fix: unify default for conversations_field [skip-e2e] (#3070)

* fix: unify default for conversations_field

* fix: suggestion to remove defaults

docs/multimodal.qmd

@@ -42,7 +42,6 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
 
 # (optional) if doing lora, only finetune the Language model,
 # leave the vision model and vision tower frozen

examples/archived/deepcoder/deepcoder-14B-preview-lora.yml

@@ -9,10 +9,6 @@ strict: false
 datasets:
   - path: fozziethebeat/alpaca_messages_2k_test
     type: chat_template
-    field_messages: messages
-    message_property_mappings:
-      role: role
-      content: content
 
 dataset_prepared_path:
 val_set_size: 0.05

examples/deepcogito/cogito-v1-preview-llama-3B-lora.yml

@@ -9,10 +9,6 @@ strict: false
 datasets:
   - path: fozziethebeat/alpaca_messages_2k_test
     type: chat_template
-    field_messages: messages
-    message_property_mappings:
-      role: role
-      content: content
 
 dataset_prepared_path:
 val_set_size: 0.05

examples/deepcogito/cogito-v1-preview-qwen-14B-lora.yml

@@ -9,10 +9,6 @@ strict: false
 datasets:
   - path: fozziethebeat/alpaca_messages_2k_test
     type: chat_template
-    field_messages: messages
-    message_property_mappings:
-      role: role
-      content: content
 
 dataset_prepared_path:
 val_set_size: 0.05

examples/gemma3/gemma-3-4b-vision-qlora.yml

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
+
 dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0.01
 output_dir: ./outputs/out

examples/llama-3/instruct-lora-8b.yml

@@ -12,15 +12,6 @@ chat_template: llama3
 datasets:
   - path: fozziethebeat/alpaca_messages_2k_test
     type: chat_template
-    field_messages: messages
-    message_property_mappings:
-      role: role
-      content: content
-    roles:
-      user:
-        - user
-      assistant:
-        - assistant
 
 dataset_prepared_path:
 val_set_size: 0.05

examples/llama-4/do-no-use-fa2/scout-vision-qlora-fsdp.yaml

@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
 
 dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0.0

examples/llama-4/scout-vision-qlora-fsdp2-flex.yaml

@@ -45,7 +45,6 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
 
 dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0.0

examples/phi/lora-3.5.yaml

@@ -12,15 +12,6 @@ chat_template: phi_3
 datasets:
   - path: fozziethebeat/alpaca_messages_2k_test
     type: chat_template
-    field_messages: messages
-    message_property_mappings:
-      role: role
-      content: content
-    roles:
-      user:
-        - user
-      assistant:
-        - assistant
 
 dataset_prepared_path:
 val_set_size: 0.05

examples/qwen2-vl/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
+
 dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0.0
 output_dir: ./outputs/out

examples/qwen2_5-vl/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@ datasets:
   - path: HuggingFaceH4/llava-instruct-mix-vsft
     type: chat_template
     split: train[:1%]
-    field_messages: messages
+
 dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0.0
 output_dir: ./outputs/out

src/axolotl/core/datasets/transforms/chat_builder.py

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ from typing import Any, Mapping
 
 def chat_message_transform_builder(
     train_on_inputs=False,
-    conversations_field: str = "conversations",
+    conversations_field: str = "messages",
     message_field_role: str | list[str] | None = None,  # commonly "role"
     message_field_content: str | list[str] | None = None,  # commonly "content"
     message_field_training: str | list[str] | None = None,  # commonly "weight"
@@ -20,13 +20,13 @@ def chat_message_transform_builder(
             If True, the transform will train on the inputs. If False, the transform will train on the targets.
             Defaults to False.
         conversations_field (str, optional):
-            The field name of the conversations. Defaults to "conversations".
+            The field name of the conversations. Defaults to "messages".
         message_field_role (str | list[str], optional):
-            The field name of the role. Defaults to "role".
+            The field name of the role.
         message_field_content (str | list[str], optional):
-            The field name of the message content. Defaults to "content".
+            The field name of the message content.
         message_field_training (str | list[str], optional):
-            The field name of the train/weight. Defaults to "weight".
+            The field name of the train/weight.
 
     Returns:
         Callable: