Upload 1905-base-d34 checkpoint (step 3000)

README.md

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+---
+license: mit
+language:
+- en
+tags:
+- gpt
+- pre-1900
+- historical
+- nanochat
+---
+
+# GPT-1905 D34 Base
+
+3.29B parameter GPT-style language model trained on pre-1905 English text. Training in progress.
+
+## Model Details
+
+- **Architecture:** Custom GPT with RoPE, QK-norm, ReLU², value embeddings (ResFormer), per-layer residual/skip scalars
+- **Parameters:** 3.29B
+- **Layers:** 34
+- **Hidden dim:** 2176
+- **Attention heads:** 17 (query) / 17 (kv)
+- **Head dim:** 128
+- **Context length:** 2048 tokens
+- **Vocab size:** 32,768 (BPE, GPT-4 style split pattern)
+- **Training:** Base pretraining on pre-1905 corpus, checkpoint at step 3000
+
+## Checkpoint Contents
+
+```
+model_003000.pt          # Model weights
+meta_003000.json         # Training config and metadata
+optim_003000_rank*.pt    # Optimizer state shards (if present, for resuming training)
+tokenizer/                   # BPE tokenizer (tiktoken format) + token byte counts
+nanochat/                    # Source code to load and run the model
+```
+
+## Quick Start
+
+```python
+import torch, json
+from nanochat.gpt import GPT, GPTConfig
+from nanochat.tokenizer import RustBPETokenizer
+
+tokenizer = RustBPETokenizer.from_directory("tokenizer")
+
+with open("meta_003000.json") as f:
+    meta = json.load(f)
+
+config = GPTConfig(**meta["model_config"])
+
+with torch.device("meta"):
+    model = GPT(config)
+model.to_empty(device="cuda")
+model.init_weights()
+
+state_dict = torch.load("model_003000.pt", map_location="cuda")
+state_dict = {k.removeprefix("_orig_mod."): v for k, v in state_dict.items()}
+model.load_state_dict(state_dict, strict=True, assign=True)
+model.eval()
+
+bos = tokenizer.get_bos_token_id()
+tokens = tokenizer.encode("It was a dark and stormy night", prepend=bos)
+with torch.amp.autocast(device_type="cuda", dtype=torch.bfloat16):
+    for token in model.generate(tokens, max_tokens=100, temperature=0.8):
+        print(tokenizer.decode([token]), end="", flush=True)
+```
+
+## Dependencies
+
+```
+torch>=2.9
+tiktoken
+rustbpe
+```

meta_003000.json

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+{
+  "step": 3000,
+  "val_bpb": 0.9569599338186712,
+  "model_config": {
+    "sequence_len": 2048,
+    "vocab_size": 32768,
+    "n_layer": 34,
+    "n_head": 17,
+    "n_kv_head": 17,
+    "n_embd": 2176,
+    "window_pattern": "L"
+  },
+  "user_config": {
+    "run": "pre1905_d34",
+    "device_type": "",
+    "fp8": true,
+    "fp8_recipe": "tensorwise",
+    "activation_checkpointing": false,
+    "depth": 34,
+    "aspect_ratio": 64,
+    "head_dim": 128,
+    "max_seq_len": 2048,
+    "window_pattern": "L",
+    "num_iterations": -1,
+    "target_flops": -1.0,
+    "target_param_data_ratio": 20.0,
+    "device_batch_size": 4,
+    "total_batch_size": -1,
+    "embedding_lr": 0.3,
+    "unembedding_lr": 0.004,
+    "weight_decay": 0.2,
+    "matrix_lr": 0.02,
+    "scalar_lr": 0.5,
+    "adam_beta1": 0.8,
+    "adam_beta2": 0.95,
+    "warmup_ratio": 0.0,
+    "warmdown_ratio": 0.5,
+    "final_lr_frac": 0.0,
+    "resume_from_step": -1,
+    "eval_every": 250,
+    "eval_tokens": 20971520,
+    "core_metric_every": 2000,
+    "core_metric_max_per_task": 500,
+    "sample_every": 2000,
+    "save_every": 3000,
+    "model_tag": null
+  },
+  "device_batch_size": 4,
+  "max_seq_len": 2048,
+  "dataloader_state_dict": {
+    "pq_idx": 95,
+    "rg_idx": 48,
+    "epoch": 1
+  },
+  "loop_state": {
+    "min_val_bpb": 0.9569599338186712,
+    "smooth_train_loss": 2.612821289491694,
+    "total_training_time": 24056.003203868866
+  }
+}

model_003000.pt

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+version https://git-lfs.github.com/spec/v1
+oid sha256:f3753ed9c5f7d1b453375fee1ec65d5b57fadc0e517f349fa1fa0239a87fcf93
+size 10579743323

nanochat/checkpoint_manager.py

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+"""
+Utilities for saving and loading model/optim/state checkpoints.
