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Add a doc with information about components and dependencies #7537

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Add a doc with information about components and dependencies
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269 changes: 269 additions & 0 deletions docs/project-docs/components-and-dependencies.md
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ML.NET is a modular set of libraries that enables building a pipeline from data loaders, trainers/estimators (in case of training), transformers (in case of inferencing), and various data structures to facilitate the building of pipelines and representing data. The core of ML.NET – the Microsoft.ML package has no external dependencies. It's largely managed code.

Microsoft.ML does have a helper native math library CPUMath - which is only used on .NETFramework. .NET 6.0 and later have a managed implementation using intrinsics/TensorPrimitives and do not require the native build of CPUMath.

Microsoft.ML contains one other native library, LDANative, which is used by the LatentDirichletAllocationEstimator/Transform to support the LightLDA algorithm. If this component is used it will require the LightLDA native library. The native library is built for linux-arm, linux-arm64, linux-x64, osx-arm64 (M1), osx-x64, win-arm64, win-x64, win-x86. This library has only platform/CRT dependencies.

Some components that represent an algorithm or binding to another framework are factored into separate packages to allow opt-in to using those and their dependencies.

ML.NET redistributes Intel MKL as Microsoft.ML.MKL.Redist in which is a minimized MKL library linked with just exports needed by ML.NET. This component follows the support matrix of Intel MKL and is only supported on x86 and x64 architectures: linux-x64, osx-x64 (no longer supported by Intel), win-x64, and win-x86. Similarly some components have light-up to use an Intel OneDAL implementation which is only supported on x64.

| NuGet Package | Entry-Point Components | Native Dependencies | Status | Notes |
|-------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------|----------|--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `Microsoft.ML` | `MLContext`, core transforms, trainers | None | Stable | |
| `Microsoft.Extensions.ML` | `PredictionEnginePool` | None | Stable | |
| `Microsoft.ML.AutoML` | `AutoCatalog` for AutoML | *As required by other components* | Preview | Support varies based on components used |
| `Microsoft.ML.CodeGenerator` | | None | Preview | Part of AutoML |
| `Microsoft.ML.CpuMath` | | Optional native | Stable | Internal implementation; only used on .NET Framework |
| `Microsoft.ML.DataView` | `IDataView` | None | Stable | |
| `Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.*` | | None | Preview | Data-only |
| `Microsoft.ML.Ensemble` | | None | Preview | Supports ML.NET component catalog |
| `Microsoft.ML.EntryPoints` | | None | Preview | Supports ML.NET component catalog |
| `Microsoft.ML.Experimental` | | None | Preview | Experimental API |
| `Microsoft.ML.FairLearn` | `FairlearnCatalog` | None | Preview | |
| `Microsoft.ML.FastTree` | `FastTreeRankingTrainer` | Optional native acceleration | Stable | Native library used on x86/x64; managed fallback |
| `Microsoft.ML.ImageAnalytics` | `MLImage` (image exchange type) | `libSkiaSharp` | Stable | Wrapper over SkiaSharp / Google Skia; supported where dependency is supported |
| `Microsoft.ML.LightGBM` | `LightGbm\*Trainer` | `LightGBM` | Stable | Wrapper over LightGBM; supported where dependency is supported |
| `Microsoft.ML.MKL.Components` | `SymbolicSgdLogisticRegressionBinaryTrainer` | Intel MKL | Stable | Only works where Intel MKL works |
| `Microsoft.ML.MKL.Redist` | Internal native Intel MKL | `libomp` | Stable | Not for direct reference; win-x86/x64 only |
| `Microsoft.ML.OneDal` | Internal native Intel OneDal | Intel OneDAL | Preview | Not for direct reference; x64 only |
| `Microsoft.ML.OnnxConverter` | Adds ONNX export support | `Microsoft.ML.OnnxRuntime` | Stable | Wrapper over ONNX Runtime; supports "bring your own" runtime |
| `Microsoft.ML.OnnxTransformer` | `OnnxCatalog` | `Microsoft.ML.OnnxRuntime` | Stable | Wrapper over ONNX Runtime; supports "bring your own" runtime |
| `Microsoft.ML.Parquet` | `ParquetLoader` | None | Preview | Uses managed Parquet.Net (port of Apache Parquet) |
| `Microsoft.ML.Recommender` | `MatrixFactorizationTrainer` | LIBMF (bundled) | Stable | Includes libmf built for all runtimes supported by ML.NET |
| `Microsoft.ML.TensorFlow` | `TensorFlowModel`, `Transformer`, `Estimator` | TensorFlow via `TensorFlow.NET` | Stable | Wrapper over TensorFlow; supports "bring your own" runtime |
| `Microsoft.ML.TimeSeries` | `ForecastingCatalog` | Intel MKL, `libomp` | Stable | Only works where Intel MKL works |
| `Microsoft.ML.TorchSharp` | `QATrainer`, `TextClassificationTrainer`, `SentenceSimilarityTrainer` | libTorch via `TorchSharp` | Preview | Wrapper over libTorch; supported where TorchSharp is supported |
| `Microsoft.ML.Vision` | `ImageClassificationTrainer` | TensorFlow | Stable | Depends on `Microsoft.ML.TensorFlow` for implementation |


