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feat(#1311 A2-D1): NemotronH decodes on the single-step recurrent kernels; the equivalence is gated at n_groups=8 and the speed hypothesis is refuted on sm_110 - #1362

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feat(#1311 A2-D1): NemotronH decodes on the single-step recurrent kernels; the equivalence is gated at n_groups=8 and the speed hypothesis is refuted on sm_110#1362
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NemotronH ran the chunked prefill mamba kernels on its decode rows, and
vt::Mamba2StateUpdate — the port of selective_state_update, registered on
CUDA (cuda_gdn.cu:6672) and CPU (cpu_ops.cpp:3408) and gated since
mamba2-ssd.md W2 landed on 2026-08-13 — had zero callers under src/vllm/.
That is a live AGENTS.md "Nothing lands dead" case, and closing it is half of
why this unit exists.

vLLM branches its Mamba2 mixer on has_decode (mamba_mixer2.py:981) and runs
causal_conv1d_update :1012 and selective_state_update :1087 on the
decode rows. Both take state indices and update the cache in place at the slot,
so upstream's decode half performs neither a gather nor a scatter. A2-Q1 ran
vt::CausalConv1dFwd + vt::Mamba2ChunkScan wrapped in
GatherNemotronHState/ScatterNemotronHState over both halves. The tree
already carried the warning: qwen3_5.cpp:4730-4746 says passing the state
indices to the op removes "the two host<->device copies per sequence per layer
that dominate the decode memcpy tax".

NemotronHPagedForward now splits the recurrent half the way
mamba_mixer2.py:754-767 does. The selection is the metadata's num_decodes,
never the token count: a one-token prefill of a fresh request is also T == 1,
carries no state in, and can have prefill_has_initial_state == 0, which
neither single-step kernel can express. Prefill keeps the chunk scan, and its
gather is narrowed to the prefill rows.

The premise was not gated where this model runs

The swap rests on the state update and the chunk scan agreeing. The only
decode-vs-prefill case ran H=4 G=2, i.e. heads_per_group = 2. NemotronH runs
heads_per_group = 8. mamba2-ssd.md §8.3 declares an equivalence contract,
but §8.3 is device-vs-host and says nothing about this.

Two new cases gate it at the driver group count, on CPU and CUDA, at a
multi-chunk shape and at the production T=1 chunk=128 shape, and they report
the comparison's scale unconditionally so the inherited 5e-3 tolerance cannot
bound nothing.

Mutation A2D1-M1, clamping the group index to min(h/hpg, 1):

existing case (H=4 G=2)  RC=0  1 passed | 0 failed   assertions:  8 |  8 passed | 0 failed
new driver case (G=8)    RC=1  0 passed | 1 failed   assertions: 58 | 54 passed | 4 failed

The mutation is invisible to the case that existed and caught by the case this
PR adds, on both shapes. Tree restored byte-for-byte afterwards (md5
753ba5c3d0869396c20f2205eb2617d7).

Which arm ran is recorded, because tokens cannot say

The two arms compute the same recurrence, so they emit the same tokens and a
token gate is blind to which one produced them. NemotronHMambaArmCounts
counts launches at the vt:: call sites, and VT_NEMOTRON_H_DIAG prints the
per-step delta. A CPU case drives the counters through ModelRegistry::Forward
and asserts non-zero counts against the fixture's geometry, so a recorder that
stopped recording reds in seconds rather than on a GPU window where its zero
would read as a result.

VT_NEMOTRON_H_MAMBA_DECODE_STEP=0 opts out, so both arms run in one binary.

Gates

CPU, all bare exit codes:

RC[test_ops_mamba2_state_update]=0   7 cases  2527 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_ops_mamba2_ssd]=0            8 cases  1175 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_ops_mamba2_gated_norm]=0     9 cases  2107 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_paged_forward]=0 13 cases  3272 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_forward]=0       16 cases  5664 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_scaffold]=0      14 cases 38308 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_loader]=0         2 cases     7 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_mamba_device]=0   5 cases     9 assertions  SUCCESS (CUDA cases skip loudly on a CPU box)
RC[test_nemotron_h_moe_device]=0     2 cases     2 assertions  SUCCESS
RC[test_nemotron_h_quantized_forms]=0 5 cases  134 assertions  SUCCESS

Driver-group equivalence, measured in the run rather than asserted:

multi-chunk T=24 chunk=8   hpg=8: out n=98304 scale=26.0174 worst|diff|=1.90735e-05
                                  state n=524288 scale=4.58483 worst|diff|=9.53674e-07
production T=1 chunk=128   hpg=8: out n=4096  scale=32.2456 worst|diff|=7.62939e-06
                                  state n=524288 scale=5.54134 worst|diff|=4.76837e-07

CUDA evidence, measured on a leased GPU

thor:gpu0 (sm_110), inside an rc lease, ARCH=110, tree 68a0ff378 --
which git diffs EMPTY against this PR's head over every file this row owns,
so it is this code. scripts/nemotron-h-a2d1-gpu-gate.sh is the recipe.

RC[cmake build]=0
RC[test_ops_mamba2_state_update]=0   SUCCESS   6089 assertions
RC[test_nemotron_h_mamba_device]=0   SUCCESS     63 assertions
RC[test_nemotron_h_paged_forward]=0  SUCCESS   3272 assertions   13 of 13 cases
RC[test_nemotron_h_forward]=0        SUCCESS   5716 assertions
RC[test_nemotron_h_loader]=0         SUCCESS      7 assertions
RC[test_nemotron_h_moe_device]=0     SUCCESS     29 assertions
RC[test_ops_mamba2_ssd]=0            SUCCESS   2095 assertions

The CUDA driver-group equivalence -- both arms on device, through entirely
separate kernels:

CUDA multi-chunk T=24 chunk=8   hpg=8: out n=98304 scale=26.0174 worst|diff|=1.33514e-05
                                       state n=524288 scale=4.58483 worst|diff|=8.34465e-07
CUDA production T=1 chunk=128   hpg=8: out n=4096  scale=32.2456 worst|diff|=1.33514e-05
                                       state n=524288 scale=5.54134 worst|diff|=4.76837e-07

orin:gpu0 gave NO CUDA evidence and is reported as such. The suite read
12 cases, 12 passed, SUCCESS there, but at 2527 assertions -- exactly the
CPU-only count
-- and none of the CUDA driver-group lines appeared. The five
CUDA cases took their skip path. A green with the CUDA cases muted is not a CUDA
result.