+"""
+import os
+import re
+import glob
+import json
+import logging
+import torch
+
+from nanochat.common import get_base_dir
+from nanochat.gpt import GPT, GPTConfig
+from nanochat.tokenizer import get_tokenizer
+from nanochat.common import setup_default_logging
+
+# Set up logging
+setup_default_logging()
+logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+def log0(message):
+    if int(os.environ.get('RANK', 0)) == 0:
+        logger.info(message)
+
+def _patch_missing_config_keys(model_config_kwargs):
+    """Add default values for new config keys missing in old checkpoints."""
+    # Old models were trained with full context (no sliding window)
+    if "window_pattern" not in model_config_kwargs:
+        model_config_kwargs["window_pattern"] = "L"
+        log0(f"Patching missing window_pattern in model config to 'L'")
+
+def _patch_missing_keys(model_data, model_config):
+    """Add default values for new parameters that may be missing in old checkpoints."""
+    n_layer = model_config.n_layer
+    # resid_lambdas defaults to 1.0 (identity scaling)
+    if "resid_lambdas" not in model_data:
+        model_data["resid_lambdas"] = torch.ones(n_layer)
+        log0(f"Patching missing resid_lambdas in model data to 1.0")
+    # x0_lambdas defaults to 0.0 (disabled)
+    if "x0_lambdas" not in model_data:
+        model_data["x0_lambdas"] = torch.zeros(n_layer)
+        log0(f"Patching missing x0_lambdas in model data to 0.0")
+
+def save_checkpoint(checkpoint_dir, step, model_data, optimizer_data, meta_data, rank=0):
+    if rank == 0:
+        os.makedirs(checkpoint_dir, exist_ok=True)
+        # Save the model state parameters
+        model_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"model_{step:06d}.pt")
+        torch.save(model_data, model_path)
+        logger.info(f"Saved model parameters to: {model_path}")
+        # Save the metadata dict as json
+        meta_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"meta_{step:06d}.json")
+        with open(meta_path, "w", encoding="utf-8") as f:
+            json.dump(meta_data, f, indent=2)
+        logger.info(f"Saved metadata to: {meta_path}")
+    # Note that optimizer state is sharded across ranks, so each rank must save its own.
+    if optimizer_data is not None:
+        os.makedirs(checkpoint_dir, exist_ok=True)
+        optimizer_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"optim_{step:06d}_rank{rank:d}.pt")
+        torch.save(optimizer_data, optimizer_path)
+        logger.info(f"Saved optimizer state to: {optimizer_path}")
+
+def load_checkpoint(checkpoint_dir, step, device, load_optimizer=False, rank=0):
+    # Load the model state
+    model_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"model_{step:06d}.pt")
+    model_data = torch.load(model_path, map_location=device)
+    # Load the optimizer state if requested
+    optimizer_data = None
+    if load_optimizer:
+        optimizer_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"optim_{step:06d}_rank{rank:d}.pt")
+        optimizer_data = torch.load(optimizer_path, map_location=device)
+    # Load the metadata
+    meta_path = os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, f"meta_{step:06d}.json")
+    with open(meta_path, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
+        meta_data = json.load(f)
+    return model_data, optimizer_data, meta_data
+
+
+def build_model(checkpoint_dir, step, device, phase):
+    """
+    A bunch of repetitive code to build a model from a given checkpoint.
+    Returns:
+    - base model - uncompiled, not wrapped in DDP
+    - tokenizer
+    - meta data saved during base model training
+    """
+    assert phase in ["train", "eval"], f"Invalid phase: {phase}"
+    model_data, optimizer_data, meta_data = load_checkpoint(checkpoint_dir, step, device, load_optimizer=False)
+    if device.type in {"cpu", "mps"}:
+        # Convert bfloat16 tensors to float for CPU inference
+        model_data = {
+            k: v.float() if v.dtype == torch.bfloat16 else v
+            for k, v in model_data.items()
+        }
+    # Hack: fix torch compile issue, which prepends all keys with _orig_mod.