Other packages:
| NuGet Package | Entry-Point Components | Native Dependencies | Status | Notes |
|----------------------------------|--------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------|------------|---------|
| `Microsoft.Data.Analysis` | `DataFrame` | `Apache.Arrow` | Preview | |
| `Microsoft.ML.GenAI.*` | | | Preview | |
| `Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.*` | `Tokenizer` | | Stable | |
| `Microsoft.ML.SampleUtils` | | | Preview | |


## Package Dependencies Diagram

The following diagram shows the relationships between ML.NET packages and their external dependencies:

```mermaid
%%{init: {'theme':'base', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize':'18px'}, 'flowchart': {'useMaxWidth': false, 'htmlLabels': true, 'curve': 'linear'}, 'securityLevel': 'loose'}}%%
graph TD
%% Core packages - arranged vertically at top
subgraph CorePackages["🔧 Core ML.NET Packages"]
direction TB
DataView["Microsoft.ML.DataView"]
Core["Microsoft.ML"]
Extensions["Microsoft.Extensions.ML"]
CpuMath["Microsoft.ML.CpuMath"]
end

%% AutoML packages
subgraph AutoMLPackages["🤖 AutoML Packages"]
direction TB
AutoML["Microsoft.ML.AutoML"]
CodeGen["Microsoft.ML.CodeGenerator"]
Ensemble["Microsoft.ML.Ensemble"]
EntryPoints["Microsoft.ML.EntryPoints"]
FairLearn["Microsoft.ML.FairLearn"]
end

%% Algorithm packages
subgraph AlgorithmPackages["⚙️ ML Algorithm Packages"]
direction TB
FastTree["Microsoft.ML.FastTree"]
LightGBM["Microsoft.ML.LightGBM"]
Recommender["Microsoft.ML.Recommender"]
TimeSeries["Microsoft.ML.TimeSeries"]
TorchSharp["Microsoft.ML.TorchSharp"]
end

%% Image and vision packages
subgraph ImagePackages["🖼️ Image & Vision Packages"]
direction TB
ImageAnalytics["Microsoft.ML.ImageAnalytics"]
Vision["Microsoft.ML.Vision"]
DnnFeaturizerAlexNet["Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.AlexNet"]
DnnFeaturizerResNet18["Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.ResNet18"]
DnnFeaturizerResNet50["Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.ResNet50"]
DnnFeaturizerResNet101["Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.ResNet101"]
DnnFeaturizerModelRedist["Microsoft.ML.DnnImageFeaturizer.ModelRedist"]
end

%% ONNX and TensorFlow packages
subgraph FrameworkPackages["🔗 Framework Integration Packages"]
direction TB
OnnxConverter["Microsoft.ML.OnnxConverter"]
OnnxTransformer["Microsoft.ML.OnnxTransformer"]
TensorFlow["Microsoft.ML.TensorFlow"]
end

%% Intel MKL packages
subgraph IntelPackages["⚡ Intel MKL Packages"]
direction TB
MKLComponents["Microsoft.ML.MKL.Components"]
MKLRedist["Microsoft.ML.MKL.Redist"]
OneDal["Microsoft.ML.OneDal"]
end

%% AI/GenAI packages
subgraph AIPackages["🧠 AI & GenAI Packages"]
direction TB
GenAICore["Microsoft.ML.GenAI.Core"]
GenAILLaMA["Microsoft.ML.GenAI.LLaMA"]
GenAIMistral["Microsoft.ML.GenAI.Mistral"]
GenAIPhi["Microsoft.ML.GenAI.Phi"]
AutoGenCore["AutoGen.Core"]
MSExtensionsAI["Microsoft.Extensions.AI.Abstractions"]
SemanticKernel["Microsoft.SemanticKernel.Abstractions"]
end

%% Tokenizer packages
subgraph TokenizerPackages["📝 Tokenizer Packages"]
direction TB
Tokenizers["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers"]
TokenizersGpt2["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.Data.Gpt2"]
TokenizersR50k["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.Data.R50kBase"]
TokenizersP50k["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.Data.P50kBase"]
TokenizersO200k["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.Data.O200kBase"]
TokenizersCl100k["Microsoft.ML.Tokenizers.Data.Cl100kBase"]
end

%% Data packages
subgraph DataPackages["📊 Data Packages"]
direction TB
Parquet["Microsoft.ML.Parquet"]
DataAnalysis["Microsoft.Data.Analysis"]
end

%% Other packages
subgraph OtherPackages["🔧 Other Packages"]
direction TB
Experimental["Microsoft.ML.Experimental"]
SampleUtils["Microsoft.ML.SampleUtils"]
