ambr 0.4.1

Agent-based Modeling with Blazingly Efficient Records

AMBER (Agent-based Modeling with Blazingly Efficient Records)

AMBER is a Python framework for agent-based modeling that uses Polars for efficient data handling and analysis. AMBER provides a clean, robust API for creating parallel, high-performance simulations in Python.

🚀 Performance

AMBER stores the entire population as a columnar Polars DataFrame and exposes a vectorized view API (agents.where(...), agents.at[ids], scatter_add) that compiles per-step updates down to a handful of Polars expressions — regardless of population size.

Benchmark against six other representative ABM/simulation frameworks — 5000 agents, 50 executed steps, Python 3.12, Julia 1.12.3, Apple Silicon. All numbers are seeded wall-clock timings, averaged over 10 runs (slowest trimmed). Every framework is checked against output invariants (wealth conservation, boundary clamping, S+I+R population conservation) before timing — see benchmarks/correctness_check.py. Reproducer: benchmarks/run_all_frameworks.py.

Framework	Language	Arch.	Wealth Transfer	Random Walk	SIR Epidemic
AMBER (vectorized)	Python	Columnar (Polars)	20 ms	4.8 ms	497 ms
Agents.jl	Julia	Object	7.2 ms	1.6 ms	813 ms
AMBER (loop)	Python	Object	169 ms	332 ms	9.53 s
Mesa	Python	Object	22.61 s	131 ms	16.63 s
AgentPy	Python	Object	266 ms	141 ms	10.98 s
SimPy	Python	Event loop	216 ms	254 ms	4.67 s
Melodie	Python	Hybrid	177 ms	1.03 s	20.09 s

AMBER (vectorized) is the fastest Python-hosted framework on every headline model at 5000 agents. The headline SIR row is schedule-mixed; use it as workload-class timing, not as an equivalent-trajectory AMBER-over-Julia claim. Against Agents.jl, AMBER trails the Julia implementation on wealth transfer and random walk, where per-step work is small enough that Julia's compiled dispatch has less fixed overhead.

See benchmarks/README.md for the full table at 500 / 1000 / 5000 agents, speedup ratios, a per-model correctness audit, and the documented SIR update-semantics caveat.

Scaling to 10M agents with the GPU backend

The 0.4 GPU backend changes the story at large N. This sweep covers 1k → 10M agents across 10 frameworks and four models — adding AMBER (GPU) and a Schelling segregation workload (NVIDIA RTX 3090 for the GPU series):

• AMBER (GPU) reaches 10M agents on all four models while CPU frameworks blow up. Wealth transfer: ~14 ms at 1M (≈330× the fastest CPU framework), 199 ms at 10M (3.1× faster than FLAME GPU 2). Schelling: the only framework to reach 10M (847 ms; 19× AMBER-vectorized and 225× Agents.jl at 1M). SIR: 5.98 s at 10M (~2× faster than FLAME GPU 2), via an O(N) spatial-binning kernel.
• It's a large-N win, not a small-N one. A ~90 ms fixed device cost means AMBER (GPU) only leads at scale: below ~100k–1M, AMBER (vectorized) or Agents.jl are faster, and on SIR FLAME GPU 2 wins at 1k–10k before AMBER overtakes it from 100k up. (FLAME GPU 2 implements no Schelling model, so it is absent from that panel.)

Regenerate with python benchmarks/plot_scaling_with_gpu_schelling.py.

🚀 Quick Start

AMBER supports an AgentPy-shaped OOP lane and a vectorized lane on the same model. Start with whichever feels natural.

AgentPy-shaped (method broadcast, AgentList):

import ambr as am

class WealthAgent(am.Agent):
    def setup(self):
        self.wealth = 1
    def transfer(self):
        if self.wealth > 0:
            other = self.model.agents.by_id(self.model.agents.random())
            other.wealth += 1
            self.wealth -= 1

class WealthModel(am.Model):
    def setup(self):
        self.agents = am.AgentList(self, self.p.n, WealthAgent)
    def step(self):
        self.agents.transfer()
    def update(self):
        self.record_model('total', int(self.agents.wealth.sum()))

results = WealthModel({'n': 50, 'steps': 20, 'seed': 1}).run()
print(results.model)      # also results['model']
print(results.agents.head())

Vectorized (columnar; best at large N):

import ambr as am

class WealthModel(am.Model):
    model_reporters = {'total_wealth': lambda m: int(m.agents.wealth.sum())}

    def setup(self):
        self.add_agents(100, wealth=self.rng.integers(1, 10, size=100))

    def step(self):
        donors = self.agents.where(self.agents.wealth > 0)
        donors.wealth -= 1
        recipients = self.rng.choice(self.agents.ids.to_numpy(), size=len(donors))
        self.agents.at[recipients].scatter_add(wealth=1)

results = WealthModel({'steps': 100, 'seed': 42}).run()
print(results.model.tail(5))
print(results.agents.head(10))

Coming from AgentPy? See docs/from_agentpy.rst.