+    model_data = {k.removeprefix("_orig_mod."): v for k, v in model_data.items()}
+    model_config_kwargs = meta_data["model_config"]
+    _patch_missing_config_keys(model_config_kwargs)
+    log0(f"Building model with config: {model_config_kwargs}")
+    model_config = GPTConfig(**model_config_kwargs)
+    _patch_missing_keys(model_data, model_config)
+    with torch.device("meta"):
+        model = GPT(model_config)
+    # Load the model state
+    model.to_empty(device=device)
+    model.init_weights() # note: this is dumb, but we need to init the rotary embeddings. TODO: fix model re-init
+    model.load_state_dict(model_data, strict=True, assign=True)
+    # Put the model in the right training phase / mode
+    if phase == "eval":
+        model.eval()
+    else:
+        model.train()
+    # Load the Tokenizer
+    tokenizer = get_tokenizer()
+    # Sanity check: compatibility between model and tokenizer
+    assert tokenizer.get_vocab_size() == model_config_kwargs["vocab_size"], f"Tokenizer vocab size {tokenizer.get_vocab_size()} does not match model config vocab size {model_config_kwargs['vocab_size']}"
+    return model, tokenizer, meta_data
+
+
+def find_largest_model(checkpoints_dir):
+    # attempt to guess the model tag: take the biggest model available
+    model_tags = [f for f in os.listdir(checkpoints_dir) if os.path.isdir(os.path.join(checkpoints_dir, f))]
+    if not model_tags:
+        raise FileNotFoundError(f"No checkpoints found in {checkpoints_dir}")
+    # 1) normally all model tags are of the form d<number>, try that first:
+    candidates = []
+    for model_tag in model_tags:
+        match = re.match(r"d(\d+)", model_tag)
+        if match:
+            model_depth = int(match.group(1))
+            candidates.append((model_depth, model_tag))
+    if candidates:
+        candidates.sort(key=lambda x: x[0], reverse=True)
+        return candidates[0][1]
+    # 2) if that failed, take the most recently updated model:
+    model_tags.sort(key=lambda x: os.path.getmtime(os.path.join(checkpoints_dir, x)), reverse=True)
+    return model_tags[0]
+
+
+def find_last_step(checkpoint_dir):
+    # Look into checkpoint_dir and find model_<step>.pt with the highest step
+    checkpoint_files = glob.glob(os.path.join(checkpoint_dir, "model_*.pt"))
+    if not checkpoint_files:
+        raise FileNotFoundError(f"No checkpoints found in {checkpoint_dir}")
+    last_step = int(max(os.path.basename(f).split("_")[-1].split(".")[0] for f in checkpoint_files))
+    return last_step
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# convenience functions that take into account nanochat's directory structure
+
+def load_model_from_dir(checkpoints_dir, device, phase, model_tag=None, step=None):
+    if model_tag is None:
+        # guess the model tag by defaulting to the largest model
+        model_tag = find_largest_model(checkpoints_dir)
+        log0(f"No model tag provided, guessing model tag: {model_tag}")
+    checkpoint_dir = os.path.join(checkpoints_dir, model_tag)
+    if step is None:
+        # guess the step by defaulting to the last step
+        step = find_last_step(checkpoint_dir)
+    assert step is not None, f"No checkpoints found in {checkpoint_dir}"
+    # build the model
+    log0(f"Loading model from {checkpoint_dir} with step {step}")
+    model, tokenizer, meta_data = build_model(checkpoint_dir, step, device, phase)
+    return model, tokenizer, meta_data
+
+def load_model(source, *args, **kwargs):
+    model_dir = {
+        "base": "base_checkpoints",
+        "sft": "chatsft_checkpoints",
+        "rl": "chatrl_checkpoints",
+    }[source]
+    base_dir = get_base_dir()
+    checkpoints_dir = os.path.join(base_dir, model_dir)
+    return load_model_from_dir(checkpoints_dir, *args, **kwargs)

nanochat/common.py

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+"""
+Common utilities for nanochat.
+"""
+
+import datetime
+import os
+import re
+import logging
+import urllib.request
+import torch
+import torch.distributed as dist
+from filelock import FileLock
+
+class ColoredFormatter(logging.Formatter):
+    """Custom formatter that adds colors to log messages."""