An inherited red on main, filed as #1371

Merging main in makes test_nemotron_h_paged_forward throw 11 of 13 cases on
a CPU box:

ERROR: test case THREW exception: No valid attention backend for device type 0
from {FLASH_ATTN: [head_size not supported]}

369ea7fd4 (#1332, #1344) landed head_size % 8 == 0 on the FA backend, a
faithful mirror of flash_attn.py:170-178; this fixture uses kHeadDim = 6,
and the CPU selector no longer falls back to CPU_ATTN. It is not this
row's
: the same suite on the same row at 68a0ff378, which lacks that
commit, is 13 of 13 green with 3272 assertions on Thor, and this row git diffs empty over src/vllm/v1/attention/, include/vllm/v1/attention/ and
src/vllm/platforms/. Filed as
#1371 rather than fixed in
flow, because the repair is in the selector and affects every CPU consumer.

Note the run prints assertions: 18, 18 passed, 0 failed beside 11 failed
cases: a thrown case runs no assertions, so a gate grepping only assertions:
reads it as clean.

The A3 e2e token gate: 96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS

thor:gpu0 (sm_110) in an rc lease, real 20.1 GiB
NVIDIA-Nemotron-3.5-Lightning-30B-A3B-NVFP4, device mamba arm ON, single-step
decode arm on its default:

RC[a3 on]=0
[nemotron-h] engine loaded in 654.7s
[nemotron-h] TOKEN MATCH: 96/96 over 3 prompt(s) (full rows=3, short rows=0, mode=decode)
[nemotron-h] STRICT PASS
on: tokens compared 96 ; matched 96
reference-tier lines in on: 0

That last line is not decoration: the portable reference tier is numerically
correct, so a pass obtained on it is invisible in the tokens.

Which kernels the decode steps launched

Read off the vt:: call sites, not off the branch condition:

[NH-DIAG] ARM step T=1 nd=1 np=0  state_update_rows=23 chunk_scan_calls=0
                                  conv_update_rows=23 conv_fwd_calls=0
                                  gathers=0 scatters=0
ARM lines total: 96      with a DECODE row: 93      with a PREFILL row: 3

23 is the mamba layer count, so one state-update row per mamba layer, zero
chunk scans, zero gathers and zero scatters on a decode step
. 96 forwards = 3
prefills + 93 decodes over 3 prompts x 32 tokens. vt::Mamba2StateUpdate went
from zero callers under src/vllm/ to 23 launches per decoded token through a
production entry point, which closes the "Nothing lands dead" case.

Prefill still reports np=1 and takes the chunk scan, which is the point.

The same-binary A/B: the SPEED HYPOTHESIS IS REFUTED on this box

One binary, one box, device mamba arm ON in both legs. Both legs pass the
token gate
, so this compares two correct arms:

ON (single-step, default) OFF (chunk scan at decode)
A3 verdict 96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS 96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS
state_update_rows / chunk_scan_calls 23 / 0 0 / 23
conv_update_rows / conv_fwd_calls 23 / 0 0 / 23
gathers / scatters 0 / 0 46 / 46
decode window 74.511 s 74.223 s
per output token 0.776159 s 0.773156 s
GPU busy, decode samples 244 of 555 = 43.96% 230 of 562 = 40.93%
engine load, EXCLUDED 654.7 s 778.2 s
reference-tier lines 0 0

Per output token moved +0.388%, in the SLOWER direction. #1311
pre-registered its own bar — "Refuted if per-token time moves less than 3%"
so the speed hypothesis is REFUTED on thor:gpu0 at c1, and this PR records
that rather than presenting the two counter columns as a result. A criterion
that only ever confirms is not one.

What the refutation does not close

The counters are not a prediction; they are what the run launched. The arm
demonstrably removed 92 of 115 SSD kernel launches, all 230 driver alloc/frees,
all 46 memsets, 104.9 MiB of per-token scratch and all 92 gather/scatter
launches per token — and the time did not move. So the c1 decode step on
sm_110 is not bound by launch count, driver allocation or state-copy traffic.
That is a finding about where the time is not.

Three regimes were never entered, so none of them is refuted:

  1. GB10 / sm_121a — the 6.31% and 0.014369 s references are GB10's and no
    ratio against them is quoted here. That leg is owed.
  2. Concurrency > 1qwen3_5.cpp:4730-4746 says the gather/scatter tax
    scales with concurrency; G-SAFE pins num_reqs <= 1.
  3. n > 1 — one run per leg, and the two legs saw engine loads of 654.7 s
    and 778.2 s, an 18.8% spread that 0.388% cannot be separated from.

No ceiling is declared. The next traceable step is an nsys trace of the
decode window alone on both legs: the counters say what the step stopped
launching, only a trace says what the 0.776 s is spent on.

Why this still lands

  • Correctness is the acceptance condition and it is met.
  • The AGENTS.md "Nothing lands dead" violation is closed by measurement,
    not by assertion.
  • The arm is what vLLM runs (mamba_mixer2.py:981), which is repository
    policy independent of a local speed delta.
  • The n_groups=8 equivalence the swap rests on is now gated and was not
    before, with a mutation the pre-existing case cannot see.

Still OWED (spec ## Owed, BENCHMARKS)

  • The dgx:gpu0 sm_121a leg — dgx was held by other sessions all session.
  • A repeated A/B (n >= 3 per leg) on an idle box.
  • The nsys decode-window trace named above.

Based on #1289 (row/A2-Q1-fp8-mamba), which adds
NemotronHMamba2MixerDevice, the function this PR changes, and is merged
forward onto main.

Closes #1311

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]

mudler added 28 commits August 18, 2026 22:29
…e FP8 W8A8 seam (#517)

The 23 Mamba2 layers were the last host bounce of a decode step, and they were
the expensive one. The host arm reaches its two projections through
`Linear(..., const NemotronHOwned&)`, whose `DenseFor` calls
`NemotronHOwned::DenseBf16()` -- a FULL dequant of the fp8 tower into a fresh
bf16 buffer ON EVERY CALL. That is 23 x (10304x2688 + 2688x4096) = 890e6
elements re-expanded per token, plus a download of the normed hidden and an
upload of the mixer output per layer.

