"""Spec for `causal-video-kv-cache-decode` — CausVid / self-forcing chunked autoregressive video decode.""" import pathlib import sys sys.path.insert(0, str(pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1])) from spec import TaskSpec SPEC = TaskSpec( name="causal-video-kv-cache-decode", title="Write a fast block-causal video KV-cache decode attention kernel", blurb=("Autoregressive video generation (CausVid, self-forcing) does not decode a token at a time — it " "decodes a CHUNK OF FRAMES at a time. The new chunk's ~5k tokens attend bidirectionally to each " "other and causally to every frame already generated, and the cache is paged at FRAME " "granularity, so the keys arrive through a per-request frame table with a different number of " "cached frames per request. A prefill-shaped query block against a paged, ragged, frame-indexed " "KV cache."), keywords=["mle", "kernel-generation", "attention", "video-diffusion", "causvid", "self-forcing", "kv-cache", "paged-attention", "autoregressive-video", "block-causal"], module="causal_video_decode.py", func="causal_video_cache_attention", signature=("causal_video_cache_attention(q, k_new, v_new, k_cache, v_cache, frame_table, cache_frames, " "frame_tokens, scale=None)"), returns_doc="""Block-causal attention of a new frame chunk against a frame-paged video KV cache. Args: q, k_new, v_new: (B, CQ*S, NH, D) bfloat16 — the new chunk: CQ frames of S = frame_tokens tokens. k_cache, v_cache: (B, NSLOT, S, NH, D) bfloat16 — the frame-paged cache; one slot holds one frame. frame_table: (B, P) int32 — frame_table[b, j] is the SLOT holding request b's j-th cached frame, in temporal order. Only the first cache_frames[b] entries are valid. cache_frames: (B,) int32 — number of valid cached frames per request, 0 <= cache_frames[b] <= P. frame_tokens: int — S, the number of latent tokens in one frame. scale: float or None — logit scale; None means D ** -0.5. Returns: o: (B, CQ*S, NH, D), bfloat16 or float32 — must match /app/reference.py numerically.""", reference_imports="import torch", reference_src=''' def causal_video_cache_attention(q, k_new, v_new, k_cache, v_cache, frame_table, cache_frames, frame_tokens, scale=None): """Block-causal chunk-vs-cache attention, written as an explicit gather + dense softmax in fp32. Correct and simple — it is the numerical SPECIFICATION, not a performance target. It gathers every request's whole cache through the frame table and softmaxes the full score matrix. """ B, QT, NH, D = q.shape S = frame_tokens P = frame_table.shape[1] if scale is None: scale = D ** -0.5 dev = q.device o = torch.empty(B, QT, NH, D, device=dev, dtype=torch.float32) for b in range(B): n = int(cache_frames[b].item()) slots = frame_table[b, :n].long() kc = k_cache[b, slots].reshape(n * S, NH, D).float() if n else \\ torch.zeros(0, NH, D, device=dev) vc = v_cache[b, slots].reshape(n * S, NH, D).float() if n else \\ torch.zeros(0, NH, D, device=dev) kk = torch.cat([kc, k_new[b].float()], dim=0) # cache first, then the new chunk vv = torch.cat([vc, v_new[b].float()], dim=0) qf = q[b].float() * scale step = max(1, int(2e8) // max(1, kk.shape[0] * NH * 4)) for s0 in range(0, QT, step): e0 = min(QT, s0 + step) s = torch.einsum("qhd,khd->hqk", qf[s0:e0], kk) o[b, s0:e0] = torch.einsum("hqk,khd->qhd", torch.softmax(s, dim=-1), vv) return o ''', make_inputs_src=''' def _mk(B, CQ, S, NH, D, P, seed): gen = torch.Generator(device="cuda").manual_seed(seed) NSLOT = P + 8 # the pool is bigger than any request needs QT = CQ * S def r(*sh): return torch.randn(*sh, device="cuda", dtype=torch.bfloat16, generator=gen) q, kn, vn = r(B, QT, NH, D), r(B, QT, NH, D), r(B, QT, NH, D) kc, vc = r(B, NSLOT, S, NH, D), r(B, NSLOT, S, NH, D) cf = torch.tensor(_cache_frames(B, P), device="cuda", dtype=torch.int32) # a scrambled frame table: temporal order is NOT slot order, and unused entries hold stale slot ids tab = torch.rand(B, NSLOT, device="cuda", generator=gen).argsort(dim=-1)[:, :P].int().contiguous() return q, kn, vn, kc, vc, tab, cf, S ''', flops_src=''' def _cache_frames(B, P): """Valid cached frames per request, from the SHAPE ALONE — a deterministic ragged mix.""" return [max(1, P - ((b * 5 + 3) % (P // 2 + 1))) for b in range(B)] def canonical_work(B, CQ, S, NH, D, P): """FLOPs attributed to one forward, from the SHAPE ALONE. Request b's CQ*S new queries each attend to cache_frames[b]*S cached keys plus the whole CQ*S new chunk (bidirectional inside the chunk). Each pair costs 4*D FLOPs. The padding beyond cache_frames[b] is never credited. """ QT = CQ * S pairs = sum(QT * (n * S + QT) for n in _cache_frames(B, P)) return 4 * D * NH * pairs ''', flops_formula="""QT = CQ * S FLOPs = 4 * D * NH * sum over b of ( QT * ( cache_frames[b]*S + QT ) ) # 2*D for q.k + 2*D for p*v""", metric="TFLOP/s", compare="tensor", tol=5e-3, shape_names=("B", "CQ", "S", "NH", "D", "P"), grader_shapes=[(1, 3, 1536, 16, 128, 24), (2, 2, 1536, 12, 128, 20), (1, 4, 2048, 12, 128, 16), (1, 3, 1536, 24, 64, 24), (2, 3, 1024, 16, 128, 28)], measure_shapes=[(1, 3, 1536, 12, 128, 20), (2, 2, 1536, 10, 128, 16), (1, 4, 1536, 12, 128, 16), (1, 3, 1536, 20, 64, 20), (2, 3, 1024, 12, 128, 24)], measure_quick_shapes=[(1, 2, 512, 8, 128, 8), (2, 2, 384, 8, 64, 6), (1, 3, 512, 8, 128, 6)], correct_shapes=[(1, 2, 256, 4, 64, 6), (3, 2, 192, 4, 64, 5), (1, 3, 320, 8, 128, 8), (2, 1, 256, 4, 64, 4), (1, 4, 128, 6, 128, 7), (2, 2, 200, 4, 64, 9)], spec_md="""A chunked autoregressive video decoder. Each step generates `CQ` **whole frames** of `S` latent tokens, so the query block is `QT = CQ*S` tokens — thousands of them, a prefill-shaped block, not one token. **The cache is paged at frame granularity.** `k_cache` / `v_cache` are a pool of `NSLOT` slots, each holding one whole frame of `S` tokens. Request `b`'s history is `cache_frames[b]` frames, and the slot holding its `j`-th oldest frame is `frame_table[b, j]`. Slots are **not** assigned in order, the table is shared between requests only in the sense that they draw from the same pool, and entries at `j >= cache_frames[b]` are **stale**: valid slot ids that point at other requests' data, so dereferencing them will not fault, it will silently give the wrong answer. **The mask.** For request `b`, write `Kb` for the concatenation ``` Kb = [ cache frame 0 | cache frame 1 | ... | cache frame cache_frames[b]-1 | the new chunk ] (that is, cache_frames[b]*S cached keys followed by the QT keys of k_new) ``` Every one of the `QT` new queries attends to **all** of `Kb`: ``` logit(i, r) = scale * (q_i . Kb_r) o_i = softmax_r( logit(i, r) ) @ Vb ``` with `scale` defaulting to `D ** -0.5`. Two things follow: * **The history is fully visible** — that is the "causal" part, at chunk granularity: everything already generated is in the past. * **Inside the new chunk the attention is bidirectional** — there is *no* token-level causal mask. The chunk is denoised jointly, so its tokens see each other in both directions. This is the single most common thing to get wrong here: it is not a triangular mask. The concatenation order (cache then new chunk) is not observable in the result — softmax is permutation invariant over keys — but the *set* is, and so is which cache slots belong to the set. `cache_frames[b]` is at least 1 and varies between requests, so the reduction length differs per request. `/app/reference.py` gathers each request's whole cache through the frame table and softmaxes the full score matrix. That is the exact specification; it is deliberately simple rather than fast.""", contract_md="""| arg | shape | dtype | meaning | |-----|-------|-------|---------| | `q` | `(B, CQ*S, NH, D)` | `bfloat16` | the new chunk's queries | | `k_new`, `v_new` | `(B, CQ*S, NH, D)` | `bfloat16` | the new chunk's own keys / values | | `k_cache`, `v_cache` | `(B, NSLOT, S, NH, D)` | `bfloat16` | frame-paged cache pool; slot = one whole frame | | `frame_table` | `(B, P)` | `int32` | slot of the `j`-th cached frame, temporal order; only `[0, cache_frames[b])` is valid | | `cache_frames` | `(B,)` | `int32` | valid cached frames per request, `1 <= cache_frames[b] <= P` | | `frame_tokens` | scalar | `int` | `S`, tokens per frame | | `scale` | scalar | `float` or `None` | logit scale; `None` means `D ** -0.5` | **Return** `o` of shape `(B, CQ*S, NH, D)`, dtype `bfloat16` or `float32`. `NSLOT >= P` and slot ids are in `[0, NSLOT)`. `frame_table` and `cache_frames` are **device** tensors — reading them back to the host inside the call is a synchronisation on the critical path and is measured. Nothing is written back: the cache append for this chunk happens elsewhere. All tensors are CUDA, contiguous, **read-only**. No GQA, no RoPE, no dropout, no bias, and **no token-level causal mask**.""", regime_md="""**Shape regime you are graded in** (the exact grader sizes are *not* disclosed): `CQ` 2-4 frames per step, `S` 1024-2048 tokens per frame (so `QT` = 2k-8k queries), `NH` 12-24, `D` in {64, 128}, `P` 16-28 cached frames, `B` 1-2. `cache_frames[b]` is ragged and roughly `P/2` to `P`. That is 20k-45k cached keys against a few thousand queries: a fat, cache-dominated attention where the KV stream is the bottleneck and the frame table is the only indirection.""", correctness_md="""Your output must match the reference (evaluated in fp32 as a stable ground truth) within **relative Frobenius error `5e-3`** at every graded shape, including the timed ones. Reading one stale table entry (index `>= cache_frames[b]`) corrupts an entire frame of keys and fails immediately. The gate is calibrated against the ways this kernel actually goes wrong. Measured on the real graded inputs, relative error of a kernel that: * **ignores `cache_frames`** and reads all `P` table entries (stale slots included): **0.34-0.64** * **ignores the frame table** and reads cache slots `0..n-1` in slot order: **0.72-1.14** * **drops the oldest half** of each request's cached frames: **0.49-0.87** * **applies a token-level causal mask inside the new chunk**: **0.25-0.63** The weakest of those is still **~50x the tolerance**, so every one of the four is rejected outright.""", perf_md="""**This is a flash-attention prefill whose key stream comes through a page table.** The query block is `QT` = thousands of rows, the key stream is tens of thousands, and each cache "page" is a whole frame — `S x NH x D` bf16, i.e. hundreds of kilobytes — so the indirection cost per byte loaded is negligible *if* you hoist it: read `frame_table[b, j]` once per page, then stream that page contiguously. **Split over the key axis.** With `QT` in the thousands and the cache in the tens of thousands, a single threadblock per `(query tile, head)` gives you `QT/BLOCK_M * NH` blocks — usually enough, but the reduction per block is long. If occupancy is short (small `B`, small `NH`), split the key axis, produce partial `(o, lse)` per split and merge; the merge is cheap next to a 45k-key reduction. **Ragged reductions.** `cache_frames[b]` differs per request, so with `B = 2` one request can do twice the work of the other. Build the work list from `cache_frames` on the device and schedule flat over `(b, query tile, key split)` rather than a rectangular grid. **The new chunk is contiguous and dense.** Handle it as the final (or first) segment of the same online softmax; there is no mask on it at all, so it is a plain dense tile — do not build a triangular mask you then have to ignore. **Do not synchronise on `cache_frames`.** Its values decide the loop bound. Either read it inside the kernel and loop dynamically, or precompute a device-side work list in a tiny setup kernel. A `.item()` per request serialises the launch. **Frame-major cache layout.