+    # ANSI color codes
+    COLORS = {
+        'DEBUG': '\033[36m',    # Cyan
+        'INFO': '\033[32m',     # Green
+        'WARNING': '\033[33m',  # Yellow
+        'ERROR': '\033[31m',    # Red
+        'CRITICAL': '\033[35m', # Magenta
+    }
+    RESET = '\033[0m'
+    BOLD = '\033[1m'
+    def format(self, record):
+        # Add color to the level name
+        levelname = record.levelname
+        if levelname in self.COLORS:
+            record.levelname = f"{self.COLORS[levelname]}{self.BOLD}{levelname}{self.RESET}"
+        # Format the message
+        message = super().format(record)
+        # Add color to specific parts of the message
+        if levelname == 'INFO':
+            # Highlight numbers and percentages
+            message = re.sub(r'(\d+\.?\d*\s*(?:GB|MB|%|docs))', rf'{self.BOLD}\1{self.RESET}', message)
+            message = re.sub(r'(Shard \d+)', rf'{self.COLORS["INFO"]}{self.BOLD}\1{self.RESET}', message)
+        return message
+
+def setup_default_logging():
+    handler = logging.StreamHandler()
+    handler.setFormatter(ColoredFormatter('%(asctime)s - %(name)s - %(levelname)s - %(message)s'))
+    logging.basicConfig(
+        level=logging.INFO,
+        handlers=[handler]
+    )
+
+setup_default_logging()
+logger = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+def get_base_dir():
+    # co-locate nanochat intermediates with other cached data in ~/.cache (by default)
+    if os.environ.get("NANOCHAT_BASE_DIR"):
+        nanochat_dir = os.environ.get("NANOCHAT_BASE_DIR")
+    else:
+        home_dir = os.path.expanduser("~")
+        cache_dir = os.path.join(home_dir, ".cache")
+        nanochat_dir = os.path.join(cache_dir, "nanochat")
+    os.makedirs(nanochat_dir, exist_ok=True)
+    return nanochat_dir
+
+def download_file_with_lock(url, filename, postprocess_fn=None):
+    """
+    Downloads a file from a URL to a local path in the base directory.
+    Uses a lock file to prevent concurrent downloads among multiple ranks.
+    """
+    base_dir = get_base_dir()
+    file_path = os.path.join(base_dir, filename)
+    lock_path = file_path + ".lock"
+
+    if os.path.exists(file_path):
+        return file_path
+
+    with FileLock(lock_path):
+        # Only a single rank can acquire this lock
+        # All other ranks block until it is released
+
+        # Recheck after acquiring lock
+        if os.path.exists(file_path):
+            return file_path
+
+        # Download the content as bytes
+        print(f"Downloading {url}...")
+        with urllib.request.urlopen(url) as response:
+            content = response.read() # bytes
+
+        # Write to local file
+        with open(file_path, 'wb') as f:
+            f.write(content)
+        print(f"Downloaded to {file_path}")
+
+        # Run the postprocess function if provided
+        if postprocess_fn is not None:
+            postprocess_fn(file_path)
+
+    return file_path
+
+def print0(s="",**kwargs):
+    ddp_rank = int(os.environ.get('RANK', 0))
+    if ddp_rank == 0:
+        print(s, **kwargs)
+
+def print_banner():
+    # Cool DOS Rebel font ASCII banner made with https://manytools.org/hacker-tools/ascii-banner/
+    banner = """
+                                                       █████                █████
+                                                      ░░███                ░░███
+     ████████    ██████   ████████    ██████   ██████  ░███████    ██████  ███████
+    ░░███░░███  ░░░░░███ ░░███░░███  ███░░███ ███░░███ ░███░░███  ░░░░░███░░░███░
+     ░███ ░███   ███████  ░███ ░███ ░███ ░███░███ ░░░  ░███ ░███   ███████  ░███
+     ░███ ░███  ███░░███  ░███ ░███ ░███ ░███░███  ███ ░███ ░███  ███░░███  ░███ ███
+     ████ █████░░████████ ████ █████░░██████ ░░██████  ████ █████░░███████  ░░█████
+    ░░░░ ░░░░░  ░░░░░░░░ ░░░░ ░░░░░  ░░░░░░   ░░░░░░  ░░░░ ░░░░░  ░░░░░░░░   ░░░░░
+    """
+    print0(banner)
+
+def is_ddp_requested() -> bool:
+    """
+    True if launched by torchrun (env present), even before init.
+    Used to decide whether we *should* initialize a PG.
+    """
+    return all(k in os.environ for k in ("RANK", "LOCAL_RANK", "WORLD_SIZE"))
+
+def is_ddp_initialized() -> bool:
+    """
+    True if torch.distributed is available and the process group is initialized.
+    Used at cleanup to avoid destroying a non-existent PG.
+    """
+    return dist.is_available() and dist.is_initialized()
+
+def get_dist_info():
+    if is_ddp_requested():
+        # We rely on torchrun's env to decide if we SHOULD init.
+        # (Initialization itself happens in compute init.)
+        assert all(var in os.environ for var in ['RANK', 'LOCAL_RANK', 'WORLD_SIZE'])
+        ddp_rank = int(os.environ['RANK'])
+        ddp_local_rank = int(os.environ['LOCAL_RANK'])
+        ddp_world_size = int(os.environ['WORLD_SIZE'])
+        return True, ddp_rank, ddp_local_rank, ddp_world_size
+    else:
+        return False, 0, 0, 1
+
+def autodetect_device_type():
+    # prefer to use CUDA if available, otherwise use MPS, otherwise fallback on CPU
+    if torch.cuda.is_available():
+        device_type = "cuda"
+    elif torch.backends.mps.is_available():
+        device_type = "mps"
+    else:
+        device_type = "cpu"
+    print0(f"Autodetected device type: {device_type}")
+    return device_type
+
+def compute_init(device_type="cuda"): # cuda|cpu|mps
+    """Basic initialization that we keep doing over and over, so make common."""
