autumn-kvcache 0.1.0__tar.gz

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@@ -0,0 +1,323 @@
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+ Metadata-Version: 2.4
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+ Name: autumn-kvcache
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+ Version: 0.1.0
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+ Summary: sglang HiCache L3 and vLLM KV-connector backends on autumn-rs
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+ Author: autumn-rs contributors
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+ License: Apache-2.0
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+ Project-URL: Homepage, https://github.com/journeymidnight/autumn_kvcache
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+ Requires-Python: >=3.8
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+ Description-Content-Type: text/markdown
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+ License-File: LICENSE
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+ Requires-Dist: autumn-rs==0.1.0
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+ Requires-Dist: numpy
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+ Provides-Extra: sglang
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+ Dynamic: license-file
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+
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+ # autumn-kvcache
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+
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+ Daemon-less KV-cache **L3 storage backends** built on the autumn-rs partition
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+ layer. Two adapters, one data plane (`autumn.BatchClient` + the sync/async
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+ `_bridge`):
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+
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+ | Adapter | Engine | Contract | Module |
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+ |---------|--------|----------|--------|
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+ | `AutumnKVCacheStorage` | **sglang** | HiCache `HiCacheStorage` (L3) | `autumn_kvcache.sglang_backend` |
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+ | `AutumnKVConnector` | **vLLM** | `KVConnectorBase_V1` (external KV transfer) | `autumn_kvcache.vllm_connector` |
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+
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+ ## Which autumn-rs this tracks
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+
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+ `AUTUMN_REV` names the autumn-rs commit this tree was last verified against.
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+ It matters more than a normal version pin: the adapters ride autumn's rkyv
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+ client, and a client/cluster mismatch does **not** fail the handshake — it can
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+ decode garbage. FreeToken's `docker/Dockerfile.freetoken-l3` carries the same
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+ pin as `AUTUMN_IMAGE_PIN` for exactly this reason.
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+
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+ The PyO3 extension (`import autumn`) is the `autumn-rs` distribution on PyPI:
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+ one manylinux abi3 wheel per architecture for every CPython >= 3.11. Its
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+ version must match the cluster's autumn-rs release; for a cluster built from
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+ another commit, build the extension from that commit (below).
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+
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+ There is **no daemon and no local DRAM cache** — the autumn partition layer is
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+ the only persistence path. KV pages are content-addressed
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+ (`kvc/{h}/{model_scope}/{pool}/{hash}/{layer}`, `h` = the hash's first hex
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+ char), so there is no invalidation. The cluster serves them once the `kvc`
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+ namespace exists: `autumn-op namespace-create --name kvc --parts 16` registers
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+ it and cuts it at `kvc/<hex>` (autumn-rs `cluster.sh` does this on its first
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+ start). `h` comes first so those 16 partitions take every model's pages with
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+ no per-model step.
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+
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+ ## Install
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ pip install autumn-kvcache # pulls autumn-rs, the native `autumn` client
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+ pip install "git+https://github.com/journeymidnight/autumn_kvcache@<rev>" # or from git
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+ ```
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+
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+ The native client from source, for a cluster at another commit or for RDMA
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+ (an autumn-rs checkout at that commit):
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ cd autumn-rs/python
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+ maturin build --release --interpreter /path/to/venv/bin/python
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+ # for UCX: add `--features ucx --auditwheel skip`; the wheel must link the
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+ # system UCX, since auditwheel's bundled copy has no mlx5 transport modules
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+ # and the client then cannot connect over RDMA
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+ /path/to/venv/bin/pip install --force-reinstall target/wheels/autumn_rs-*.whl
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+ ```
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+
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+ Both adapter modules import **without** the engine (sglang / vLLM) installed —
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+ the engine import is defensive — so `python -c "from
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+ autumn_kvcache.vllm_connector import AutumnKVConnector"` works for tooling and
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+ the data-plane smoke test regardless.
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+
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+ ## Faster reads: the partition server's memory tier
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+
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+ Start the partition servers with `--mem-tier-bytes <budget> --mem-tier-prefix kvc/`
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+ and KV pages are held in their DRAM and acknowledged without a log write; reads
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+ come from memory. Pages held there are lost on a PS restart (a cache miss, then
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+ recompute). Measured with SGLang + Qwen3-VL-32B: per-request p50 1344 → 980 ms,
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+ 2 GiB fetch 999 → 699 ms. See autumn-rs `docs/ops.md` ("Memory tier for KV cache").
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+
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+ The tier evicts least recently used first, and among pages used at about the
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+ same time the deeper ones first, so a prefix loses its tail before its head
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+ (a hit is a run of pages from the start). The adapters pass each page's
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+ position in its prefix with the write (`evict_rank`, autumn wire 87): vLLM the
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+ prefix's length; sglang `(pages before the batch + page index) × page_size`.
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+ sglang tells the backend the pages before a batch only with
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+ `"hicache_storage_pass_prefix_keys": true` in
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+ `--hicache-storage-backend-extra-config`; set it. Without it every batch ranks
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+ from 0, and even with it a node written from the root over several 128-page
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+ batches gets an empty list after the first (sglang only extends a non-empty
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+ one): those batches rank from 0 too, which orders them by write time alone.
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+
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+ The tier can evict a prefix's layers while its vLLM `__present__` marker stays.
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+ A load that then finds a layer missing injects nothing, and the connector
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+ deletes that marker (the worker its own rank's, the scheduler the one it
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+ probes), so the next request for the prefix saves it again. Run vLLM with
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+ `kv_load_failure_policy="recompute"`: under the default `"fail"` the request
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+ whose load failed ends with an error instead of being recomputed.
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+
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+ ## Using autumn-kvcache as a vLLM L3 (cross-instance prefix cache)
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+
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+ `AutumnKVConnector` is a native vLLM V1 KV connector (Phase 3a — CPU-offload
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+ path). It offloads each request's block-aligned prompt-prefix KV into autumn on
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+ the producing instance, and loads it back on **any** instance that later sees
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+ the same prefix — a cross-instance / cross-restart prefix cache backed by the
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+ partition layer, with no extra service to run.
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+
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+ > **Pinned vLLM:** verified against **vLLM 0.23.0** (torch 2.11). The
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+ > `KVConnectorBase_V1` signatures drift across vLLM releases (e.g. the external
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+ > connector constructor gained a 3rd `kv_cache_config` argument); the adapter
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+ > forwards it when present and falls back to the 2-arg form, but pin a known
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+ > version in production.
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+
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+ Point both engines at a running autumn cluster's **manager** endpoint and give
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+ each `vllm serve` the connector config:
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+
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+ ```bash
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+ KVCFG='{
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+ "kv_connector":"AutumnKVConnector",
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+ "kv_connector_module_path":"autumn_kvcache.vllm_connector",
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+ "kv_role":"kv_both",
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+ "kv_connector_extra_config":{"endpoint":"127.0.0.1:9001","transport":"tcp"}
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+ }'
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+
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+ # instance 1 (e.g. GPU 0)
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+ CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0 vllm serve /models/Qwen3-8B --served-model-name qwen3 \
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+ --port 8101 --enforce-eager --kv-transfer-config "$KVCFG"
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+
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+ # instance 2 (e.g. GPU 1) — a SEPARATE engine, empty local prefix cache
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+ CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=1 vllm serve /models/Qwen3-8B --served-model-name qwen3 \
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+ --port 8102 --enforce-eager --kv-transfer-config "$KVCFG"
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+ ```
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+
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+ `kv_connector_extra_config` keys: `endpoint` (autumn manager `host:port`,
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+ required), `transport` (`tcp` default, or `ucx`), `max_inflight`, `ttl_secs`,
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+ `model_id` (optional explicit model identity — see below). The client reads
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+ with one Rust worker: ~5 GB/s per rank on TCP, ~42 GB/s on UCX (rendezvous
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+ into the page); `client_workers` is no longer read.
