Databricks Dolly 15k
15,000 high-quality human-generated prompt/response pairs. Specifically designed for commercial use without restrictive licenses.
from datasets import load_dataset
ds = load_dataset("databricks/databricks-dolly-15k")Preview a sample row
{
"instruction": "Why is the sky blue?",
"context": "",
"response": "The sky appears blue to the human eye as the short waves of blue light are scattered more than the other colors..."
}Fine-tune with this dataset
Estimated VRAM to fine-tune with QLoRA (4-bit base model + LoRA adapters), using conservative defaults:
New to fine-tuning? Follow the step-by-step walkthrough: Fine-Tune Your First LLM in 1 Hour
Frequently asked questions
Can I use Databricks Dolly 15k commercially?
Yes — Databricks Dolly 15k is released under CC-BY-SA 3.0, a permissive license that allows commercial use, including training models you ship in a product. Check the dataset card for attribution requirements before release.
How much data does Databricks Dolly 15k contain, and do I need all of it?
Databricks Dolly 15k contains 15k Rows. You rarely need all of it: for style and format fine-tuning, a few hundred to a few thousand examples are enough — load a slice (e.g. split="train[:1000]") and scale up only if quality plateaus.
What is Databricks Dolly 15k best used for?
Commercially safe instruction tuning - fully human-written. It belongs to the Instruction / SFT section of our dataset hub, where you'll find alternatives and complementary sets.