+
+    assert device_type in ["cuda", "mps", "cpu"], "Invalid device type atm"
+    if device_type == "cuda":
+        assert torch.cuda.is_available(), "Your PyTorch installation is not configured for CUDA but device_type is 'cuda'"
+    if device_type == "mps":
+        assert torch.backends.mps.is_available(), "Your PyTorch installation is not configured for MPS but device_type is 'mps'"
+
+    # Reproducibility
+    # Note that we set the global seeds here, but most of the code uses explicit rng objects.
+    # The only place where global rng might be used is nn.Module initialization of the model weights.
+    torch.manual_seed(42)
+    if device_type == "cuda":
+        torch.cuda.manual_seed(42)
+    # skipping full reproducibility for now, possibly investigate slowdown later
+    # torch.use_deterministic_algorithms(True)
+
+    # Precision
+    if device_type == "cuda":
+        torch.backends.fp32_precision = "tf32" # uses tf32 instead of fp32 for matmuls
+
+    # Distributed setup: Distributed Data Parallel (DDP), optional, and requires CUDA
+    is_ddp_requested, ddp_rank, ddp_local_rank, ddp_world_size = get_dist_info()
+    if is_ddp_requested and device_type == "cuda":
+        device = torch.device("cuda", ddp_local_rank)
+        torch.cuda.set_device(device)  # make "cuda" default to this device
+        dist.init_process_group(backend="nccl", device_id=device, timeout=datetime.timedelta(minutes=30))
+        dist.barrier()
+    else:
+        device = torch.device(device_type) # mps|cpu
+
+    if ddp_rank == 0:
+        logger.info(f"Distributed world size: {ddp_world_size}")
+
+    return is_ddp_requested, ddp_rank, ddp_local_rank, ddp_world_size, device
+
+def compute_cleanup():
+    """Companion function to compute_init, to clean things up before script exit"""
+    if is_ddp_initialized():
+        dist.destroy_process_group()
+
+class DummyWandb:
+    """Useful if we wish to not use wandb but have all the same signatures"""
+    def __init__(self):
+        pass
+    def log(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        pass
+    def finish(self):
+        pass
+
+# hardcoded BF16 peak flops for various GPUs
+# inspired by torchtitan: https://github.com/pytorch/torchtitan/blob/main/torchtitan/tools/utils.py
+# and PR: https://github.com/karpathy/nanochat/pull/147
+def get_peak_flops(device_name: str) -> float:
+    name = device_name.lower()
+
+    # Table order matters: more specific patterns first.
+    _PEAK_FLOPS_TABLE = (
+        # NVIDIA Blackwell
+        (["gb200"], 2.5e15),
+        (["grace blackwell"], 2.5e15),
+        (["b200"], 2.25e15),
+        (["b100"], 1.8e15),
+        # NVIDIA Hopper
+        (["h200", "nvl"], 836e12),
+        (["h200", "pcie"], 836e12),
+        (["h200"], 989e12),
+        (["h100", "nvl"], 835e12),
+        (["h100", "pcie"], 756e12),
+        (["h100"], 989e12),
+        (["h800", "nvl"], 989e12),
+        (["h800"], 756e12),
+        # NVIDIA Ampere data center
+        (["a100"], 312e12),
+        (["a800"], 312e12),
+        (["a40"], 149.7e12),
+        (["a30"], 165e12),
+        # NVIDIA Ada data center
+        (["l40s"], 362e12),
+        (["l40-s"], 362e12),
+        (["l40 s"], 362e12),
+        (["l4"], 121e12),
+        # AMD CDNA accelerators
+        (["mi355"], 2.5e15),
+        (["mi325"], 1.3074e15),
+        (["mi300x"], 1.3074e15),
+        (["mi300a"], 980.6e12),
+        (["mi250x"], 383e12),
+        (["mi250"], 362.1e12),
+        # Consumer RTX
+        (["5090"], 209.5e12),
+        (["4090"], 165.2e12),
+        (["3090"], 71e12),
+    )
+    for patterns, flops in _PEAK_FLOPS_TABLE:
+        if all(p in name for p in patterns):
+            return flops
+    if "data center gpu max 1550" in name:
+        # Ponte Vecchio (PVC) - dynamic based on compute units
+        max_comp_units = torch.xpu.get_device_properties("xpu").max_compute_units
+        return 512 * max_comp_units * 1300 * 10**6
+
+    # Unknown GPU - return inf so MFU shows as 0% rather than a wrong guess
+    logger.warning(f"Peak flops undefined for: {device_name}, MFU will show as 0%")
+    return float('inf')

nanochat/engine.py

@@ -0,0 +1,356 @@
+"""
+Engine for efficient inference of our models.