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+
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+ ### What the external cache does (and does not) speed up
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+
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+ The connector is an **L3** behind vLLM's own local prefix cache (GPU + host
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+ RAM). vLLM matches the local cache first and asks the connector only for the
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+ tokens *beyond* the local match, because remote storage is slower than a local
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+ hit — you would never want to prefer autumn over GPU cache. Concretely:
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+
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+ - **Same engine, repeated prompt** → the local prefix cache serves it, so the
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+ external cache is (correctly) never *loaded* and its hit rate is ~0%. This is
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+ expected, not a failure.
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+ - **A *different* engine / a *restarted* engine / after local eviction** → the
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+ local cache is cold, so the connector loads the prefix from autumn and skips
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+ prefill. This is the whole point (measured: a 1.3 k-token prefix loads in
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+ ~0.3 s vs. ~2 s of recompute — a ~3–4× TTFT win on the cold-local path).
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+
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+ So judge the connector by **cross-instance / post-restart** hit rate, not by
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+ same-instance repeats. It also **never re-saves a prefix that is already durable
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+ in autumn** (BUG-KVC-NO-HIT): a repeat whose KV the local cache already served
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+ writes nothing, so it costs neither storage nor prefill time. (It issues one
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+ lightweight presence probe per new request to make that de-dup decision.)
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+
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+ ### Saves are asynchronous (almost nothing on the prefill critical path)
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+
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+ On the forward pass, `save_kv_layer` does **only** the cheap GPU-side gather
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+ (`_extract_layer` → a *standalone* tensor, decoupled from the paged blocks — no
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+ CPU sync). Everything expensive runs on a background thread: the D2H `.cpu()`
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+ copy, the store-dedup probe, the durable batched `put_from`, and the marker. A
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+ CUDA event lets the background thread wait for the gathers before the D2H, and
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+ the `__present__` marker is published only *after* every layer ACKs (so a reader
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+ that sees the marker always finds a complete, correct prefix — verified: an
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+ external-load reproduces vLLM's local-cache output token-for-token).
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+
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+ Measured no-hit overhead (Qwen3-VL-32B, 1 k-token prompt, H200): **TTFT +≈6 ms,
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+ TPOT ≈0** vs. no connector — i.e. a prefill that never gets reused costs almost
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+ nothing. (Before moving the D2H off the path it was +≈148 ms.) When the prefix
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+ *is* reused cross-instance, the connector skips the whole prefill instead.
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+
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+ A prompt longer than `max_num_batched_tokens` is prefilled in chunks over
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+ several steps. Each step gathers only the tokens it computed (so the GPU staging
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+ stays within vLLM's token budget), the background thread copies them into the
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+ prefix's host buffer, and the prefix is written once its last chunk is in. A
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+ layer's value larger than the partition server's 64 MiB cap (Qwen3-VL-4B: a
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+ prefix over 16K tokens) is stored as equal pieces `{layer}/{i}`.
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+
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+ At most `_MAX_INFLIGHT_SAVES` saves are in flight, from a prefix's first chunk to
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+ its write; each holds a registered host buffer the size of its prefix's KV, and
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+ the buffers grow to the longest prefix seen (at most 2 × `max_model_len` ×
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+ per-token KV). Over that a save is dropped rather than blocking prefill — it is
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+ a pure cache, so a later request re-saves. The **store-dedup also lives in the
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+ background**: a prefix already durable in autumn is neither re-copied nor
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+ re-written, so a repeated prompt (served by the local GPU cache) costs no storage
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+ and no extra latency.
