Machine Learning Systems

Principles and Practices of Engineering Artificially Intelligent Systems

📖 Read Online • 💾 Download PDF • 💾 Download ePub • 🌐 Explore Ecosystem

📚 Hardcopy edition coming 2026 via MIT Press!

About This Book

The open-source textbook that teaches you to build real-world AI systems — from edge devices to cloud deployment. Originally developed as Harvard University's CS249r course by Prof. Vijay Janapa Reddi, now used by universities and students worldwide.

Our mission: Expand access to AI systems education worldwide — empowering learners, one chapter and one lab at a time.

Why This Book Exists

"This grew out of a concern that while students could train AI models, few understood how to build the systems that actually make them work. As AI becomes more capable and autonomous, the critical bottleneck won't be the algorithms - it will be the engineers who can build efficient, scalable, and sustainable systems that safely harness that intelligence."

— Vijay Janapa Reddi

📚 What You'll Learn

Go beyond training models — master the full stack of real-world ML systems.

Topic	What You'll Build
System Design	Scalable, maintainable ML architectures
Data Engineering	Robust pipelines for collection, labeling, and processing
Model Deployment	Production-ready systems from prototypes
MLOps & Monitoring	Reliable, continuously operating systems
Edge AI	Resource-efficient deployment on mobile, embedded, and IoT

⭐ Support This Work

Show Your Support

Star this repository to help us demonstrate the value of open AI education to funders and institutions.

Goal: 10,000 stars = $100,000 in additional education funding

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Fund the Mission (New!)

We've graduated this project from Harvard to enable global access and expand AI systems education worldwide. Please help us support educators globally, especially in the Global South, by providing TinyML kits for students, funding workshops, and sustaining our open-source infrastructure.

From $15/month to sponsor a learner to $250 for workshops — every contribution democratizes AI education.

🌐 Community & Resources

Resource	Description
📚 Main Site	Complete learning platform
🔥 TinyTorch	Educational ML framework
💬 Discussions	Ask questions, share insights
👥 Community	Join our global learning community

🎯 For Different Audiences

🎓 Students

👩‍🏫 Educators

🛠️ Contributors

🚀 Quick Start

For Readers

# Read online (continuously updated)
open https://mlsysbook.ai

# Or download PDF for offline access
curl -O https://mlsysbook.ai/Machine-Learning-Systems.pdf

For Contributors

git clone https://github.com/harvard-edge/cs249r_book.git
cd cs249r_book

# Quick setup (recommended)
./binder setup      # Setup environment and dependencies
./binder doctor     # Check system health

# Fast development workflow
./binder preview intro    # Fast chapter development
./binder build intro      # Build specific chapter
./binder build            # Build complete book (HTML)
./binder help            # See all commands

🤝 Contributing

We welcome contributions from the global community! Here's how you can help:

Ways to Contribute

📝 Content — Suggest edits, improvements, or new examples
🛠️ Tools — Enhance development scripts and automation
🎨 Design — Improve figures, diagrams, and visual elements
🌍 Localization — Translate content for global accessibility
🔧 Infrastructure — Help with build systems and deployment

Quality Standards

All contributions benefit from automated quality assurance:

✅ Pre-commit validation — Automatic cleanup and checks
📋 Content review — Formatting and style validation
🧪 Testing — Build and link verification
👥 Peer review — Community feedback

Start Contributing →

🛠️ Development

Book Binder CLI (Recommended)

The Book Binder is our lightning-fast development CLI for streamlined building and iteration:

# Chapter development (fast iteration)
./binder preview intro                # Build and preview single chapter
./binder preview intro,ml_systems     # Build and preview multiple chapters

# Complete book building
./binder build                        # Build complete website (HTML)
./binder pdf                          # Build complete PDF
./binder epub                         # Build complete EPUB

# Management
./binder clean                        # Clean artifacts
./binder status                       # Show current status
./binder doctor                       # Run health check
./binder help                         # Show all commands

Development Commands

# Book Binder CLI (Recommended)
./binder setup            # First-time setup
./binder build            # Build complete HTML book
./binder pdf              # Build complete PDF book  
./binder epub             # Build complete EPUB book
./binder preview intro    # Preview chapter development

# Traditional setup (if needed)
python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r tools/dependencies/requirements.txt
pre-commit install