+
+Everything works around token sequences:
+- The user can send token sequences to the engine
+- The engine returns the next token
+
+Notes:
+- The engine knows nothing about tokenization, it's purely token id sequences.
+
+The whole thing is made as efficient as possible.
+"""
+
+import torch
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+import signal
+import warnings
+from contextlib import contextmanager
+from collections import deque
+from nanochat.common import compute_init, autodetect_device_type
+from nanochat.checkpoint_manager import load_model
+from contextlib import nullcontext
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Calculator tool helpers
+@contextmanager
+def timeout(duration, formula):
+    def timeout_handler(signum, frame):
+        raise Exception(f"'{formula}': timed out after {duration} seconds")
+
+    signal.signal(signal.SIGALRM, timeout_handler)
+    signal.alarm(duration)
+    yield
+    signal.alarm(0)
+
+def eval_with_timeout(formula, max_time=3):
+    try:
+        with timeout(max_time, formula):
+            with warnings.catch_warnings():
+                warnings.simplefilter("ignore", SyntaxWarning)
+                return eval(formula, {"__builtins__": {}}, {})
+    except Exception as e:
+        signal.alarm(0)
+        # print(f"Warning: Failed to eval {formula}, exception: {e}") # it's ok ignore wrong calculator usage
+        return None
+
+def use_calculator(expr):
+    """
+    Evaluate a Python expression safely.
+    Supports both math expressions and string operations like .count()
+    """
+    # Remove commas from numbers
+    expr = expr.replace(",", "")
+
+    # Check if it's a pure math expression (old behavior)
+    if all([x in "0123456789*+-/.() " for x in expr]):
+        if "**" in expr:  # disallow power operator
+            return None
+        return eval_with_timeout(expr)
+
+    # Check if it's a string operation we support
+    # Allow: strings (single/double quotes), .count(), letters, numbers, spaces, parens
+    allowed_chars = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789'\"()._ "
+    if not all([x in allowed_chars for x in expr]):
+        return None
+
+    # Disallow dangerous patterns
+    dangerous_patterns = ['__', 'import', 'exec', 'eval', 'compile', 'open', 'file',
+                         'input', 'raw_input', 'globals', 'locals', 'vars', 'dir',
+                         'getattr', 'setattr', 'delattr', 'hasattr']
+    expr_lower = expr.lower()
+    if any(pattern in expr_lower for pattern in dangerous_patterns):
+        return None
+
+    # Only allow .count() method for now (can expand later)
+    if '.count(' not in expr:
+        return None
+
+    # Evaluate with timeout
+    return eval_with_timeout(expr)
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+class KVCache:
+    """
+    KV Cache designed for Flash Attention 3's flash_attn_with_kvcache API.
+
+    Key differences from FA2-style cache:
+    - Tensors are (B, T, H, D) not (B, H, T, D)
+    - FA3 updates the cache in-place during flash_attn_with_kvcache
+    - Position tracked per batch element via cache_seqlens tensor
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, batch_size, num_heads, seq_len, head_dim, num_layers, device, dtype):
+        self.batch_size = batch_size
+        self.max_seq_len = seq_len
+        self.n_layers = num_layers
+        self.n_heads = num_heads
+        self.head_dim = head_dim
+        # Pre-allocate cache tensors: (n_layers, B, T, H, D)
+        self.k_cache = torch.zeros(num_layers, batch_size, seq_len, num_heads, head_dim, device=device, dtype=dtype)
+        self.v_cache = torch.zeros(num_layers, batch_size, seq_len, num_heads, head_dim, device=device, dtype=dtype)
+        # Current sequence length per batch element (FA3 needs int32)
+        self.cache_seqlens = torch.zeros(batch_size, dtype=torch.int32, device=device)
+
+    def reset(self):
+        """Reset cache to empty state."""
+        self.cache_seqlens.zero_()
+
+    def get_pos(self):
+        """Get current position (assumes all batch elements at same position)."""
+        return self.cache_seqlens[0].item()
+
+    def get_layer_cache(self, layer_idx):
+        """Return (k_cache, v_cache) views for a specific layer."""
+        return self.k_cache[layer_idx], self.v_cache[layer_idx]
+
+    def advance(self, num_tokens):
+        """Advance the cache position by num_tokens."""
