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Piotr Wilkin (ilintar) ad1de39e07
model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185)
* model: add Kimi-K3 text model

Hybrid KDA (linear) + MLA (full) attention as in Kimi-Linear-48B, plus five
things that architecture does not have:

  1. cross-layer residual attention  (attn_res_block_size)
  2. latent MoE                      (routed experts run at n_expert_latent)
  3. situ activation                 (replaces SwiGLU everywhere)
  4. MLA output gate                 (sigmoid gate before o_proj)
  5. full-rank KDA gate              (single ssm_g instead of ssm_g_a/ssm_g_b)

K3's text_config reports KimiLinearForCausalLM - the older 48B architecture -
so get_model_architecture routes on the top-level name instead.

The KDA decay gate has two forms, selected by linear_attn_config's
gate_lower_bound. It is not a clamp: when set it swaps the activation entirely
(fla/ops/kda/gate.py), from -exp(A_log)*softplus(x) to
lower_bound*sigmoid(exp(A_log)*x). K3 sets it to -5.0; kimi-linear leaves it
unset, so that path is unchanged.

Cross-layer residuals reuse ggml_dsv4_hc_pre for the weighted sum. That op is
CPU + CUDA only, so Metal/Vulkan will fall back per-node until those kernels
exist.

The routed experts ship as compressed-tensors "mxfp4-pack-quantized". That is
bit-compatible with ggml's MXFP4 - same E2M1 code assignment, same E8M0 scale
byte, only the nibble positions within a block differ - so they are repacked
rather than dequantized, losslessly and without a ~5.5 TB bf16 round-trip.
The repack is built lazily because gguf_writer holds every added tensor until
the final write. DeepSeek-V4 was already doing the identical bit-shuffling, so
it now shares the helper.

Verified against Moonshot's own code path (transformers + fla's Triton KDA
kernels) on a tiny model exercising every K3-specific feature. Final-position
logits vs the fp32 reference: 6.7e-05 rel / corr 1.00000000 for both the
chunked and the recurrent delta-net path. MXFP4 blocks dequantize to the source
weights with 0.0e+00 error.

Assisted-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* model: fix ty errors in the Kimi-K3 converter

- `_res_parts` buffers (kind, tensor) pairs, not bare tensors
- `get_tensors` must return an Iterator, matching ModelBase
- LazyBase's `func` takes one argument, so pass the expert loaders through
  `args` instead of the closure
- borrowing KimiLinearModel.set_vocab from an unrelated TextModel is
  deliberate and safe, but not expressible in the signature

No behaviour change: the MXFP4 repack still dequantizes to the source weights
with 0.0e+00 error and end-to-end logits are unchanged (8.386e-03 rel,
corr 0.99996630).

Assisted-By: Claude Opus 5 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

* Update conversion/kimi_k3.py

Co-authored-by: Boris Dvorkin  <b_dvorkin@niuitmo.ru>

* Increase LLAMA_MAX_EXPERTS from 512 to 1024

* tests : support for Kimi K3 in archs test

* chat : add Kimi K3 chat format (reasoning, content, typed tool calls)

K3's assistant output is an XTML-ish tagged format built by the template's
open_tag/close_tag macros. Two properties break generic parsing:

1. The generation prompt ends with open_tag('think'), so the completion
   starts inside the think section with no opening marker in the output
   (thinking_forced_open).
2. Only <|open|>/<|close|>/<|sep|>/<|end_of_msg|> are special tokens; tag
   names ("think", "response", "message") are ordinary text tokens.

Adds common_chat_params_init_kimi_k3 (PEG_NATIVE) with detection on the
marker trio, reasoning extraction, response unwrapping, and tool-call
parsing of the tools/call/argument tag structure with argument types
taken from the tool schema. Includes the K3 chat template fixture and 9
test-chat cases derived from real generations of the full 2.8T model.

Verified end-to-end against Kimi-K3-Q2_K (GrEarl/Kimi-K3-GGUF) on 8x B200:
content, reasoning_content, streaming deltas, and tool_calls all correct;
finish_reason stop/tool_calls as appropriate.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* chat : add message_delimiters for Kimi K3

Per-role message-start markers for token-level span splitting. User and
assistant messages carry only the role attribute, so their full opener
(through <|sep|>) is used; system and tool messages continue with more
attributes (type=/tool=/index=), so those delimiters stop after the
role's closing quote. Verified against the K3 tiktoken vocabulary that
the closing quote is always a standalone token across all attribute
variants, so the token-level prefix match stays exact.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

* fix: apply nits from @ngxson and text fixes from @danielhanchen

* tests : added missing hyperparameters and tensors for Kimi K3 in test-llama-archs

* chore : move overly verbose header file comments to Kimi K3 source file

* tests : re-enabled KIMI_K3 in test-llama-archs for WebGPU backend

* model-saver : emit kda_gate_lower_bound for Kimi K3

Quick fix. The Kimi K3 loader reads kda_gate_lower_bound and gates a graph branch on it (it scales the KDA gate when the bound is above -INFINITY), but the model
saver never wrote the key, so a save->load roundtrip silently dropped it back to the -INFINITY default and changed the model's output. The real K3 config sets gate_lower_bound = -5.0.