Project Structure

MLSysBook/
├── binder                   # ⚡ Fast development CLI (recommended)
├── quarto/                  # Main book content (Quarto)
│   ├── contents/            # Chapter content
│   │   ├── core/            # Core chapters
│   │   ├── labs/            # Hands-on labs
│   │   ├── frontmatter/     # Preface, acknowledgments
│   │   ├── backmatter/      # References and resources
│   │   └── parts/           # Book parts and sections
│   ├── _extensions/         # Quarto extensions
│   ├── config/              # Build configurations
│   │   ├── _quarto-html.yml # Website build configuration
│   │   └── _quarto-pdf.yml  # PDF build configuration
│   ├── data/                # Cross-reference and metadata files
│   ├── assets/              # Images, styles, media
│   ├── filters/             # Lua filters
│   ├── scripts/             # Build scripts
│   └── _quarto.yml          # Active config (symlink)
├── tools/                   # Development automation
│   ├── scripts/             # Organized development scripts
│   │   ├── content/         # Content management tools
│   │   ├── cross_refs/      # Cross-reference management
│   │   ├── genai/           # AI-assisted content tools
│   │   ├── maintenance/     # System maintenance scripts
│   │   ├── testing/         # Test and validation scripts
│   │   └── utilities/       # General utility scripts
│   ├── dependencies/        # Package requirements  
│   └── setup/               # Setup and configuration
├── config/                  # Project configuration
│   ├── dev/                 # Development configurations
│   ├── linting/             # Code quality configurations
│   └── quarto/              # Quarto publishing settings
├── docs/                    # Documentation
│   ├── BINDER.md            # Binder CLI guide
│   ├── BUILD.md             # Build instructions
│   ├── DEVELOPMENT.md       # Development guide
│   └── contribute.md        # Contribution guidelines
├── CHANGELOG.md             # Project changelog
├── CITATION.bib             # Citation information
├── pyproject.toml           # Python project configuration
└── README.md                # This file

Documentation

⚡ Binder CLI Guide — Fast development with the Book Binder
📋 Development Guide — Comprehensive setup and workflow
🛠️ Maintenance Guide — Daily tasks and troubleshooting
🔨 Build Instructions — Detailed build process
🤝 Contribution Guidelines — How to contribute effectively

Publishing

Publishing is handled through GitHub Actions workflows for consistent, automated deployment:

# Build locally to test before publishing
./binder build        # Build HTML
./binder pdf          # Build PDF  
./binder epub         # Build EPUB

# Publishing happens via GitHub Actions
# See docs/PUBLISH_LIVE_WORKFLOW.md for details

Publishing Workflow:

Automated Deployment — GitHub Actions workflows handle all publishing
Quality Checks — Automated validation before deployment
Multiple Formats — HTML, PDF, and EPUB published simultaneously
Preview Deployments — Pull requests get automatic preview deployments

See Publishing Documentation for detailed instructions.

Getting Started

# First time setup
./binder setup

# Check system health
./binder doctor

# Quick preview
./binder preview intro

📋 Citation & License

Citation

@inproceedings{reddi2024mlsysbook,
  title        = {MLSysBook.AI: Principles and Practices of Machine Learning Systems Engineering},
  author       = {Reddi, Vijay Janapa},
  booktitle    = {2024 International Conference on Hardware/Software Codesign and System Synthesis (CODES+ ISSS)},
  pages        = {41--42},
  year         = {2024},
  organization = {IEEE},
  url          = {https://mlsysbook.org}
}

License

This work is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). You may share and adapt the material for non-commercial purposes with appropriate credit.

🙏 Contributors

Thanks goes to these wonderful people who have contributed to making this resource better for everyone:

_{Vijay Janapa Reddi}	_{Zeljko Hrcek}	_{Marcelo Rovai}	_{Jason Jabbour}	_{Ikechukwu Uchendu}
_{Kai Kleinbard}	_{Naeem Khoshnevis}	_{Sara Khosravi}	_{Douwe den Blanken}	_{Jeffrey Ma}
_{shanzehbatool}	_Elias	_{Jared Ping}	_{Itai Shapira}	_{Maximilian Lam}
_{Jayson Lin}	_Andrea	_{Sophia Cho}	_{Alex Rodriguez}	_{Korneel Van den Berghe}
_{Zishen Wan}	_{Colby Banbury}	_{Mark Mazumder}	_{Divya Amirtharaj}	_{Srivatsan Krishnan}
_{Abdulrahman Mahmoud}	_{Aghyad Deeb}	_marin-llobet	_{Haoran Qiu}	_oishib
_{Jared Ni}	_{ELSuitorHarvard}	_{Emil Njor}	_{Michael Schnebly}	_{Aditi Raju}
_{Jae-Won Chung}	_{Yu-Shun Hsiao}	_{Henry Bae}	_{Shvetank Prakash}	_{Emeka Ezike}
_{Andrew Bass}	_{Jennifer Zhou}	_{Arya Tschand}	_{Pong Trairatvorakul}	_{Matthew Stewart}
_{Marco Zennaro}	_{Eura Nofshin}	_{Bruno Scaglione}	_{Tauno Erik}	_{Alex Oesterling}
_gnodipac886	_{Fin Amin}	_Allen-Kuang	_{TheHiddenLayer}	_{Gauri Jain}
_{Fatima Shah}	_{Sercan Aygün}	_{The Random DIY}	_{Baldassarre Cesarano}	_{Yang Zhou}
_yanjingl	_{Abenezer Angamo}	_{Jason Yik}	_{अरनव शुक्ला \| Arnav Shukla}	_{Aritra Ghosh}
_{happyappledog}	_{abigailswallow}	_{Bilge Acun}	_{Andy Cheng}	_{Cursor Agent}
_{Emmanuel Rassou}	_{Jessica Quaye}	_{Vijay Edupuganti}	_{Shreya Johri}	_{Sonia Murthy}
_{Costin-Andrei Oncescu}	_{formlsysbookissue}	_{Annie Laurie Cook}	_{Jothi Ramaswamy}	_{Batur Arslan}
_{Curren Iyer}	_{Fatima Shah}	_{Edward Jin}	_a-saraf	_songhan
_jvijay	_Zishen