+        self.cache_seqlens += num_tokens
+
+    def prefill(self, other):
+        """
+        Copy cached KV from another cache into this one.
+        Used when we do batch=1 prefill and then want to generate multiple samples in parallel.
+        """
+        assert self.get_pos() == 0, "Cannot prefill a non-empty KV cache"
+        assert self.n_layers == other.n_layers and self.n_heads == other.n_heads and self.head_dim == other.head_dim
+        assert self.max_seq_len >= other.max_seq_len
+        other_pos = other.get_pos()
+        self.k_cache[:, :, :other_pos, :, :] = other.k_cache[:, :, :other_pos, :, :]
+        self.v_cache[:, :, :other_pos, :, :] = other.v_cache[:, :, :other_pos, :, :]
+        self.cache_seqlens.fill_(other_pos)
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+@torch.inference_mode()
+def sample_next_token(logits, rng, temperature=1.0, top_k=None):
+    """Sample a single next token from given logits of shape (B, vocab_size). Returns (B, 1)."""
+    assert temperature >= 0.0, "temperature must be non-negative"
+    if temperature == 0.0:
+        return torch.argmax(logits, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
+    if top_k is not None and top_k > 0:
+        k = min(top_k, logits.size(-1))
+        vals, idx = torch.topk(logits, k, dim=-1)
+        vals = vals / temperature
+        probs = F.softmax(vals, dim=-1)
+        choice = torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1, generator=rng)
+        return idx.gather(1, choice)
+    else:
+        logits = logits / temperature
+        probs = F.softmax(logits, dim=-1)
+        return torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1, generator=rng)
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+
+class RowState:
+    # Per-row state tracking during generation
+    def __init__(self, current_tokens=None):
+        self.current_tokens = current_tokens or [] # Current token sequence for this row
+        self.forced_tokens = deque() # Queue of tokens to force inject
+        self.in_python_block = False # Whether we are inside a python block
+        self.python_expr_tokens = [] # Tokens of the current python expression
+        self.completed = False # Whether this row has completed generation
+
+class Engine:
+
+    def __init__(self, model, tokenizer):
+        self.model = model
+        self.tokenizer = tokenizer # needed for tool use
+
+    @torch.inference_mode()
+    def generate(self, tokens, num_samples=1, max_tokens=None, temperature=1.0, top_k=None, seed=42):
+        """Same as generate, but does single prefill and then clones the KV cache."""
+        assert isinstance(tokens, list) and isinstance(tokens[0], int), "expecting list of ints"
+        device = self.model.get_device()
+        # NOTE: setting the dtype here and in this way is an ugly hack.
+        # Currently the repo assumes that cuda -> bfloat16 and everything else -> float32.
+        # We need to know the dtype here to call __init__ on KVCache and pre-allocate its tensors.
+        # As a quick hack, we're making generate() function inherit and know about this repo-wise assumption.
+        # I think there has to be a bigger refactor to deal with device/dtype tracking across the codebase.
+        # In particular, the KVCache should allocate its tensors lazily
+        dtype = torch.bfloat16 if device.type == "cuda" else torch.float32
+        rng = torch.Generator(device=device)
+        rng.manual_seed(seed)
+
+        # Get the special tokens we need to coordinate the tool use state machine
+        get_special = lambda s: self.tokenizer.encode_special(s)
+        python_start = get_special("<|python_start|>")
+        python_end = get_special("<|python_end|>")
+        output_start = get_special("<|output_start|>")
+        output_end = get_special("<|output_end|>")
+        assistant_end = get_special("<|assistant_end|>") # if sampled, ends row
+        bos = self.tokenizer.get_bos_token_id() # if sampled, ends row
+
+        # 1) Run a batch 1 prefill of the prompt tokens
+        m = self.model.config
+        kv_model_kwargs = {"num_heads": m.n_kv_head, "head_dim": m.n_embd // m.n_head, "num_layers": m.n_layer}
+        kv_cache_prefill = KVCache(
+            batch_size=1,
+            seq_len=len(tokens),
+            device=device,
+            dtype=dtype,
+            **kv_model_kwargs,
+        )
+        ids = torch.tensor([tokens], dtype=torch.long, device=device)
+        logits = self.model.forward(ids, kv_cache=kv_cache_prefill)
+        logits = logits[:, -1, :].expand(num_samples, -1)  # (num_samples, vocab_size)
+
+        # 2) Replicate the KV cache for each sample/row
+        kv_length_hint = (len(tokens) + max_tokens) if max_tokens is not None else self.model.config.sequence_len
+        kv_cache_decode = KVCache(
+            batch_size=num_samples,
+            seq_len=kv_length_hint,
+            device=device,
+            dtype=dtype,
+            **kv_model_kwargs,
+        )
+        kv_cache_decode.prefill(kv_cache_prefill)
+        del kv_cache_prefill # no need to keep this memory around
+
+        # 3) Initialize states for each sample
+        row_states = [RowState(tokens.copy()) for _ in range(num_samples)]
+
+        # 4) Main generation loop
+        num_generated = 0
+        while True:
+            # Stop condition: we've reached max tokens
+            if max_tokens is not None and num_generated >= max_tokens:
+                break
+            # Stop condition: all rows are completed
+            if all(state.completed for state in row_states):
+                break
+
+            # Sample the next token for each row
+            next_ids = sample_next_token(logits, rng, temperature, top_k)  # (B, 1)
+            sampled_tokens = next_ids[:, 0].tolist()
+
+            # Process each row: choose the next token, update state, optional tool use
+            token_column = [] # contains the next token id along each row
+            token_masks = [] # contains the mask (was it sampled (1) or forced (0)?) along each row
+            for i, state in enumerate(row_states):
+                # Select the next token in this row
+                is_forced = len(state.forced_tokens) > 0 # are there tokens waiting to be forced in deque?