Going faster / GPU — no magic switch; pick a lane (see docs/going_faster.rst):

import ambr as am
am.print_status()                 # GPU? which lane?
print(am.recommend(1_000_000))  # one-line suggestion

# Easiest GPU/CPU array model (CuPy if available, else NumPy):
class Drift(am.ArrayKernelModel):
    def init_state(self, xp, n, rng, p):
        return {"x": rng.random(n, dtype=xp.float32)}
    def step_state(self, xp, state, rng, p):
        state["x"] = state["x"] + 0.01
        return state
    def metrics(self, xp, state):
        return {"mean_x": float(am.to_host(state["x"].mean()))}

print(Drift({"n": 100_000, "steps": 20}).run().info)

self.rng is the canonical seeded RNG (a NumPy Generator); self.random is the stdlib one. Both are seeded from the seed parameter. Progress printing is off by default (show_progress=True to re-enable).

New in 0.4.1: AgentPy-shaped UX (RunResults, agents.random()), progressive speed lanes (am.print_status(), am.recommend(n), ArrayKernelModel), optional Numba CPU path (pip install 'ambr[perf]' — great on Mac), contract / write-path hardening, SMAC install pin, and Schelling grid helpers. See the changelog.

New in 0.4: a runtime snapshot-view contract checker, a GPU backend + batched calibration, one canonical verb per task (legacy spellings still work), declarative model_reporters, and a typed params schema.

New in 0.3.0: Setting agent.wealth = 5 on a Python Agent automatically syncs to the DataFrame. You can freely mix OOP-style and vectorized access without desync.

⚡ Vectorized View API

The view API compiles per-step updates to a handful of Polars expressions — regardless of population size:

def step(self):
    # Bulk columnar reads/writes over the entire population
    self.agents.x = self.agents.x + self.rng.uniform(-1, 1, len(self.agents))

    # Filtered writes: only agents matching a condition
    infected = self.agents.where(self.agents.status == 1)
    infected.infection_time += 1

    # scatter_add: flow-of-resources with duplicate-id safety
    self.agents.at[[1, 1, 3]].scatter_add(wealth=1)  # agent 1 gets +2, agent 3 gets +1

🧭 Canonical API (0.4)

AMBER 0.4 settles on one obvious verb per task. The legacy spellings still work (they emit a DeprecationWarning and are scheduled for removal in 1.0); set AMBER_SUPPRESS_DEPRECATIONS=1 to silence them in benchmark / reproducibility runs. Batch performance comes from these verbs (columnar writes), not from extra public batch_* helpers.

Task	Canonical	Legacy (deprecated → 1.0)
NumPy RNG	self.rng	self.nprandom
Record a model metric	model_reporters = {...} or record_model(k, v)	record(k, v)
Filter agents	agents.where(expr) / agents[mask] / agents.at[ids]	agents.select(...)
Per-agent write	agent.col = v	agent.record(...), agent.update_data(...), update_agent_data
Bulk / multi-column write	agents.set(**cols) or view.col = …	agents.record / update_data, batch_update_agents, Population.batch_*
Accumulate (duplicate ids)	agents.at[ids].scatter_add(...)	double ordinary writes in one step
Array kernels	agents.borrow / agents.commit (or TensorLane)	hand-maintained parallel NumPy buffers
Read agent objects	iterate model.agents, agents.by_id(i)	agents.agents, agents.agent_ids
Bulk numpy round-trip	agents.numpy(...) + agents.set(...)	.to_numpy() + per-column assign only
Typed parameters	params = {'n': (int, 200)}, then self.p.n	int(self.p.get('n', 200))
Grid wrap	GridEnvironment(torus=True)	wrap= / .wrap
Agent table assign	view / _set_frame	population.data = ... (setter warns)

update() is a pure hook — overriding it no longer requires super().update(). Declare model_reporters / agent_reporters for declarative metrics, and set record_initial = True to capture a t=0 row.