The block moves whole or not at all: `mixer.in_proj` produces the fused `zxbcdt`
that the causal conv and the SSD scan both consume (mamba_mixer2.py:550, split
:692-696), so there is no intermediate landing in which the conv is on the device
and `in_proj` is not. That is why the shared FP8 W8A8 linear seam had to be
extracted first (#940, `dense_fp8_gemm.h`), and this change routes through it
rather than re-typing its entry points.

`NemotronHMamba2MixerDevice` mirrors the host arm statement for statement --
same vt:: ops, same order, same dtypes, different backend, which is the property
A2-R established and the numeric gate reads:

  in_proj (FP8 W8A8) -> QkvSplit(z | xBC | dt) -> CausalConv1dFwd(silu)
    -> QkvSplit(x | B | C) -> Mamba2ChunkScan -> RmsNormGatedGroup(n_groups)
    -> out_proj (FP8 W8A8)

The one substitution is the split: the host arm copies columns with `SliceCols`
because `vt::Mamba2ChunkScan` validates every operand contiguous, and
`vt::QkvSplit` is exactly that copy on the device.

Both forwards select it at runtime, never by preprocessor: `MambaIsFp8` names
only `NemotronHWeightForm` and `vt::OpRegistered` is the op table's own answer,
so a dense NemotronH or a device without the fp8 pair keeps the host bounce. The
paged arm hands the mixer the recurrent rows `vt::GdnStateGather` already
gathered and zeroed and it advances them IN PLACE, so the two downloads, the host
mixer and the two uploads per layer are gone; A2-P's gather/scatter pair and its
`has_initial = true` reasoning are unchanged.

The `ssm_dtype == f32` term in the paged selection is not decoration. The gather
widens the page into an f32 working buffer by op contract and the host arm then
narrows it back to `ssm_dtype`, so on a checkpoint whose `mamba_ssm_cache_dtype`
is not f32 the two arms would round differently and the per-block numeric gate
would be comparing two different computations.

The device residency is built on first use and keyed on a `ResidentSlot` the
weights own, never on an address (#237): across two engine builds in one process
an address-keyed cache returns the previous engine's device pointers, which is
plausible wrong values rather than a crash. The e4m3 staging copy is released as
soon as `ResidentFp8` has uploaded it, so the conversion peaks at one projection
rather than at the whole 890 MB tower.

`dense_fp8::ResidentFp8` still does not account its own upload -- that is #974,
and this change does not touch the shared header -- so A2-Q1 accounts what IT
uploads at the site that causes it, through the same `load_stats::AddDeviceUpload`
`ResidentWeight` and `ResidentNvfp4` call. That counter is also the instrument
the new residency case reads: an arm that re-uploaded the tower every step
returns identical numbers to one that uploads it once.

G-SAFE is untouched. All three clauses of the interlock stand, this change
creates no paging, no carried state and no batching that A2-P did not already
create, and `num_reqs <= 1` remains A2-B's to remove.

`tests/vllm/models/test_nemotron_h_mamba_device.cpp` is the cheap arm in front of
the real-checkpoint gate, for the same reason A2-Q2a's device MoE file exists:
`BuildTiny` is all-`kDense`, so nothing in the existing device suite could reach
the FP8 W8A8 arm at all. The two arms are NOT bit-comparable by construction --
the host reference is W8A16 and the device arm is W8A8 as vLLM is -- so every
band is measured in the run against a defect the fixture separates, and the
element count is asserted against the geometry so a maximum over zero elements
cannot read as agreement.

`scripts/nemotron-h-a2q1-dgx-gate.sh` records the GB10 recipe rather than leaving
it to be retyped, including the three environment facts that have each voided a
run before: the CUDA lane is `sbsa`, `nvcc --version` is not a sufficient
postcondition, and `/workspace` is CIFS and refuses symlinks.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…ms it divided, or refuses

`examples/nemotron_h_gen` prints neither a rate nor a duration. It prints the
engine load time and a `TOKEN MATCH: m/n` line, so the per-output-token number
this row is measured against has to be derived from the wall clock, and a
derived number that hides its terms is exactly how a rate over an unknown
denominator comes to be quoted as if it had been measured.

`scripts/nemotron-h-a2q1-per-token.py` prints the wall time, the load it
subtracts and the token count it divides by on separate lines, and it refuses in
the two cases where a plausible zero would otherwise be printed: when either
term is absent from the log, and when the wall clock is not greater than the
load it contains. The second case is not hypothetical -- the terms coming from
different runs yields a NEGATIVE rate, which still formats like a measurement.

The gate script calls it once per arm, so the device-on and device-off runs
report the same shape.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…e it had to accept, so it gates the STATE

Thor (sm_110) ran the focused suite and one case failed. The device arm itself
passed everything else -- 49 assertions where a GPU-less box runs 4, the fresh
block matched the host reference at T=1/8/12 (0.164, 0.282, 0.309 against a band
of 0.5), both refusals threw, and the fp8 tower uploaded 61760 B on the first
call and 0 B on the second. The failure is the instrument.

The carry case banded the SECOND LEG'S OUTPUT against the separation of a
dropped carry. On Thor the second leg agreed to 0.705 while a dropped carry
separated by only 0.205, so the derived band (0.102) sat BELOW the deviation a
FRESH leg already shows on this fixture. The two arms are W8A8 against W8A16, so
a fresh leg already disagrees by the e4m3 activation quantization and a second
leg compounds that with the same disagreement propagated through the carried
state. A defect whose separation is smaller than the noise the comparison must
accept is not resolvable from that comparison, and widening the band until it
passes is what the spec's §8.1 says to stop for.

So the assertion moves to what the carry actually IS. A dropped carry hands the
next leg zeros, so the separation between the advanced state and a zeroed one is
1.0 by construction -- about six times the noise floor, which this fixture can
genuinely resolve. The conv window and the SSM state are now banded separately,
each against its own zeroed twin, each with its element count asserted against
the geometry.

The noise floor is MEASURED in the run, at the same width, from a fresh device
leg against a fresh host leg, and printed beside the separation. The second
leg's output is still measured, and it carries an assertion only when the
separation exceeds twice that floor; the condition is printed either way, so "no
assertion here" is a stated measurement rather than a silent hole. What this
cannot see -- a carry advanced but wrong by less than the band -- is written
down, and the real-checkpoint per-block gate is named as the instrument for it.

