# Tinker Cookbook

The **Tinker Cookbook** is the ecosystem around the [Tinker SDK](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/tinker/). While the SDK provides the core client-server API for training and sampling, the cookbook gives you everything else:

- **Training abstractions** — `Env`, `EnvGroupBuilder`, `RLDataset`, `train.Config` — so you can focus on your task, not plumbing
- **Renderers** — Convert chat messages to tokens for every supported model family
- **Production recipes** — 15+ end-to-end training examples (SFT, RL, DPO, distillation, tool use, multi-agent, and more)
- **Weight management** — Download, merge, export, and publish trained models to HuggingFace
- **[Evaluation](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/cookbook/eval/)** — 20+ standardized benchmarks (GSM8K, MMLU, MATH, IFEval, SWE-Bench, …) with concurrency, trajectory storage, and training-loop integration
- **[Using Inkling](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/cookbook/inkling/)** — Render chat, tool calls, images, and audio with `tml-renderers`

## When to use the Cookbook vs. the SDK

|  | Tinker SDK | Tinker Cookbook |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **What** | Core API client | Training ecosystem |
| **Use when** | You want full control over every API call | You want batteries-included training |
| **Examples** | `training_client.forward_backward(data, "cross_entropy")` | `asyncio.run(train.main(config))` |
| **Install** | `uv pip install tinker` | `uv pip install tinker-cookbook` |

Most users will use both — the SDK for understanding what's happening, and the cookbook for building production training pipelines.

## Getting Started

1. [Install the cookbook](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/cookbook/quickstart/)
2. Follow the [Tutorials](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/tutorials/) — they cover both SDK and cookbook
3. Browse the [Recipes](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/cookbook/recipes/) for production examples
4. Check the [API Reference](https://tinker-docs.thinkingmachines.ai/cookbook/api-reference/) when you need details