🔒 Snapshot-view contract

The columnar fast path is only valid for rules that preserve the intended update schedule. AMBER turns that from a silent assumption into a checkable, per-step artifact — run with a contract mode and inspect the certificates:

results = model.run(steps=100, contract="check")   # "off" | "check" | "warn" | "raise"
for cert in results["contract"]:
    if not cert.ok:
        print(cert.step, cert.violations)

check records a ContractCertificate per step; warn also emits a warning per violation; raise stops on the first error. Mode off (default) adds zero overhead.

The monitor watches two write paths (and combinations):

• Buffered (OOP) — agent.col = … / queued cell writes
• Lane / view — agents.col = …, agents.set(...), borrow/commit
• Cross-path — same column via both OOP and view in one step → cross_path_write

scatter_add is the sanctioned multi-write reducer (not treated as a conflicting ordinary commit). Prefer those APIs over assigning population.data directly.

🎮 GPU backend & batched calibration

The same columnar contract runs on a CuPy array backend, and the ensemble axis (B simulations × N agents) batches into one device pass — the natural fit for calibration, where you evaluate thousands of small replicate runs:

from ambr.gpu_ensemble import GPUEnsembleRunner, BatchedWellMixedSIR, smac_batch_calibrate

# Evaluate B parameter sets in one (B, N) GPU pass
runner = GPUEnsembleRunner(BatchedWellMixedSIR())
traj = runner.run(n_agents=100_000, steps=60,
                  params={"beta": betas, "gamma": gammas, "i0_frac": i0})  # -> {metric: (B, steps)}

# SMAC ask -> one batched GPU evaluation -> tell
best, history = smac_batch_calibrate(BatchedWellMixedSIR(), bounds, loss_fn,
                                     n_agents=100_000, steps=60)

ambr.gpu provides the array-module abstraction (get_array_module, to_device, to_host) and falls back to NumPy when CuPy is unavailable.

🔬 Optimization

AMBER includes powerful optimization capabilities for parameter tuning:

from ambr.optimization import ParameterSpace, grid_search

# Define parameter space
parameter_space = ParameterSpace({
    'agents': [10, 50, 100],
    'initial_value': [1, 5, 10],
    'steps': 100
})

# Run optimization
results = grid_search(MyModel, parameter_space, 'some_metric')
best_params = results[0]['parameters']

Beyond grid_search, AMBER ships random_search, bayesian_optimization (SMAC Gaussian-process), and SMACOptimizer (random-forest surrogate) — plus the GPU batched ensemble above for derivative-free calibration at scale.

📦 Installation

pip install ambr

# Optional extras
pip install 'ambr[perf]'       # Numba CPU scatter (recommended on Mac)
pip install 'ambr[advanced]'   # SMAC optimization

import ambr as am
print(am.__version__)   # 0.4.1+
am.print_status()

🏗️ Features

• Simple API: AgentPy-shaped OOP lane + vectorized columnar views on one model
• High Performance: Polars DataFrames; optional Numba (ambr[perf]) for scatters
• Speed lanes: am.print_status() / am.recommend(n) / ArrayKernelModel
• Snapshot-view contract: runtime checking that columnar updates preserve the intended schedule
• GPU backend: CuPy array backend + batched ensemble for parameter sweeps and calibration
• Optimization: grid / random / Bayesian (SMAC) search, plus GPU-batched calibration
• Declarative reporting: model_reporters / agent_reporters and a typed params schema
• Environments: Support for grid, network, and continuous space environments
• Experiments: Run multiple simulations with parameter sampling
• Random Number Generation: Reproducible simulations with controlled randomness
• RunResults: results.agents and results['agents'] both work

📚 Examples

Working examples are available in the examples/ directory:

• Wealth Transfer Model: Economic inequality simulation
• Virus Spread Model: Epidemiological SIR model
• Flocking Simulation: Boids flocking behavior
• Forest Fire Model: Cellular automata fire spread
• Network Simulations: Graph-based agent interactions

📖 Documentation

• Documentation: https://ambr.readthedocs.io/
• Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.16292

📝 How to cite?

If you use AMBER in your research, please cite our paper:

@article{pham2026amber,
  title={AMBER: A Columnar Architecture for High-Performance Agent-Based Modeling in Python},
  author={Pham, Anh-Duy},
  journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.16292},
  year={2026}
}

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see our contributing guidelines for more information.

📄 License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License - see the LICENSE file for details.