Two things the failure exposed beside the band. The fixture left
`mamba_ssm_cache_dtype` unset and so resolved bf16, which is NOT the
configuration the paged forward selects the device arm for (`ssm_dtype == f32`);
it now says float32 as the released checkpoint does, and the case asserts it,
because a state silently halved is invisible to every comparison. And the whole
file was a skip on a GPU-less box, so a new CPU-runnable case pins the op
contract the split depends on -- three outputs of widths (I, conv_dim,
num_heads) taking the head, middle and tail of an in_proj row. That case states
plainly that it does not pin the production call site, which only the device
numeric case covers.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
 left open

The spec's §3 measured Thor (sm_110) as having HALF an fp8 arm: the GEMM present
through the unconditionally registered `kMatmulFp8CublasLt`, the activation quant
trapped in a CUTLASS-gated translation unit that no sm_110 build compiles. #991
moved the registration out. Whether that actually reaches this model's arm was
never run, and the spec said the conclusion had inverted twice during scoping, so
it is worth writing down that it now has an answer.

It does. On a build whose feature table reads `ENABLED for [110]: 1 ; DISABLED
cells: 7` -- only `marlin-nvfp4`, with `cutlass-fp8` and both `scaledmm-c3x`
cells off -- the FP8 W8A8 mamba arm executes: 49 assertions where a GPU-less box
reports 4, the fresh block matching the host reference at three widths, and the
fp8 tower uploading exactly once.

The section also records the carry gate's failure and its repair, because the
failure is the more instructive half: the case banded a defect whose separation
(0.205) was SMALLER than the noise the comparison had to accept (0.164 on a fresh
leg), which is §5.2's lesson arriving from the direction the spec did not
anticipate. And it states which host can answer the occupancy question at all --
the 6.31% baseline is a GB10 number, so a Thor busy fraction would measure
different silicon and answer something else.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…side a Thor number

The A3 gate ran on Thor and printed `GPU busy in 358 of 2336 samples = 15.33%
busy (baseline 6.31%)`. The denominator is right and the sample count is there,
but the parenthesis is wrong: 6.31% was measured on GB10, and printing it beside
an sm_110 number invites a comparison across two different pieces of silicon,
two different clocks and two different memory systems. It answers a different
question than the one it appears to answer.

That is the failure this repository already knows by name -- a number quoted
often enough comes to be treated as measured -- and a gate script is exactly
where it starts, because the script's output is what gets pasted into a report.

The baseline is now quoted only when `ARCH` is `121a`. On any other arch the line
says so and names the comparison that IS valid there: the same-binary
`VT_NEMOTRON_H_DEVICE_MAMBA` ON/OFF A/B on that same box. All three arms are
self-tested, including the empty-sample arm, which reports UNMEASURED rather than
0% -- a busy fraction over zero samples formats identically to a genuinely idle
GPU.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…line it cannot be read against

The A3 gate ran on Thor (sm_110) with the FP8 W8A8 mamba arm on the device and
returned 96/96, mode=decode, STRICT PASS, exit 0, with zero reference-tier
lines. That last number is the one worth recording beside the verdict: the
portable reference tier is numerically CORRECT, so a pass obtained on it is
invisible in every other figure, and its absence is the only thing that
separates the two.

The busy fraction was 358 of 2336 samples, 15.33%. Both surfaces say explicitly
that this is NOT comparable to the 6.31% baseline the unit is accepted against,
because that baseline was taken on GB10 and this is different silicon. Recording
the number without that sentence would have been the more useful-looking and
less true entry, and the GB10 leg is still queued.

BENCHMARKS also records what the run did NOT produce: no per-token time, because
the Thor build predates the timing helper and its script line needed `bc`, which
the container lacks. STATUS moves from one passing gate to two and names which
arm the second one exercised.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…ered the wrong question (#1290)

The Thor A/B ran both arms of the same binary against the same checkpoint and
golden, differing only by VT_NEMOTRON_H_DEVICE_MAMBA. Two things came out of it
and only one of them is a number this row may keep.

THE ARM IS TOKEN-EXACT WHERE THE HOST ARM IS NOT. With the device arm on, the A3
gate read 96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS, exit 0. With it off -- which is what
main does on a GPU today -- it read 93/96 DIVERGENCE, exit 1. Zero reference-tier
lines on both, so neither run took the portable tier. The mechanism is named
rather than guessed: the golden comes from an oracle that computes these
projections W8A8, and `DenseBf16` states outright at nemotron_h.cpp:419-422 that
the host arm carries `input_scale` and does not apply it. That is #1290, filed
while landing this row and fixed by it. It is n=1 per arm, and the row says so.

THE BUSY FRACTION IS VOID, AND IT IS THIS UNIT'S ACCEPTANCE TEST. It read 15.33%
on and 14.73% off, and neither figure means what it appears to: the sampler
started with the process, so the multi-minute GPU-IDLE 20.1 GiB engine load sat
inside the same window as the decode and diluted both arms toward each other.
That is the same defect as summing prefill and decode into one profile, and a
fraction over the wrong window is worse than no fraction, because it still
formats like a measurement. No occupancy claim is made from that run in either
direction.

`run_gate` now starts the driver first, waits for `engine loaded in Ns`, and
samples only after it; when that line never appears it reports the fraction as
NOT REPORTED rather than sampling a window whose meaning is unknown. The
per-token helper takes the decode window directly and subtracts nothing, since
the load is already outside its brackets, and it refuses on a non-positive
window -- the brackets failing to span a decode would otherwise print a negative
or infinite rate that still looks like a measurement.

What survives from the run without an instrument caveat is the wall-time ratio
from the sample counts, one sampler at one nominal interval: 2.44x shorter with
the arm on.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
`origin/main` moved while this row's Thor A/B was running, so the branch is
merged rather than rebased and the gate is re-run over the merged tree. AGENTS.md
R4: merge an immutable SHA and re-run the full gate after merging rather than
reading the diff.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…a counter-measurement

The issue as filed said the host mamba arm is what main does "on a GPU today"
and therefore that main is token-wrong on a GPU. That is established for sm_110
ONLY. On GB10 (sm_121a) the SAME host arm reads 96/96 STRICT PASS -- the A3 run
that closed #1157, /usr/local/nas_share/rc/nh1157/gate_fixed.out, same golden and
same oracle revision.

Left as written, the issue would get dismissed the first time somebody checked on
GB10 and got a pass, and a silicon-specific defect would go with it. So the row,
the spec and the benchmark entry now all say what was measured WHERE: host arm
93/96 on sm_110 with fa2 and cutlass-fp8 both DISABLED, host arm 96/96 on sm_121a
with both ENABLED, n=1 per arm.