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+
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+ ### Model-scope isolation: the model's real identity is part of the key
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+
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+ The model-scope segment of every key is
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+ `{model}_{fingerprint}_{tp_rank}_{tp_size}[...]`, where `fingerprint` is a
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+ short hash of the model's **identity**: architecture shape
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+ (layers / hidden / kv-heads / head-size / vocab / dtype / quantization / MLA)
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+ plus the weights source (`load_format`, and for `--load-format autumn` the
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+ autumn weights `path` from `model_loader_extra_config`), plus `model_id` if
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+ you set one, plus the **layout versions** — the running **vLLM version**
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+ (full `x.y.z`: the KV page layout is a vLLM-internal detail with no stability
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+ contract, patch releases included) and the connector's own storage-format
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+ version (`VLLM_KV_STORAGE_FORMAT`, bumped whenever the extract/inject byte
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+ layout changes).
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+
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+ This exists because the model *path* is not an identity: with
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+ a shared config dir, every model is served from the same fixed local config
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+ dir, so two different models used to share one model scope and cross-read each
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+ other's KV (observed live: Qwen2.5-7B and 32B under one model scope; a same-shape
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+ pair would have been silently wrong). Set
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+ `kv_connector_extra_config["model_id"]` when even the fingerprint can't
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+ distinguish your deployments — e.g. two finetunes with identical architecture
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+ loaded from the **same** path, or weights overwritten in place at one autumn
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+ path (don't do that — store new weights at a new path).
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+
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+ > **Upgrade note:** any change to the fingerprint inputs — **including every
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+ > vLLM version change, patch releases too** — moves the model scope, so the whole
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+ > vLLM pool goes cold and rebuilds on first use (pure cache, content-addressed
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+ > — no migration needed). This is deliberate: an upgrade already restarts the
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+ > pods (GPU cache is lost anyway), so the re-warm is a one-time, predictable
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+ > cost, whereas carrying KV across a layout-incompatible vLLM would be silent
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+ > garbage. Keys written by older connectors stay behind under the old model scope;
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+ > with `ttl_secs=0` they never expire, so reclaim them manually if you care
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+ > about the space: `client.batch_delete(f"kvc/{h}/<old-model-scope>/vllm/".encode())`
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+ > for each `h` in `0123456789abcdef` (keys from before the hash-bucket layout:
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+ > the single prefix `kvc/<old-model-scope>/`; the old model scope is in the
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+ > previous deployment's startup log).
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+
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+ **`ttl_secs`** (default `0` = no expiry) is the relative TTL after which an
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+ offloaded prefix stops being *served*. Content-addressed keys never invalidate,
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+ so a TTL is the only reclamation knob for a long-running cluster. Two caveats on
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+ what exactly it bounds:
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+
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+ - The connector writes the per-prefix completion marker with `ttl_secs` and the
236
+ layer pages with `ttl_secs + grace` (grace = 300 s), so the marker always
237
+ expires *before* its layers. The scheduler admits a load on the marker; a
238
+ marker that outlived its layers would let the worker silently load
239
+ uninitialised KV (a correctness bug). So `ttl_secs` bounds **admissibility**
240
+ (when the prefix can still be hit); the layer **data** lingers ~`grace`
241
+ longer before its own lazy expiry.
242
+ - Reclamation is **lazy** (keys are dropped on read after they expire, plus
243
+ background compaction), not a hard wall-clock free — size capacity planning
244
+ accordingly.
245
+
246
+ ### Verifying the cross-instance hit
247
+
248
+ Send a long prompt (longer than the cache block size) to **instance 1**, then
249
+ the **same** prompt to **instance 2**. Instance 2 has never seen it locally, so
250
+ any external-cache hit is served from autumn:
251
+
252
+ ```bash
253
+ curl -s localhost:8101/v1/completions -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
254
+ -d '{"model":"qwen3","prompt":"<long prompt>","max_tokens":1}' >/dev/null
255
+ curl -s localhost:8102/v1/completions -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
256
+ -d '{"model":"qwen3","prompt":"<same long prompt>","max_tokens":1}' >/dev/null
257
+
258
+ # instance 2's connector metrics now show the cross-instance hit:
259
+ curl -s localhost:8102/metrics | grep -E \
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+ 'vllm:external_prefix_cache_hits_total|external_kv_transfer'
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+ # vllm:external_prefix_cache_hits_total{...} 272.0
262
+ # vllm:prompt_tokens_by_source_total{source="external_kv_transfer"} 272.0
263
+ ```
264
+
265
+ (vLLM 0.23's OpenAI `usage` does **not** surface `cached_tokens` for the
266
+ connector path — use the `vllm:external_prefix_cache_*` /
267
+ `prompt_tokens_by_source{source="external_kv_transfer"}` metrics, which are the
268
+ authoritative external-hit signal.)
