transformer-lens-interpretability
TransformerLens: Mechanistic Interpretability for Transformers
TransformerLens is the de facto standard library for mechanistic interpretability research on GPT-style language models. Created by Neel Nanda and maintained by Bryce Meyer, it provides clean interfaces to inspect and manipulate model internals via HookPoints on every activation.
GitHub: TransformerLensOrg/TransformerLens (2,900+ stars)
When to Use TransformerLens
Use TransformerLens when you need to:
- Reverse-engineer algorithms learned during training
- Perform activation patching / causal tracing experiments
- Study attention patterns and information flow
- Analyze circuits (e.g., induction heads, IOI circuit)
- Cache and inspect intermediate activations
- Apply direct logit attribution
Consider alternatives when:
- You need to work with non-transformer architectures → Use nnsight or pyvene
- You want to train/analyze Sparse Autoencoders → Use SAELens
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