What is established is narrower and still worth having: on ONE box, holding the
entire rest of the tower constant, flipping only the mamba arm moves 93/96 to
96/96.

The `DenseBf16` reading stays the leading mechanism -- the golden's oracle is
W8A8 and the host arm is W8A16 because `input_scale` is carried and not applied
(nemotron_h.cpp:419-422) -- but it now carries the obligation to explain why GB10
is clean, and the honest reading is that the perturbation is marginal rather than
grossly wrong.

One proposed candidate is excluded rather than chased. "The two arms resolve
different fp8 GEMMs" cannot be the differentiator, because that configuration
runs NO fp8 GEMM on either box: `DenseFor` dequantizes and hands the result to
vt::MatmulBT on the CPU queue (nemotron_h_device.cpp:2027). The device-side
difference that IS checkable is attention -- CudaArchFeatures.cmake:349 provides
fa2 for 12.1a and not for 11.0, so GB10 runs FlashAttention-2 over the 6 GQA
layers where Thor runs the portable fallback.

Next step named rather than the question closed: the oracle's top-2 margin at the
three moved tokens, because this family has already produced a "divergence" that
turned out to be a bit-exact near-tie; then a NemotronHTrace layer bisect; then a
repeat to lift n=1.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…of its four behaviours ARE refusals

The helper exists because `examples/nemotron_h_gen` reports neither a rate nor a
duration, so the per-output-token number this row is measured on has to be
derived. A derived number that prints 0, or a negative, or a rate over an unknown
denominator is indistinguishable from a measurement once it reaches a report, so
most of the helper is guards -- and nothing in the tree pinned them.

Six cases now do: the rate is printed with the window, the excluded load and the
token count beside it; the load is excluded rather than subtracted a second time;
a non-positive window refuses; a missing TOKEN MATCH line refuses; zero compared
tokens refuses; and the vLLM denominator is the pinned 0.014369 s rather than a
constant that could drift and silently restate the gap.

Armed, not merely present. Deleting the non-positive-window guard reds the suite;
making the missing-token path print `per output token 0.000000 s` reds it. The
tree was restored byte-for-byte between mutations and after, sha256
be32e5f5c786ccb283c88b88e256f9c0e5d79af87eeef5615a3c10a615d3ce8c both times, and
the suite is green at that sha.

The whole `run_gate` window change was also driven end to end against a fake
driver and a fake nvidia-smi before it is allowed near the scarce GB10 lease: a
3 s load plus a 4 s decode yields 39 samples over a 3.994 s window rather than
~70 over ~7 s, so the load really is outside the brackets; a driver that dies
during load reports `NO busy fraction is sampled` and still surfaces its exit
code 3; and a 93/96 divergence surfaces exit 1 with `matched 93` beside the rate.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…se doctest stringifies char* as bool

The Thor re-run confirmed the repaired carry gate -- 5 cases, 63 assertions, 0
failed -- and printed the numbers that justify it: a noise floor of 0.2465 at
T=1, a carried conv window agreeing to 0.1746 against a band of 0.5, and a
carried SSM state agreeing to 0.0614 against the same band, at 2.9x and 8.1x
margins.

It also proved the diagnosis that drove the repair. A dropped carry separates the
second leg's output by 0.2045 while the noise the comparison must accept is
0.2465, so the defect really is smaller than the noise, `separation > 2 *
noise_floor` is false, and the case correctly asserts nothing there.

Correctly, but not legibly. The line that reports WHY no assertion was made
printed `1`. doctest stringifies a `const char*` as a bool, and the message
streamed a `char*` ternary, so it printed the truthiness of a non-null pointer
whichever branch was live -- an unconditional `1` that says nothing about the
condition it names.

That line exists to make "no assertion was made here" a STATED result rather than
a silent hole, so a version of it that cannot say what it means is the same class
of defect as the band it reports on: an instrument that formats like information.
It now builds a std::string. Reproduced against doctest 2.5.2 in both forms
first: `MESSAGE("x " << (false ? "yes" : "prose"))` prints `x 1`, and the
std::string form prints `x prose`.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…ide a Thor decode

The decode-window sampler works. With the arm on, Thor read 42.55% busy over 564
DECODE samples where the old conflated window read 15.33%, and the reason is now
measured rather than argued: the engine load is 500.9 s and the decode is 75.4 s,
so the old window was 87% load.

The same run also printed `per output token 0.785606 s (vLLM 0.014369 s; ratio
54.7x)`. That ratio is wrong in the way the busy fraction was wrong an hour ago:
0.014369 s is a GB10 figure and this decode happened on Thor, so the quotient
compares two different pieces of silicon. Fixing the busy-fraction surface and
leaving its twin is how a bad comparison survives a correction, and 54.7x is
exactly the kind of number that gets quoted once it exists.

The rate still prints, because it is a real measurement of that box. Only the
comparison is withheld, and it is withheld BY NAME rather than silently dropped,
so the reader knows a ratio was declined rather than forgotten. The gate script
now passes ARCH through.

Two cases pin both arms, and the guard is armed: quoting the ratio
unconditionally reds the suite. Tree restored byte-for-byte after the mutation,
sha256 3d94497009c384bcb36709a48b3e1c5da203fea23db020ecb097b79af035cae1, green at
that sha.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
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Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
…n Thor, and the divergence reproduced

The acceptance test of this unit was never a ratio: the GPU busy fraction had to
rise, measured with its denominator. On the corrected instrument it does. Second
Thor lease, fresh build and clone, same binary, same checkpoint, same golden,
differing only by VT_NEMOTRON_H_DEVICE_MAMBA:

  arm ON   96/96 STRICT PASS  rc=0   240/564  = 42.55% busy   0.785606 s/token
  arm OFF  93/96 DIVERGENCE   rc=1   700/3808 = 18.38% busy   5.633442 s/token

+24.17 points, a 2.31x rise in occupancy, and 7.17x less time per decode token.
Peak host 44070 MiB. Zero reference-tier lines on either arm, so neither ran on
the portable tier.

READ ON THE BOX IT WAS TAKEN ON. These are sm_110 figures, and BOTH references
this row is normally quoted against -- the 6.31% baseline and the 0.014369 s per
token -- are GB10's. Neither supports a ratio against these numbers, the
instrument withholds both by name off 121a, and the stale `ratio 54.7x` and
`ratio 392.1x` strings in that run's log predate the per-token arch gate and must
not be quoted. The per-token VALUES are sound; the ratios beside them are not.