end

%% External dependencies - arranged vertically at bottom
subgraph ExternalDeps["🌐 External Dependencies"]
direction TB
SkiaSharp["SkiaSharp"]
LightGBMNative["LightGBM"]
OnnxRuntime["Microsoft.ML.OnnxRuntime"]
TensorFlowNET["TensorFlow.NET"]
TorchSharpLib["TorchSharp"]
ApacheArrow["Apache.Arrow"]
ParquetNet["Parquet.Net"]
GoogleProtobuf["Google.Protobuf"]
end

%% Core dependencies
Core --> DataView
Core --> CpuMath
Extensions --> Core

%% AutoML dependencies
AutoML --> Core
AutoML --> CpuMath
AutoML --> DnnFeaturizerAlexNet
AutoML --> DnnFeaturizerResNet18
AutoML --> DnnFeaturizerResNet50
AutoML --> DnnFeaturizerResNet101
AutoML --> OnnxTransformer
AutoML --> TimeSeries
AutoML --> TorchSharp
AutoML --> Vision
AutoML --> ImageAnalytics
AutoML --> LightGBM
AutoML --> MKLComponents
AutoML --> Recommender
CodeGen --> AutoML

%% Algorithm dependencies
FastTree --> Core
LightGBM --> Core
LightGBM --> FastTree
LightGBM --> LightGBMNative
Recommender --> Core
TimeSeries --> Core
TimeSeries --> MKLRedist
TorchSharp --> Core
TorchSharp --> ImageAnalytics
TorchSharp --> Tokenizers
TorchSharp --> TorchSharpLib

%% Image and vision dependencies
ImageAnalytics --> Core
ImageAnalytics --> SkiaSharp
Vision --> Core
Vision --> TensorFlow

%% Framework dependencies
OnnxConverter --> Core
OnnxTransformer --> Core
OnnxTransformer --> OnnxRuntime
OnnxTransformer --> GoogleProtobuf
TensorFlow --> Core
TensorFlow --> ImageAnalytics
TensorFlow --> TensorFlowNET

%% Intel MKL dependencies
MKLComponents --> Core
MKLComponents --> MKLRedist
MKLComponents --> OneDal

%% Other package dependencies
Ensemble --> Core
EntryPoints --> Core
Experimental --> Core
FairLearn --> Core
FairLearn --> DataAnalysis
FairLearn --> AutoML
Parquet --> Core
Parquet --> ParquetNet
DataAnalysis --> ApacheArrow

%% GenAI dependencies
GenAICore --> TorchSharpLib
GenAICore --> AutoGenCore
GenAICore --> MSExtensionsAI
GenAICore --> SemanticKernel
GenAILLaMA --> GenAICore
GenAILLaMA --> TorchSharpLib
GenAIMistral --> GenAICore
GenAIPhi --> GenAICore

%% DNN Image Featurizer dependencies
DnnFeaturizerAlexNet --> OnnxTransformer
DnnFeaturizerAlexNet --> DnnFeaturizerModelRedist
DnnFeaturizerResNet18 --> OnnxTransformer
DnnFeaturizerResNet18 --> DnnFeaturizerModelRedist
DnnFeaturizerResNet50 --> OnnxTransformer
DnnFeaturizerResNet50 --> DnnFeaturizerModelRedist
DnnFeaturizerResNet101 --> OnnxTransformer
DnnFeaturizerResNet101 --> DnnFeaturizerModelRedist

%% Tokenizer dependencies
Tokenizers --> GoogleProtobuf
TokenizersGpt2 --> Tokenizers
TokenizersR50k --> Tokenizers
TokenizersP50k --> Tokenizers
TokenizersO200k --> Tokenizers
TokenizersCl100k --> Tokenizers

%% Styling for readability and larger text
classDef external fill:#ffebcd,stroke:#d2691e,stroke-width:4px,font-size:18px,font-weight:bold
classDef core fill:#e6f3ff,stroke:#0066cc,stroke-width:4px,font-size:18px,font-weight:bold
classDef algorithm fill:#f0f8e6,stroke:#228b22,stroke-width:4px,font-size:18px,font-weight:bold
classDef bundled fill:#ffefd5,stroke:#ff8c00,stroke-width:4px,font-size:18px,font-weight:bold
classDef subgraphStyle fill:#f9f9f9,stroke:#333,stroke-width:3px,font-size:20px,font-weight:bold

class SkiaSharp,LightGBMNative,OnnxRuntime,TensorFlowNET,TorchSharpLib,ApacheArrow,ParquetNet,GoogleProtobuf,AutoGenCore,MSExtensionsAI,SemanticKernel external
class DataView,Core,Extensions core
class AutoML,CodeGen,FastTree,LightGBM,Recommender,TimeSeries,TorchSharp,ImageAnalytics,DnnFeaturizerAlexNet,DnnFeaturizerResNet18,DnnFeaturizerResNet50,DnnFeaturizerResNet101,DnnFeaturizerModelRedist,Vision,OnnxConverter,OnnxTransformer,TensorFlow,MKLComponents,Ensemble,EntryPoints,Experimental,FairLearn,Parquet,DataAnalysis,GenAICore,GenAILLaMA,GenAIMistral,GenAIPhi,Tokenizers,TokenizersGpt2,TokenizersR50k,TokenizersP50k,TokenizersO200k,TokenizersCl100k,SampleUtils algorithm
class CpuMath,MKLRedist,OneDal bundled
```