README.md

---
language:
- en
base_model:
- openai/gpt-oss-20b
pipeline_tag: text-generation
tags:
- gpt_oss
- vllm
- conversational
- text-generation-inference
- 8-bit precision
- mxfp4
license: apache-2.0
license_name: apache-2.0
name: RedHatAI/gpt-oss-20b-essential
description: This model is the smaller version of the gpt-oss series, designed for lower latency and local or specialized use cases.
readme: https://huggingface.co/RedHatAI/gpt-oss-20b-essential/main/README.md
tool_calling_supported: true
required_cli_args: []
chat_template_file_name: None
chat_template_path: None
tool_call_parser: openai
tasks:
- text-to-text
- text-generation
- tool-calling
provider: OpenAI
license_link: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
validated_on:
  - RHOAI 2.25
  - RHAIIS 3.2.2
  - vLLM 0.10.1.1
---

<h1 style="display: flex; align-items: center; gap: 10px; margin: 0;">
  gpt-oss-20b-essential
  <img src="https://www.redhat.com/rhdc/managed-files/Catalog-Validated_model_0.png" alt="Model Icon" width="40" style="margin: 0; padding: 0;" />
</h1>
  
<a href="https://www.redhat.com/en/products/ai/validated-models" target="_blank" style="margin: 0; padding: 0;">
<img src="https://www.redhat.com/rhdc/managed-files/Validated_badge-Dark.png" alt="Validated Badge" width="250" style="margin: 0; padding: 0;" />
</a>

<p>
  <a href="https://gpt-oss.com"><strong>Try gpt-oss</strong></a> ·
  <a href="https://cookbook.openai.com/topic/gpt-oss"><strong>Guides</strong></a> ·
  <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10925"><strong>Model card</strong></a> ·
  <a href="https://openai.com/index/introducing-gpt-oss/"><strong>OpenAI blog</strong></a>
</p>

**Note: This is the essential variant of gpt-oss-20B, meaning that it does NOT contain the /Metal or /Original directories making it smaller in memory profile for a more streamlined or memory constrained deployment scenario.**

Welcome to the gpt-oss series, [OpenAI’s open-weight models](https://openai.com/open-models) designed for powerful reasoning, agentic tasks, and versatile developer use cases.

We’re releasing two flavors of these open models:
- `gpt-oss-120b` — for production, general purpose, high reasoning use cases that fit into a single 80GB GPU (like NVIDIA H100 or AMD MI300X) (117B parameters with 5.1B active parameters)
- `gpt-oss-20b` — for lower latency, and local or specialized use cases (21B parameters with 3.6B active parameters)

Both models were trained on our [harmony response format](https://github.com/openai/harmony) and should only be used with the harmony format as it will not work correctly otherwise.


> [!NOTE]
> This model card is dedicated to the smaller `gpt-oss-20b` model. Check out [`gpt-oss-120b`](https://huggingface.co/RedHatAI/gpt-oss-120b) for the larger model.

- **ModelCar Storage URI:** oci://registry.redhat.io/rhai/modelcar-gpt-oss-20b-essential:3.0
- **Validated on RHOAI 2.25:** quay.io/modh/vllm:rhoai-2.25-cuda
- **Validated on RHAIIS 3.2.2:** http://registry.redhat.io/rhaiis/vllm-cuda-rhel9:3.2.2
- **Validated on vLLM:** 0.10.1.1

# Highlights

* **Permissive Apache 2.0 license:** Build freely without copyleft restrictions or patent risk—ideal for experimentation, customization, and commercial deployment.  
* **Configurable reasoning effort:** Easily adjust the reasoning effort (low, medium, high) based on your specific use case and latency needs.  
* **Full chain-of-thought:** Gain complete access to the model’s reasoning process, facilitating easier debugging and increased trust in outputs. It’s not intended to be shown to end users.  
* **Fine-tunable:** Fully customize models to your specific use case through parameter fine-tuning.
* **Agentic capabilities:** Use the models’ native capabilities for function calling, [web browsing](https://github.com/openai/gpt-oss/tree/main?tab=readme-ov-file#browser), [Python code execution](https://github.com/openai/gpt-oss/tree/main?tab=readme-ov-file#python), and Structured Outputs.
* **MXFP4 quantization:** The models were post-trained with MXFP4 quantization of the MoE weights, making `gpt-oss-120b` run on a single 80GB GPU (like NVIDIA H100 or AMD MI300X) and the `gpt-oss-20b` model run within 16GB of memory. All evals were performed with the same MXFP4 quantization.