The divergence also reproduced, which lifts the n=1 caveat for Thor: two
independent leases with separate builds agree exactly, 96/96 on and 93/96 off
both times. GB10 stays n=1 in the other direction, and no GB10 run of the DEVICE
arm exists at all yet -- so the hypothesis is SUPPORTED on sm_110 and UNMEASURED
on sm_121a, and the owed list now says so rather than implying one covers the
other.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
`origin/main` moved again while the second Thor lease was running. Merged rather
than rebased, and the gate is re-run over the merged tree: AGENTS.md R4 says to
merge an immutable SHA and re-run the full gate rather than reading the diff.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
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Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [claude-code]
`main` advanced to f06b9e9 carrying #1297, which routes
`test_dspark_block_size_guard.cpp` through `tests/support/process_id.h`. This
branch's `build-newest-gcc` failure was that inherited red, so it is merged
forward to pick the fix up rather than re-run against a stale base.

`docs/BENCHMARKS.md` was a GENUINE content conflict, not a driver artifact:
this branch inserts the A2-Q1 row and main inserted the
`ENG-RECORD-ANCHOR-RATCHET` row at the same point. They are different keys, so
BOTH are kept -- main's first, then this row's. Neither was dropped, and no
ratchet was raised to fit them.

The union auto-merge of `.agents/issue-index.md` was DISCARDED: main's file
taken wholesale, only rows whose KEY main lacks re-appended, main's file
asserted a strict PREFIX.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…gates

This branch is based on PR #1289 (`row/A2-Q1-fp8-mamba`), which is where
`NemotronHMamba2MixerDevice` lives, so it did not start from `main`. The
preflight's trailer and style gates SKIP when `origin/main` is not an ancestor
of HEAD, and a skipped gate has reported nothing about this tree.

`docs/BENCHMARKS.md` was a GENUINE content conflict, not a driver artifact:
main updated the `ENG-RECORD-ANCHOR-RATCHET` row while this line carries the
A2-Q1 row inserted at the same point. BOTH are kept, main's version of its own
row first, then this line's. Neither was dropped and no ratchet was raised.

`.agents/issue-index.md` auto-merged and was verified rather than trusted:
main's file is a strict PREFIX of the result, with only rows whose KEY main
lacks appended after it.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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vLLM branches its Mamba2 mixer on `has_decode` (`mamba_mixer2.py:981`) and runs
`causal_conv1d_update` and `selective_state_update` on the decode rows. Both
take state indices and update the cache in place at the slot, so upstream's
decode half performs no gather and no scatter. A2-Q1 ran the chunked prefill
pair over both halves.

`vt::Mamba2StateUpdate` is the port of `selective_state_update`. It has been
registered on CUDA and CPU and gated since mamba2-ssd.md W2 landed, and it has
zero callers under `src/vllm/`, which is a live "Nothing lands dead" case.

The spec also records the risk that made this unit more than a swap: the
equivalence the swap rests on was gated only at `heads_per_group = 2`, and
NemotronH runs 8.

No product code is written by this commit.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…1311)

`vt::Mamba2StateUpdate` is the port of `selective_state_update`. It has been
registered on CUDA and CPU and gated since mamba2-ssd.md W2 landed, and until
this commit nothing under `src/vllm/` called it. The device mamba arm ran the
chunked prefill pair over the decode rows too, wrapped in a gather and a
scatter that upstream's decode half does not perform.

`NemotronHPagedForward` now splits the recurrent half the way
`mamba_mixer2.py:754-767` does. Decode rows take `vt::CausalConv1dUpdate` and
`vt::Mamba2StateUpdate` at their cache slots, in place, with no gather and no
scatter. Prefill rows keep the chunk scan, and their gather is narrowed to
those rows. The selection is the metadata's `num_decodes`, never the token
count: a one-token prefill of a fresh request is also T == 1 and must keep the
chunk scan.

The equivalence this swap rests on was not gated where NemotronH runs. The only
decode-vs-prefill case ran heads_per_group = 2; NemotronH runs 8. Two new cases
gate it at the driver group count on CPU and CUDA, at the multi-chunk shape and
at the production T=1 chunk=128 shape, and they report the comparison's scale so
the inherited 5e-3 tolerance cannot bound nothing. Mutation A2D1-M1, clamping
the group index to min(h/hpg, 1), passes the pre-existing case 8/8 assertions
RC=0 and fails the new one 4 of 58 assertions RC=1.

The two arms compute the same recurrence and so produce the same tokens, which
makes a token gate blind to which one ran. `NemotronHMambaArmCounts` counts
launches at the vt:: call sites, and a CPU case drives it through
`ModelRegistry::Forward` and asserts non-zero counts against the fixture's
geometry, so a recorder that stopped recording reds before a GPU window is
spent reading its zero as a result.

`VT_NEMOTRON_H_MAMBA_DECODE_STEP=0` opts out, so the two arms can be A/B'd in
one binary.

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The decode and prefill arms compute the same recurrence, so they emit the same
tokens and no token gate can say which one ran. `NemotronHPagedForward` now
prints the per-step counter delta under the existing `VT_NEMOTRON_H_DIAG`
guard, and `scripts/nemotron-h-a2d1-gpu-gate.sh` runs the A3 gate on both legs
of one binary and greps those lines.

The script is a sibling of the A2-Q1 gate rather than an edit of it: that one
owns the device-vs-host A/B and is live on another branch. This one holds the
device mamba arm ON in both legs so the only difference is which kernels the
decode rows take.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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`main` moved again while this row was in flight, so it is merged forward rather
than gated against a stale base.

The union auto-merge of `.agents/issue-index.md` was DISCARDED, not accepted.
The automatic result INTERLEAVED main's two new rows with this line's, so
main's file was no longer a prefix of it. Repaired the way AGENTS.md Records
asks: main's file taken wholesale, then only the rows whose KEY main lacks
(#1290 and #1311) re-appended verbatim at the end, and main's file asserted a
strict PREFIX afterwards. `check-issue-index-append-only` agrees.

The merged tree was then BUILT before this merge was pushed: a clean merge is
not a compiling merge.

