredProcess that formalizes the type signature of initialize_fn and next_fn for aggregation.

Compared to the tff.templates.MeasuredProcess, this class requires a second input argument, which is a value placed at CLIENTS and to be aggregatred. The result field of returned tff.templates.MeasuredProcessOutput must have type signature equal to this value, but placed at SERVER.

The intended composition pattern for tff.templates.AggregationProcess is that of nesting. An aggregation will broadly consist of three logical parts:

  • A pre-aggregation computation placed at CLIENTS.
  • Actual aggregation.
  • A post-aggregation computation placed at SERVER. The second step can be realized by direct application of appropriate intrinsic such as tff.federated_sum, or by delegation to (one or more) "inner" aggregation processes.

Both initialize and next must be tff.Computations with the following type signatures:

  • initialize: ( -> S@SERVER)
  • next: (<S@SERVER, V@CLIENTS, *> -> <state=S@SERVER, result=V@SERVER, measurements=M@SERVER>) where * represents optional other arguments placed at CLIENTS.

initialize_fn A no-arg tff.Computation that creates the initial state of the aggregation process.
next_fn A tff.Computation that defines an iterated function. If initialize_fn returns a type S@SERVER, then next_fn must return a MeasuredProcessOutput where the state attribute matches the type S@SERVER, and accepts at least two argument of types S@SERVER and V@CLIENTS, or more arguments where the first two argument must be of types S@SERVER and V@CLIENTS. The result attribute of output returned by next_fn must be of type V@SERVER.

TypeError If initialize_fn and next_fn are not instances of tff.Computation.
TemplateInitFnParamNotEmptyError If initialize_fn has any input arguments.
TemplateStateNotAssignableError If the state returned by either initialize_fn or next_fn is not assignable to the first input argument of next_fn.
TemplateNotMeasuredProcessOutputError If next_fn does not return a MeasuredProcessOutput.
TemplateNextFnNumArgsError If next_fn does not have at least two input arguments.
AggregationNotFederatedError If initialize_fn and next_fn are not computations operating on federated types.
AggregationPlacementError If the placements of initialize_fn and next_fn are not matching the expected type signature.
AggregationValueTypeMismatchError If the second input argument of next_fn does not have the same non-federated type as the "result" attribute of the returned value.

initialize A no-arg tff.Computation that returns the initial state.
next A tff.Computation that runs one iteration of the process.

Its first argument should always be the current state (originally produced by the initialize attribute), the second argument must be the input placed at CLIENTS, and the return type must be a tff.templates.MeasuredProcessOutput with each field placed at SERVER.

state_type The tff.Type of the state of the process.