I propose to emit it from the saver, and set it to -5.0 in the test-llama-archs K3 case so the roundtrip check exercises it (the roundtrip fails without the saver line).

* Refactor conditional for model architecture check

* tests : re-enabled (again) KIMI_K3 and MINIMAX_M3 in test-llama-archs for WebGPU backend

* fix code comments

* add template on conversion

* move repack_mxfp4_blocks to model base

* nits

* add_value_length

* optimize res_stack construction

* nits

---------

Co-authored-by: Boris Dvorkin <b_dvorkin@niuitmo.ru>
Co-authored-by: Stanisław Szymczyk <sszymczy@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Deepankar Singh <singh.deepankar39@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Claude Fable 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Co-authored-by: Caleb DeLeeuw <caleb.deleeuw@gmail.com>
Co-authored-by: Xuan Son Nguyen <son@huggingface.co>
2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
.devops ci: rm GGML_HIP_ROCWMMA_FATTN (#26760) 2026-08-09 18:15:28 +08:00
.gemini contributing: tighten AI usage policy (#18388) 2025-12-29 16:01:32 +01:00
.github ci: fix thread sanitizer + remove ccache (#26927) 2026-08-12 19:01:12 +03:00
.pi/gg pi : remove docs from system prompt (#24791) 2026-06-19 09:34:00 +03:00
app cmake : introduce semantic versioning (#26839) 2026-08-12 14:15:03 +02:00
benches benches : add Nemotron 3 Nano on DGX Spark (#20652) 2026-03-16 21:50:43 +02:00
ci tests : disable backend sampler hip multi output (#26878) 2026-08-11 07:21:32 +03:00
cmake cmake : introduce semantic versioning (#26839) 2026-08-12 14:15:03 +02:00
common model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
conversion model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
docs common: migrate the deprecated --mmap/--no-mmap to --load-mode (#26934) 2026-08-15 16:35:53 +08:00
examples fix: check gguf array type before reading (#27075) 2026-08-15 11:45:30 +02:00
ggml vulkan: add SHMEM_STRIDE_PAD/APPLY_SLM_A_RESHAPE for coopmat1 on Intel Xe (#25380) 2026-08-15 11:35:05 +02:00
gguf-py model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
grammars docs : fix typos in CUDA-FEDORA.md and grammars/README.md (#24459) 2026-06-15 01:33:38 +08:00
include cmake : introduce semantic versioning (#26839) 2026-08-12 14:15:03 +02:00
licenses refactor : remove libcurl, use OpenSSL when available (#18828) 2026-01-14 18:02:47 +01:00
media media : add transparent icon svg and png [no ci] (#15891) 2025-09-10 14:51:28 +03:00
models model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
pocs libs : rename libcommon -> libllama-common (#21936) 2026-04-17 11:11:46 +03:00
requirements requirements: use stable torch packages on s390x (#26864) 2026-08-11 21:58:53 +08:00
scripts vendor : update cpp-httplib to 0.53.1 (#27103) 2026-08-15 13:40:44 +02:00
skills fix: check gguf array type before reading (#27075) 2026-08-15 11:45:30 +02:00
src model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
tests model: add Kimi-K3 text model (#26185) 2026-08-15 17:11:05 +02:00
tools server: re-design yield_to_queue thread model (#27133) 2026-08-15 16:48:40 +02:00
vendor vendor: update BoringSSL to 0.20260813.0 (#27099) 2026-08-15 13:41:18 +02:00
.clang-format fix: apply clang-format to CUDA macros (#16017) 2025-09-16 08:59:19 +02:00
.clang-tidy clang-tidy : disable warning about performance enum size (#16127) 2025-09-22 19:57:46 +02:00
.dockerignore docker : prebuild web UI for s390x build [no release] (#24829) 2026-06-20 05:54:42 -05:00
.ecrc common : Update stb_image.h to latest version (#9161) 2024-08-27 08:58:50 +03:00
.editorconfig ui: Restructure repo to use tools/ui folder and ui / UI / llama-ui / LLAMA_UI naming (#23064) 2026-05-16 02:02:40 +02:00
.flake8 llama : move end-user examples to tools directory (#13249) 2025-05-02 20:27:13 +02:00
.gitignore ui: PWA support (#23871) 2026-06-12 15:53:26 +02:00
.gitmodules ggml : remove kompute backend (#14501) 2025-07-03 07:48:32 +03:00
.pre-commit-config.yaml convert.py : add python logging instead of print() (#6511) 2024-05-03 22:36:41 +03:00
AGENTS.md agents: clarify comment style and jinja knowledge (#26405) 2026-08-01 18:45:46 +02:00
AUTHORS authors : update (#19263) 2026-02-02 08:51:25 +02:00
build-xcframework.sh build : remove GGML_METAL_USE_BF16 from all build scripts (#26604) 2026-08-05 10:44:34 +02:00
CLAUDE.md contributing: tighten AI usage policy (#18388) 2025-12-29 16:01:32 +01:00
CMakeLists.txt cmake : introduce semantic versioning (#26839) 2026-08-12 14:15:03 +02:00
CMakePresets.json cmake : Add CMake presets for Linux and GCC (#14656) 2025-07-13 08:12:36 +03:00
CODEOWNERS HIP: remove rocWMMA FlashAttention (#26046) 2026-07-24 17:53:54 +02:00
CONTRIBUTING.md contrib : add guideline about the "merge ready" label (#26178) 2026-07-28 08:41:04 +03:00
convert_hf_to_gguf.py convert: add option to create separate dspark GGUF (#26452) 2026-08-02 23:16:31 +08:00
convert_hf_to_gguf_update.py Add support for Laguna XS.2 & M.1 (#25165) 2026-07-22 09:54:08 +08:00
convert_llama_ggml_to_gguf.py ci : switch from pyright to ty (#20826) 2026-03-21 08:54:34 +01:00
convert_lora_to_gguf.py convert : fix lora base model arch retrieval (#24621) 2026-06-15 00:55:26 +02:00
flake.nix fix(nix): remove non-functional llama-cpp cachix cache from flake.nix (#15295) 2025-08-13 11:21:31 -07:00
LICENSE docs : Minor cleanups (#19252) 2026-02-02 08:38:55 +02:00
Makefile make : remove make in favor of CMake (#15449) 2025-08-20 13:31:16 +03:00
mypy.ini convert : partially revert PR #4818 (#5041) 2024-01-20 18:14:18 -05:00
pyproject.toml model: add Mellum architecture (#23966) 2026-06-02 22:11:12 +03:00
pyrightconfig.json ci : switch from pyright to ty (#20826) 2026-03-21 08:54:34 +01:00
README.md cmake : introduce semantic versioning (#26839) 2026-08-12 14:15:03 +02:00
requirements.txt tool-call: fix Qwen 2.5 Coder support, add micro benchmarks, support trigger patterns for lazy grammars (#12034) 2025-03-05 13:05:13 +00:00
SECURITY.md security : clarify about AI-generated reports (#26579) 2026-08-05 13:27:06 +02:00
ty.toml mtmd : DeepSeek-OCR image processing fixes, img_tool::resize padding refactor (#23345) 2026-05-20 17:37:10 +02:00