269
+
270
+ A scripted version of this check is `tests/` + the e2e in the repo.
271
+
272
+ ## Data-plane smoke test (no engine required)
273
+
274
+ Exercises the autumn-facing core (`_AutumnKVStore`) against a real 1-node
275
+ cluster — key format, byte-exact page store/load round-trip, existence probe:
276
+
277
+ ```bash
278
+ AUTUMN_KVCACHE_ENDPOINT=127.0.0.1:9001 AUTUMN_KVCACHE_TRANSPORT=tcp \
279
+ python -m tests.test_vllm_dataplane # run from this repo root
280
+ ```
281
+
282
+ ## Architecture notes
283
+
284
+ - **Stateless adapter / content-addressed keys** — no invalidation, partition
285
+ is the only persistence path.
286
+ - **TTL reclamation (`ttl_secs`)** — both adapters accept `ttl_secs` in their
287
+ extra-config (vLLM `kv_connector_extra_config`, sglang
288
+ `hicache-storage-backend-extra-config`); default `0` = no expiry. The
289
+ partition layer expires keys lazily on read. The sglang backend just stamps
290
+ every page (its own L1/L2 + hash manage existence, so an expired L3 key is a
291
+ clean miss); the vLLM connector additionally keeps the completion marker's TTL
292
+ shorter than its layers' (see above) to preserve load correctness.
293
+ - **sglang host-pool layouts** — a page is read into, and written from, the
294
+ host pool itself. Where the page (MLA `page_first*`) or each of its K/V
295
+ halves (MHA `page_first*`) is a window into the pool, it moves with no copy;
296
+ otherwise (`layer_first`, the default, and pools that assemble a page, such
297
+ as Mamba) it is copied out to write, and a read lands in a scratch buffer
298
+ that `set_from_flat_data_page` puts into the pool. Stored bytes follow the
299
+ pool's own order, so every layout but `layer_first` carries its name in the
300
+ key: instances with different layouts never read each other's pages. For the
301
+ copy-free path, run sglang with `--hicache-mem-layout page_first_direct`; the
302
+ copy path keeps a scratch buffer the size of one batch (128 pages) on each of
303
+ sglang's backup and prefetch threads.
304
+ These layouts need the v1 interface (`"interface_v1": 1`); the v0 wrappers
305
+ use the untagged key.
306
+ - **No duplicate writes** — a page already stored (all of its values present)
307
+ is not written again; one existence probe per batch. Its `ttl_secs`
308
+ therefore counts from the first write: backing a hot page up again does not
309
+ extend it.
310
+ - **Return fast** — never block past the engine's step budget; the load path is
311
+ synchronous in Phase 3a (per-layer overlap is Phase 3b).
312
+ - **Model-scope isolation** — keys carry a model scope derived from model +
313
+ model-identity fingerprint (`_identity.py`) + TP/PP, so different models /
314
+ parallel layouts never alias. The sglang model-scope format is unchanged
315
+ (`model_name` is a real identity there); its escape hatch is
316
+ `extra_config["model_id"]`.
317
+
318
+ ## Offline unit tests (no cluster, no engine, no native module)
319
+
320
+ ```bash
321
+ uv run --with pytest python -m pytest tests/test_model_identity.py -q # from this repo root
322
+ python -m pytest tests/test_page_layouts.py -q # needs torch; every sglang host-pool layout
323
+ ```