** `k_cache[b, slot]` is `S*NH*D` contiguous elements; a whole frame is a single long, perfectly coalesced read. Vectorise along `D` and stream it — this kernel should be close to KV bandwidth bound at the graded shapes.""", precision_md="""All inputs and outputs are **bfloat16** except the two index tensors (`int32`). Matmuls on bf16 tensor cores with **fp32 accumulation**; online-softmax state in **fp32**. Reductions are 20k-45k keys long and *ragged*, so a bf16 running sum degrades differently for different requests — easy to misread as a paging bug. **How the tolerance was set (measured, not guessed).** Two independent implementations were compared against the reference on the real graded inputs: an fp32 whole-batch dense masked softmax over a padded key stream — no per-request loop, no query chunking — which reproduces the reference bit for bit (relative error 0.0 at the correctness shapes, 2e-7 at the largest graded one), and a fused **bf16** flash kernel with fp32 accumulation, the shape of implementation this task wants. The bf16 one differs from the fp32 reference by **E = 2.3e-3**, essentially constant from 1.5k to 45k keys. `tol` is set at **5e-3, about 2.2x E**. This is an arithmetic gate, not a bit-exactness one: 5e-3 sits below bf16 epsilon (~8e-3) but an honest bf16 kernel clears it with more than 2x of margin, because the Frobenius error of a long fp32-accumulated reduction is well under one bf16 ULP. **fp8** is acceptable for the cache-side matmuls if you can hold the tolerance; this is the regime where a quantised KV cache is actually used. `frame_table` and `cache_frames` are **exact integer data**. Compare and index with integers — `.float()` is lossy above `2**24` and buys nothing here. Slots at `j >= cache_frames[b]` are *valid but wrong*: they will not fault, so a bounds bug shows up only as a numerical error. Do not shorten the reduction: every cached frame in `[0, cache_frames[b])` is in the denominator, and skipping the oldest frames (they "matter less") is a systematic error that grows with `P`. Do **not** infer from the reference that fp32 compute is wanted; it runs in fp32 purely to be a stable numerical *specification*.""", ).validate() # --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- DROP_SRC = ''' def _drop(q, k_new, v_new, k_cache, v_cache, frame_table, cache_frames, frame_tokens, scale=None): """Drop-the-feature: ignore cache_frames and use the WHOLE frame table (stale entries included).""" B, QT, NH, D = q.shape S = frame_tokens P = frame_table.shape[1] if scale is None: scale = D ** -0.5 dev = q.device o = torch.empty(B, QT, NH, D, device=dev, dtype=torch.float32) for b in range(B): slots = frame_table[b].long() kk = torch.cat([k_cache[b, slots].reshape(P * S, NH, D).float(), k_new[b].float()], 0) vv = torch.cat([v_cache[b, slots].reshape(P * S, NH, D).float(), v_new[b].float()], 0) s = torch.einsum("qhd,khd->hqk", q[b].float() * scale, kk) o[b] = torch.einsum("hqk,khd->qhd", torch.softmax(s, -1), vv) return o ''' DROP2_SRC = ''' def _drop2(q, k_new, v_new, k_cache, v_cache, frame_table, cache_frames, frame_tokens, scale=None): """Second drop check: apply a token-level CAUSAL mask inside the new chunk.""" B, QT, NH, D = q.shape S = frame_tokens if scale is None: scale = D ** -0.5 dev = q.device o = torch.empty(B, QT, NH, D, device=dev, dtype=torch.float32) ar = torch.arange(QT, device=dev) for b in range(B): n = int(cache_frames[b].item()) slots = frame_table[b, :n].long() kk = torch.cat([k_cache[b, slots].reshape(n * S, NH, D).float(), k_new[b].float()], 0) vv = torch.cat([v_cache[b, slots].reshape(n * S, NH, D).float(), v_new[b].float()], 0) s = torch.einsum("qhd,khd->hqk", q[b].float() * scale, kk) m = torch.ones(QT, n * S + QT, dtype=torch.bool, device=dev) m[:, n * S:] = ar[None, :] <= ar[:, None] s = s.masked_fill(~m, float("-inf")) o[b] = torch.einsum("hqk,khd->qhd", torch.softmax(s, -1), vv) return o '''