llama.cpp

llama

Quick start

A few options to get llama.cpp installed on your machine:

Once installed:

# Download and run a model directly from Hugging Face
llama cli -hf ggml-org/Qwen3.5-0.8B-GGUF

# Launch OpenAI-compatible API server
llama serve -hf ggml-org/Qwen3.5-0.8B-GGUF
VLM session with `llama cli` VLM session with llama cli Built-in web UI against `llama serve` running Qwen 3.6 Built-in web UI against llama serve

Description

The main goal of llama.cpp is to enable LLM (and VLM) inference with minimal setup and state-of-the-art performance on a wide range of hardware - locally and in the cloud.

  • Plain C/C++ implementation without any dependencies
  • Apple silicon is a first-class citizen - optimized via ARM NEON, Accelerate and Metal frameworks
  • AVX, AVX2, AVX512 and AMX support for x86 architectures
  • RVV, ZVFH, ZFH, ZICBOP and ZIHINTPAUSE support for RISC-V architectures
  • 1.5-bit, 2-bit, 3-bit, 4-bit, 5-bit, 6-bit, and 8-bit integer quantization for faster inference and reduced memory use
  • Custom CUDA kernels for running LLMs on NVIDIA GPUs (support for AMD GPUs via HIP and Moore Threads GPUs via MUSA)
  • Vulkan and SYCL backend support
  • CPU+GPU hybrid inference to partially accelerate models larger than the total VRAM capacity

The llama.cpp project is build on top of the ggml library.

Supported backends

Backend Target devices
BLAS All
BLIS All
CANN Ascend NPU
CUDA Nvidia GPU
HIP AMD GPU
Hexagon [In Progress] Snapdragon
IBM zDNN IBM Z & LinuxONE
MUSA Moore Threads GPU
Metal Apple Silicon
OpenCL Adreno GPU
OpenVINO [In Progress] Intel CPUs, GPUs, and NPUs
RPC All
SYCL Intel GPU
VirtGPU VirtGPU APIR
Vulkan GPU
WebGPU All
ZenDNN AMD CPU

Documentation

Tools

Development

Contributing

  • Contributors can open PRs
  • Collaborators will be invited based on contributions
  • Maintainers can push to branches in the llama.cpp repo and merge PRs into the master branch
  • Any help with managing issues, PRs and projects is very appreciated!
  • Read the CONTRIBUTING.md for more information

Acknowledgements

  • yhirose/cpp-httplib - Single-header HTTP server, used by llama-server - MIT license
  • stb-image - Single-header image format decoder, used by multimodal subsystem - Public domain
  • nlohmann/json - Single-header JSON library, used by various tools/examples - MIT License
  • miniaudio.h - Single-header audio format decoder, used by multimodal subsystem - Public domain
  • subprocess.h - Single-header process launching solution for C and C++ - Public domain