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Building your Model

With your data connected to Shaped, it’s time to configure your model. Follow this guide to populate the model configuration template:

model_config_template.yaml
model:
  name: for_you_feed_v1
  description: "Recommend items to show in the for you feed"
connectors:
fetch:
  events: |
  users: |
  items: |
  global_filters: |
  personal_filters: |
Shaped uses DuckDB SQL

syntax in the fetch section of the model config. Check out the DuckDB SQL Docs.

Connectors​

Add the datasets created in the previous step to the connectors section of your model config.

connectors:
  - id: likes
    name: likes
    type: Dataset
  - id: impressions
    name: impressions
    type: Dataset
  - id: reported_posts
    name: reported_posts
    type: Dataset
  - id: users
    name: users
    type: Dataset
  - id: user_favourite_categories
    name: user_favourite_categories
    type: Dataset
  - id: items
    name: items
    type: Dataset
  - id: items_categories
    name: items_categories
    type: Dataset

Events​

Events must include user_id, item_id, created_at, event_value, and label.

  • event_value: Describes the event and is useful for analysis.
  • label: Numerical values where anything greater than 0 is positive, and 0 or less is negative. This helps in weighting the events.

For simplicity, you might start with a binary label system.

events: |
  SELECT
    user_id,
    item_id,
    created_at,
    1 as label,
    'like' as event_value
  FROM likes
  
  UNION ALL

  SELECT
    user_id,
    item_id,
    created_at,
    0 as label,
    'impression' as event_value
  FROM impressions
  
  UNION ALL

  SELECT
    user_id,
    item_id,
    created_at,
    0 as label,
    'reported_post' as event_value
  FROM reported_posts

Users and Items​

In the users and items sections, include all the users and items on your platform along with attributes that will help the model understand draw connections between them.

users: |
  SELECT
    user_id,
    created_at,
    country,
    occupation,
    gender
  FROM users
items: |
  SELECT 
    i.item_id,
    i.created_at,
    i.price,
    i.deleted,
    i.public,
    ARRAY_AGG(DISTINCT ic.category) AS categories
  FROM items i
  LEFT JOIN items_categories ic on ic.item_id = i.item_id
  WHERE
    i.deleted = false
    AND i.public = true

Global Filters (Optional)​

The global filters define the items that should be filtered out for all users. For example, you may want your rankings to guarantee that all of the following items are filtered out:

  • Products that are out of stock
  • Certain categories
  • Older items

The global filter requires only an item_id column. Say you wanted to exclude a certain category for all users:

global_filters: |
  SELECT
    item_id
  FROM items_categories
  WHERE 
    category = 'category_to_exclude'

Personal Filters (Optional)​

The personal filters define items that should be filtered out for a specific user. For example, you may want your model to:

  • Filter out all videos a user has watched before
  • Remove posts from blocked and muted users
  • Remove items which are not available in the user's country

The personal filter must output a view containing user_id and item_id pairs to be filtered out. Specifically, if there is a user_id, item_id row, then that user_id will never be shown that item_id.

If you wanted filter any items a user has seen before:

personal_filters: |
  SELECT
    user_id,
    item_id
  FROM impressions

Creating Your Model With The Shaped CLI​

Putting it all together, we get the following complete model config and can now use the Shaped CLI to create your model.

model_config.yaml
model:
  name: for_you_feed_v1
  description: "Recommend items to show in the for you feed"
connectors:
  - id: likes
    name: likes
    type: Dataset
  - id: impressions
    name: impressions
    type: Dataset
  - id: reported_posts
    name: reported_posts
    type: Dataset
  - id: users
    name: users
    type: Dataset
  - id: user_favourite_categories
    name: user_favourite_categories
    type: Dataset
  - id: items
    name: items
    type: Dataset
  - id: items_categories
    name: items_categories
    type: Dataset
fetch:
  events: |
    SELECT
    user_id,
    item_id,
    created_at,
    1 as label,
    'like' as event_value
    FROM likes
    
    UNION ALL

    SELECT
      user_id,
      item_id,
      created_at,
      0 as label,
      'impression' as event_value
    FROM impressions
    
    UNION ALL

    SELECT
      user_id,
      item_id,
      created_at,
      0 as label,
      'reported_post' as event_value
    FROM reported_posts
  users: |
    SELECT
      user_id,
      created_at,
      country,
      occupation,
      gender
    FROM users
  items: |
    SELECT 
      i.item_id,
      i.created_at,
      i.price,
      i.deleted,
      i.public,
      ARRAY_AGG(DISTINCT ic.category) AS categories
    FROM items i
    LEFT JOIN items_categories ic on ic.item_id = i.item_id
    WHERE
      i.deleted = false
      AND i.public = true
  global_filters: |
    SELECT
      item_id
    FROM items_categories
    WHERE 
      category = 'category_to_exclude'
  personal_filters: |
    SELECT
      user_id,
      item_id
    FROM impressions

Use the Shaped CLI to create your model:

shaped create-model --file model_config.yaml

You'll be able to see your model build on the Shaped Dashboard.