---

# Inference examples

## vLLM

vLLM recommends using [uv](https://docs.astral.sh/uv/) for Python dependency management. You can use vLLM to spin up an OpenAI-compatible webserver. The following command will automatically download the model and start the server.

```bash
uv pip install --pre vllm==0.10.1+gptoss \
    --extra-index-url https://wheels.vllm.ai/gpt-oss/ \
    --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/nightly/cu128 \
    --index-strategy unsafe-best-match

vllm serve RedHatAI/gpt-oss-20b-essential
```

[Learn more about how to use gpt-oss with vLLM.](https://cookbook.openai.com/articles/gpt-oss/run-vllm)

<details>
  <summary>Deploy on <strong>Red Hat AI Inference Server</strong></summary>
  
```bash
podman run --rm -it --device nvidia.com/gpu=all -p 8000:8000 \
 --ipc=host \
--env "HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN=$HF_TOKEN" \
--env "HF_HUB_OFFLINE=0" -v ~/.cache/vllm:/home/vllm/.cache \
--name=vllm \
registry.access.redhat.com/rhaiis/rh-vllm-cuda \
vllm serve \
--tensor-parallel-size 8 \
--max-model-len 32768  \
--enforce-eager --model RedHatAI/gpt-oss-20b
```
</details>


<details>
  <summary>Deploy on <strong>Red Hat Openshift AI</strong></summary>
  
```python
# Setting up vllm server with ServingRuntime
# Save as: vllm-servingruntime.yaml
apiVersion: serving.kserve.io/v1alpha1
kind: ServingRuntime
metadata:
 name: vllm-cuda-runtime # OPTIONAL CHANGE: set a unique name
 annotations:
   openshift.io/display-name: vLLM NVIDIA GPU ServingRuntime for KServe
   opendatahub.io/recommended-accelerators: '["nvidia.com/gpu"]'
 labels:
   opendatahub.io/dashboard: 'true'
spec:
 annotations:
   prometheus.io/port: '8080'
   prometheus.io/path: '/metrics'
 multiModel: false
 supportedModelFormats:
   - autoSelect: true
     name: vLLM
 containers:
   - name: kserve-container
     image: quay.io/modh/vllm:rhoai-2.25-cuda # CHANGE if needed. If AMD: quay.io/modh/vllm:rhoai-2.25-rocm
     command:
       - python
       - -m
       - vllm.entrypoints.openai.api_server
     args:
       - "--port=8080"
       - "--model=/mnt/models"
       - "--served-model-name={{.Name}}"
     env:
       - name: HF_HOME
         value: /tmp/hf_home
     ports:
       - containerPort: 8080
         protocol: TCP
```

```python
# Attach model to vllm server. This is an NVIDIA template
# Save as: inferenceservice.yaml
apiVersion: serving.kserve.io/v1beta1
kind: InferenceService
metadata:
  annotations:
    openshift.io/display-name: gpt-oss-20b-essential # OPTIONAL CHANGE
    serving.kserve.io/deploymentMode: RawDeployment
  name: gpt-oss-20b-essential         # specify model name. This value will be used to invoke the model in the payload
  labels:
    opendatahub.io/dashboard: 'true'
spec:
  predictor:
    maxReplicas: 1
    minReplicas: 1
    model:
      modelFormat:
        name: vLLM
      name: ''
      resources:
        limits:
          cpu: '2'			# this is model specific
          memory: 8Gi		# this is model specific
          nvidia.com/gpu: '1'	# this is accelerator specific
        requests:			# same comment for this block
          cpu: '1'
          memory: 4Gi
          nvidia.com/gpu: '1'
      runtime: vllm-cuda-runtime	# must match the ServingRuntime name above
      storageUri: oci://registry.redhat.io/rhelai1/modelcar-gpt-oss-20b-essential:3.0
    tolerations:
    - effect: NoSchedule
      key: nvidia.com/gpu
      operator: Exists
```

```bash
# make sure first to be in the project where you want to deploy the model
# oc project <project-name>

# apply both resources to run model

# Apply the ServingRuntime
oc apply -f vllm-servingruntime.yaml

