Save and Load

Use save and load when you want to persist a fitted PanelMMM and rebuild it later without redefining the whole model configuration in code.

Basic round trip

The standard workflow is:

mmm.fit(
    X,
    y,
    draws=500,
    tune=500,
    chains=2,
    progressbar=False,
    random_seed=42,
)

mmm.save("mmm.nc")

loaded = PanelMMM.load("mmm.nc")

save() writes the model’s InferenceData to NetCDF. load() reads that file, recreates the PanelMMM configuration from stored metadata, restores loaded.idata, and rebuilds the PyMC graph from the saved training data.

What Abacus stores

Abacus relies on more than the posterior draws for a full round trip.

The stored attrs include both the shared model metadata and PanelMMM-specific configuration such as:

• date_column
• channel_columns
• target_column
• target_type
• dims
• control_columns
• control_impacts
• adstock and saturation
• adstock_first
• yearly_seasonality
• time_varying_intercept and time_varying_media
• scaling
• model_config
• sampler_config
• serialised mu_effects

save() behaviour

save(fname, **kwargs) is a thin wrapper over self.idata.to_netcdf(...).

Important constraints:

• the model must already be fitted
• self.idata must contain a posterior group
• any extra kwargs are passed directly to InferenceData.to_netcdf(...)

If you call save() before fitting, Abacus raises:

RuntimeError: The model hasn't been fit yet, call .fit() first

load() and compatibility checks

By default, PanelMMM.load(...) validates that the saved file matches the current model class and configuration:

loaded = PanelMMM.load("mmm.nc", check=True)

With check=True, Abacus verifies:

• the saved model version
• the saved model id derived from the serialised configuration

If those checks fail, Abacus raises DifferentModelError.

If you need to bypass those checks, you can set check=False:

loaded = PanelMMM.load("mmm.nc", check=False)

Use that only when you understand why the saved metadata does not match.

Load from an in-memory InferenceData

If you already have an InferenceData object, use load_from_idata(...) instead of saving to disk first:

loaded = PanelMMM.load_from_idata(idata, check=True)

This is the same round-trip path that load() uses internally after reading the NetCDF file.

Where build_from_idata() fits

build_from_idata(idata) is the lower-level rebuild step. It:

1. restores supported serialised mu_effects
2. reads idata.fit_data
3. splits that saved training data back into X and y
4. rebuilds the PyMC graph

You usually do not need to call build_from_idata() yourself because load() and load_from_idata() already do it.

Round-trip limitations

Not every fitted object can be restored fully.

EventAdditiveEffect does not round-trip

Abacus does not deserialize EventAdditiveEffect because the original df_events DataFrame is not stored in the saved attrs. In that case, PanelMMM.load(...) fails fast while rebuilding the model.

Do not drop fit_data if you want to reload

Because rebuild uses idata.fit_data, do not save a partial file that omits that group if you want to call PanelMMM.load(...) later.

For example, this is valid NetCDF output:

mmm.save("posterior_only.nc", groups=["posterior"])

But it is not a full PanelMMM round-trip artefact, because the saved file no longer includes the training data needed for build_from_idata(...).

Practical advice

• Use the default save() behaviour for round trips.
• Keep check=True unless you have a specific compatibility reason not to.
• Prefer PanelMMM.load(...) over loading NetCDF manually.
• Refit or rebuild event effects explicitly rather than expecting saved event state to deserialize.

Next steps

After loading a model, you can go straight to posterior predictive sampling, diagnostics, decomposition, or optimisation using the restored idata and rebuilt graph.