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…#1311)

The decode arm reads and rolls the conv page in place at its slot and has no
use for the per-call window the non-paged arm allocates. Leaving the DBuf at
function scope took a pool block per mamba layer per token on exactly the path
this row exists to make cheap.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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… it (#1311)

The row gains an explicitly PENDING measurement, which BENCHMARKS owes a line
for, and the forensics live in benchmark-record.md where the keyed-table budget
sends them.

The launch and allocation counts are re-derived here from the kernel rather
than carried over from the issue, and where the re-derivation disagrees -- the
gather/scatter churn is about 283 MiB/token by this count, not the 414 the
issue estimated -- the disagreement is stated rather than reconciled to the
larger figure. Neither is measured.

docs/STATUS.md moves in the SAME commit, because `check-doc-checkpoint` reads
per commit: a change writing benchmark-record.md without moving STATUS reds on
the grounds that a measurement is a claim about the project and STATUS is how
the claim reaches a reader. The measurement here is explicitly PENDING, which
is still a claim, so the line says so and claims no number.

The STATUS cell is COMPRESSED rather than extended. Appending the clause took
it to 408 chars against a 220 limit and moved the oversized-cell ratchet from
44 to 45, which is the page growing. The superseded A2-Q1 narrative is folded
into the binding result instead.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…oring it (#1311)

The flag has no meaning there -- a decode continues a sequence by definition,
which is why upstream leaves has_initial_state None on a decode-only step. The
arm was silently ignoring it, which is how the two cases the parameter exists
to distinguish become indistinguishable again. A fresh request is a prefill and
keeps the chunk scan.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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…1311)

Two defects in this row's own instrument, both found before the GPU window was
spent and both of the shape where a broken instrument reads as a clean result.

The counter line was gated on `VT_NEMOTRON_H_DIAG`, which downloads the carry
and the residual per layer per step. A timed A/B leg under that flag measures
the diagnostic, not the arm. The line now has its own `VT_NEMOTRON_H_ARM_TRACE`
-- one fprintf of six resident counters per step -- so the reachability
evidence and the timing come from one run instead of two that might differ.

The gate script selected decode steps with `awk '$4=="nd=1"'`, but nd is field
five. The test matched nothing, printed nothing, and would have read exactly
like "no decode steps ran". It now matches on the field TEXT and reports the
line counts, and says so explicitly when the decode count is zero.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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)

The driver-group equivalence is the one piece of evidence that needs real CUDA
and does not need the 20.1 GiB checkpoint. OPS_ONLY=1 builds and runs that
suite and stops, so it does not queue behind a box that can host the whole
gate, and it says plainly that nothing else was measured.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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`main` moved a third time while this row was in flight. Merged forward so the
trailer, style and doc-checkpoint gates run against this tree rather than
skipping on a stale base.

`.agents/issue-index.md` auto-merged this time WITHOUT interleaving: main's
file is already a strict prefix of the result and only #1290 and #1311 follow
it, so the auto-merge was verified and kept rather than discarded.
`check-issue-index-append-only` agrees. No other file conflicted.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]
`main` moved a fourth time. Merged forward so the gates run against this tree
instead of skipping on a stale base.

`.agents/benchmark-record.md` conflicted, and it is an APPEND-ONLY log, so BOTH
appended sections are kept: main's `BENCH-QWEN38-27B-BF16` re-measure first,
then this row's `A2-D1` entry. Neither was dropped and neither was rewritten.
Picking a winner on an append-only log is how a landed measurement disappears.

`docs/STATUS.md` auto-merged: main edited a different row of the same table, so
this row's A2-D1 line survives untouched. `.agents/issue-index.md` auto-merged
with main's file a strict PREFIX of the result, verified rather than assumed.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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The fifth merge forward. `main` is landing several changes an hour today, and a
row branch that is behind it makes the trailer, style and doc-checkpoint gates
SKIP rather than fail, which reports nothing about this tree.

Only `.agents/issue-index.md` touched, and the union auto-merge was DISCARDED
rather than trusted: it INTERLEAVED main's new #1353 row with this line's, so
main's file was no longer a prefix of the result. Repaired the way AGENTS.md
Records asks -- main's file taken wholesale, then only the rows whose KEY main
lacks (#1290 and #1311) re-appended verbatim -- and the prefix property
asserted afterwards. This is the second time today the auto-merge on this file
looked clean and was not, which is why the property is checked and not assumed.

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@localai-bot
localai-bot force-pushed the row/A2-D1-mamba-decode-step branch from 68a0ff3 to 1fd9b4a Compare August 19, 2026 13:20
…es a head size

Found while landing #1311, and it is NOT this row's. `369ea7fd4` (#1332,
#1344) landed a faithful mirror of `flash_attn.py:170-178` requiring
`head_size % 8 == 0`. What it exposed is that the CPU selector no longer falls
back when FA declines: `test_nemotron_h_paged_forward` throws 11 of 13 cases
with "No valid attention backend for device type 0", while `cpu.cpp:45` offers
two candidates and only FLASH_ATTN is named in the refusal.

Attributed by counter-measurement rather than by reading the diff: the same
suite on the same row at 68a0ff3, which lacks that commit, is 13 of 13 green
with 3272 assertions on thor sm_110, and that row changes no attention or
platform file at all.

FILED not fixed in flow. The repair is in the attention-backend selector, which
is BACKEND-ATTN-REGISTRY's surface and affects every CPU consumer rather than
one model's suite; raising this fixture's head_dim to a multiple of eight would
green the suite and leave the defect.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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mudler added 5 commits August 19, 2026 13:28
…e box (#1311)

The comment said "this box has no FP8 GEMM". Thor has one; the test's queue
does not, because `Q()` is a CPU queue and `kMatmulFp8CublasLt` is registered
only for CUDA, and the paged forward selects the device mamba arm by asking the
op table for the queue's device. The case therefore reads the same on a GPU box
as on a CPU one, which is the property that makes it a floor. Verified: the
suite is 13 of 13 with 3272 assertions on both.

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…p arm (#1311)

`thor:gpu0` sm_110 in an rc lease, real 20.1 GiB checkpoint, device mamba arm
on, the single-step decode arm on its default:

  RC[a3 on]=0
  TOKEN MATCH: 96/96 over 3 prompt(s) (full rows=3, short rows=0, mode=decode)
  STRICT PASS
  reference-tier lines in on: 0

That last line is not decoration: the portable reference tier is numerically
correct, so a pass obtained on it is invisible in the tokens.