```

```python
# Replace <inference-service-name> and <cluster-ingress-domain> below:
# - Run `oc get inferenceservice` to find your URL if unsure.

# Call the server using curl:
curl https://<inference-service-name>-predictor-default.<domain>/v1/chat/completions
        -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
        -d '{
    "model": "gpt-oss-20b-essential",
    "stream": true,
    "stream_options": {
        "include_usage": true
    },
    "max_tokens": 1,
    "messages": [
        {
            "role": "user",
            "content": "How can a bee fly when its wings are so small?"
        }
    ]
}'

```

See [Red Hat Openshift AI documentation](https://docs.redhat.com/en/documentation/red_hat_openshift_ai/2025) for more details.
</details>

## Transformers

You can use `gpt-oss-120b` and `gpt-oss-20b` with Transformers. If you use the Transformers chat template, it will automatically apply the [harmony response format](https://github.com/openai/harmony). If you use `model.generate` directly, you need to apply the harmony format manually using the chat template or use our [openai-harmony](https://github.com/openai/harmony) package.

To get started, install the necessary dependencies to setup your environment:

```
pip install -U transformers kernels torch 
```

Once, setup you can proceed to run the model by running the snippet below:

```py
from transformers import pipeline
import torch

model_id = "openai/gpt-oss-20b"

pipe = pipeline(
    "text-generation",
    model=model_id,
    torch_dtype="auto",
    device_map="auto",
)

messages = [
    {"role": "user", "content": "Explain quantum mechanics clearly and concisely."},
]

outputs = pipe(
    messages,
    max_new_tokens=256,
)
print(outputs[0]["generated_text"][-1])
```

Alternatively, you can run the model via [`Transformers Serve`](https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/main/serving) to spin up a OpenAI-compatible webserver:

```
transformers serve
transformers chat localhost:8000 --model-name-or-path openai/gpt-oss-20b
```

[Learn more about how to use gpt-oss with Transformers.](https://cookbook.openai.com/articles/gpt-oss/run-transformers)


## PyTorch / Triton

To learn about how to use this model with PyTorch and Triton, check out our [reference implementations in the gpt-oss repository](https://github.com/openai/gpt-oss?tab=readme-ov-file#reference-pytorch-implementation).

<details>
  <summary><strong>Ollama</strong></summary>

If you are trying to run gpt-oss on consumer hardware, you can use Ollama by running the following commands after [installing Ollama](https://ollama.com/download).

```bash
# gpt-oss-20b
ollama pull gpt-oss:20b
ollama run gpt-oss:20b
```

[Learn more about how to use gpt-oss with Ollama.](https://cookbook.openai.com/articles/gpt-oss/run-locally-ollama)

</details>

#### LM Studio

If you are using [LM Studio](https://lmstudio.ai/) you can use the following commands to download.

```bash
# gpt-oss-20b
lms get openai/gpt-oss-20b
```

Check out our [awesome list](https://github.com/openai/gpt-oss/blob/main/awesome-gpt-oss.md) for a broader collection of gpt-oss resources and inference partners.

---

# Download the model

You can download the model weights from the [Hugging Face Hub](https://huggingface.co/collections/openai/gpt-oss-68911959590a1634ba11c7a4) directly from Hugging Face CLI:

```shell
# gpt-oss-20b
huggingface-cli download openai/gpt-oss-20b --include "original/*" --local-dir gpt-oss-20b/
pip install gpt-oss
python -m gpt_oss.chat model/
```

# Reasoning levels

You can adjust the reasoning level that suits your task across three levels:

* **Low:** Fast responses for general dialogue.  
* **Medium:** Balanced speed and detail.  
* **High:** Deep and detailed analysis.

The reasoning level can be set in the system prompts, e.g., "Reasoning: high".

# Tool use

The gpt-oss models are excellent for:
* Web browsing (using built-in browsing tools)
* Function calling with defined schemas
* Agentic operations like browser tasks

# Fine-tuning

Both gpt-oss models can be fine-tuned for a variety of specialized use cases.

This smaller model `gpt-oss-20b` can be fine-tuned on consumer hardware, whereas the larger [`gpt-oss-120b`](https://huggingface.co/openai/gpt-oss-120b) can be fine-tuned on a single H100 node.

# Citation

```bibtex
@misc{openai2025gptoss120bgptoss20bmodel,
      title={gpt-oss-120b & gpt-oss-20b Model Card}, 
      author={OpenAI},
      year={2025},
      eprint={2508.10925},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={cs.CL},
      url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.10925}, 
}
```