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Privacy tuning playbook

See also: Getting started (technical/getting_started.md) and Configuration matrix (technical/configuration_matrix.md).

Tools - Prefer httpie + jq for readability, or use curl. - Install on macOS: brew install httpie jq

Goals - Find a privacy setting that protects individuals and keeps models useful.

Start here - Begin with a balanced epsilon (e.g., noise_multiplier ≈ 1.0) - Train a small number of rounds and check metrics

Tighten privacy - Increase noise_multiplier or reduce sample_rate - Watch accuracy and loss; expect some utility drop

Edge cases - Tiny datasets: warn and consider aggregation or more rounds - Highly imbalanced data: monitor minority-class metrics

Reporting - Document chosen epsilon/delta and the observed tradeoffs

Copy‑paste examples 

# Balanced baseline
http POST :8000/dp/config \
    X-Role:operator \
    clipping_norm:=1.0 noise_multiplier:=1.0 sample_rate:=0.01 delta:=1e-5 accountant=rdp

# Stronger privacy (more noise)
http POST :8000/dp/config \
    X-Role:operator \
    clipping_norm:=1.0 noise_multiplier:=1.5 sample_rate:=0.005 delta:=1e-5 accountant=rdp

# Looser privacy (less noise) for utility validation
http POST :8000/dp/config \
    X-Role:operator \
    clipping_norm:=1.0 noise_multiplier:=0.7 sample_rate:=0.02 delta:=1e-5 accountant=rdp

# Start a short run and observe impact
http POST :8000/training/start X-Role:operator session_id=dp_tune rounds:=3

curl equivalents 

curl -fsS -H 'X-Role: operator' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"clipping_norm":1.0,"noise_multiplier":1.0,"sample_rate":0.01,"delta":1e-5,"accountant":"rdp"}' \
    http://localhost:8000/dp/config
curl -fsS -H 'X-Role: operator' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"clipping_norm":1.0,"noise_multiplier":1.5,"sample_rate":0.005,"delta":1e-5,"accountant":"rdp"}' \
    http://localhost:8000/dp/config
curl -fsS -H 'X-Role: operator' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"clipping_norm":1.0,"noise_multiplier":0.7,"sample_rate":0.02,"delta":1e-5,"accountant":"rdp"}' \
    http://localhost:8000/dp/config
curl -fsS -H 'X-Role: operator' -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
    -d '{"session_id":"dp_tune","rounds":3}' http://localhost:8000/training/start