Every decode step of that run, read off the vt:: call sites rather than off the
branch condition:

  ARM step T=1 nd=1 np=0  state_update_rows=23 chunk_scan_calls=0
                          conv_update_rows=23 conv_fwd_calls=0
                          gathers=0 scatters=0
  ARM lines total 96, decode 93, prefill 3

23 is the mamba layer count, so that is one state-update row per mamba layer
and zero chunk scans, zero gathers and zero scatters on a decode step.
vt::Mamba2StateUpdate went from zero callers under src/vllm/ to 23 launches per
decoded token through a production entry point.

The decode window is 74.511 s over 93 steps at 0.776159 s per output token,
with the 654.7 s engine load OUTSIDE it. NO vLLM ratio is quoted for arch 110:
the 0.014369 s reference is GB10's, and a ratio against it would compare two
pieces of silicon. The sm_121a leg and the same-binary A/B delta stay owed.

STATUS moves in this commit because check-doc-checkpoint reads per commit, and
it moves in the STATUS column rather than the notes column: appending to the
notes took that cell past 220 chars and the page's oversized-cell ratchet from
44 to 45.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

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The sixth merge forward; `main` is landing several changes an hour today and
GitHub had marked this pull request CONFLICTING.

`.agents/benchmark-record.md` conflicted again, and it is an APPEND-ONLY log,
so BOTH appended sections are kept: main's `LTX25-TEXT-LINEAR-MEM` entry first,
then this row's `A2-D1` entry. Picking a winner on an append-only log is how a
landed measurement disappears.

`.agents/issue-index.md`: the union auto-merge was discarded and rebuilt as
main's file plus only the rows whose KEY main lacks (#1290, #1311, #1371), with
the prefix property asserted afterwards. That is the third time today the
auto-merge on this file looked clean and interleaved.

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…s what that closes (#1311)

Both legs of one binary on thor:gpu0 sm_110, device mamba arm on, only the
decode arm differing.

  ON   RC=0  96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS  0.776159 s/token  busy 244/555
  OFF  RC=0  96/96 mode=decode STRICT PASS  0.773156 s/token  busy 230/562

Per output token moved +0.388%, in the SLOWER direction. #1311 pre-registered
"Refuted if per-token time moves less than 3%", so the speed hypothesis is
REFUTED on that box and this change records it rather than reporting the two
counter columns as though they were a result. A criterion that only ever
confirms is not one.

What the refutation does not close. The counters are not a prediction, they are
what the run launched: 92 of 115 SSD kernel launches, all 230 driver
alloc/frees, all 46 memsets, 104.9 MiB of per-token scratch and all 92
gather/scatter launches are gone, and the time did not move. So the c1 decode
step on sm_110 is not bound by launch count, driver allocation or state-copy
traffic. That is a finding about where the time is NOT.

Three regimes were never entered and none is refuted: GB10 sm_121a, whose
6.31% and 0.014369 s references are not comparable to Thor and against which no
ratio is quoted; concurrency above one, which is where qwen3_5.cpp:4730-4746
says the gather/scatter tax shows and which G-SAFE pins out; and n greater than
one, since the two legs saw engine loads of 654.7 s and 778.2 s, an 18.8%
spread that 0.388% cannot be separated from.

No ceiling is declared. The next traceable step is an nsys trace of the decode
window alone on both legs: the counters say what the step stopped launching,
only a trace says what the 0.776 s is spent on.

The row still lands. Correctness is the acceptance condition and it is met, the
"Nothing lands dead" violation is closed by measurement, and the arm is what
vLLM runs.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]
The seventh merge forward; `main` has landed roughly one change an hour through
this row's whole flight, and a branch behind it makes the trailer, style and
doc-checkpoint gates SKIP rather than fail, which reports nothing about the
tree.

No file conflicted. `.agents/issue-index.md` auto-merged and was rebuilt anyway
as main's file plus only the rows whose KEY main lacks (#1290, #1311, #1371),
with the prefix property asserted afterwards -- the union auto-merge on this
file has silently interleaved three times today, so it is verified rather than
trusted whether or not git reports a conflict.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]
@localai-bot localai-bot changed the title feat(#1311 A2-D1): NemotronH decodes on the single-step recurrent kernels, and the equivalence that swap rests on is gated at n_groups=8 feat(#1311 A2-D1): NemotronH decodes on the single-step recurrent kernels; the equivalence is gated at n_groups=8 and the speed hypothesis is refuted on sm_110 Aug 19, 2026
mudler added 2 commits August 19, 2026 16:33
…claimed (#1311)

It was written before any lease was obtained and outlived its own truth: the A3
gate is met on both legs and the A/B has a number, and the header still told a
reader the measurement was owed. The header now carries the verdict --
correctness accepted, speed refuted on the box measured -- and names what is
still owed. The superseded sentence says it was superseded rather than being
silently dropped, because the order the evidence arrived in is part of the
record.

BENCHMARKS and STATUS move in the same commit, which check-doc-checkpoint reads
per commit, and they gain the caveat that was only in the record: the two legs
saw engine loads 18.8% apart, so a 0.388% move is not separable from noise. A
reader of the headline number needs that beside it, not one file away.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]
…in-side red

The eighth merge forward, and this one is a REPAIR rather than hygiene. At
`601b576c6`, the commit this branch previously carried, `check-gate-commands`'s
ratchet suite was RED with four failures -- `test_dropping_{cudagraph_dedup,
mtp_depth,residency_config,serve_recipe_args}_from_the_pin_breaks_it` -- each
reporting `ENG-CUDAGRAPH-BREAK` leaving the gated population alongside the row
the case drops.

Attributed by counter-measurement rather than by reading the diff. A detached
worktree at `601b576c6` runs the suite RED at rc=1; the same suite at
`c9724b5ee` runs `Ran 46 tests` `OK` at rc=0. So it is a transient main-side
red, already repaired upstream, and merging forward is the whole fix. This row
touches no gate-command surface.

`.agents/benchmark-record.md` conflicted again and both appended sections are
kept, main's first. `.agents/issue-index.md` was rebuilt as main's file plus
only #1290, #1311 and #1371, with the prefix property asserted.

FOLLOWING_AGENTS_PROTOCOL

Following-Agents-Protocol: true
AI-Assisted: true
Assisted-by: AGENT:claude-opus-5 [Claude Code]
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NemotronH runs the PREFILL mamba kernels at decode: vt::Mamba2StateUpdate is registered, gated, and has ZERO model callers

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