+                token_masks.append(0 if is_forced else 1) # mask is 0 if forced, 1 if sampled
+                next_token = state.forced_tokens.popleft() if is_forced else sampled_tokens[i]
+                token_column.append(next_token)
+                # Update the state of this row to include the next token
+                state.current_tokens.append(next_token)
+                # On <|assistant_end|> or <|bos|>, mark the row as completed
+                if next_token == assistant_end or next_token == bos:
+                    state.completed = True
+                # Handle tool logic
+                if next_token == python_start:
+                    state.in_python_block = True
+                    state.python_expr_tokens = []
+                elif next_token == python_end and state.in_python_block:
+                    state.in_python_block = False
+                    if state.python_expr_tokens:
+                        expr = self.tokenizer.decode(state.python_expr_tokens)
+                        result = use_calculator(expr)
+                        if result is not None:
+                            result_tokens = self.tokenizer.encode(str(result))
+                            state.forced_tokens.append(output_start)
+                            state.forced_tokens.extend(result_tokens)
+                            state.forced_tokens.append(output_end)
+                    state.python_expr_tokens = []
+                elif state.in_python_block:
+                    state.python_expr_tokens.append(next_token)
+
+            # Yield the token column
+            yield token_column, token_masks
+            num_generated += 1
+
+            # Prepare logits for next iteration
+            ids = torch.tensor(token_column, dtype=torch.long, device=device).unsqueeze(1)
+            logits = self.model.forward(ids, kv_cache=kv_cache_decode)[:, -1, :]  # (B, vocab_size)
+
+    def generate_batch(self, tokens, num_samples=1, **kwargs):
+        """
+        Non-streaming batch generation that just returns the final token sequences.
+        Returns a list of token sequences (list of lists of ints).
+        Terminal tokens (assistant_end, bos) are not included in the results.
+        """
+        assistant_end = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|assistant_end|>")
+        bos = self.tokenizer.get_bos_token_id()
+        results = [tokens.copy() for _ in range(num_samples)]
+        masks = [[0] * len(tokens) for _ in range(num_samples)]
+        completed = [False] * num_samples
+        for token_column, token_masks in self.generate(tokens, num_samples, **kwargs):
+            for i, (token, mask) in enumerate(zip(token_column, token_masks)):
+                if not completed[i]:
+                    if token == assistant_end or token == bos:
+                        completed[i] = True
+                    else:
+                        results[i].append(token)
+                        masks[i].append(mask)
+            # Stop if all rows are completed
+            if all(completed):
+                break
+        return results, masks
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    """
+    Quick inline test to make sure that the naive/slow model.generate function
+    is equivalent to the faster Engine.generate function here.
+    """
+    import time
+    # init compute
+    device_type = autodetect_device_type()
+    ddp, ddp_rank, ddp_local_rank, ddp_world_size, device = compute_init(device_type)
+    autocast_ctx = torch.amp.autocast(device_type=device_type, dtype=torch.bfloat16) if device_type == "cuda" else nullcontext()
+
+    # load the model and tokenizer
+    model, tokenizer, meta = load_model("base", device, phase="eval")
+    bos_token_id = tokenizer.get_bos_token_id()
+    # common hyperparameters
+    kwargs = dict(max_tokens=64, temperature=0.0)
+    # set the starting prompt
+    prompt_tokens = tokenizer.encode("The chemical formula of water is", prepend=bos_token_id)
+    # generate the reference sequence using the model.generate() function
+    generated_tokens = []
+    torch.cuda.synchronize()
+    t0 = time.time()
+    stream = model.generate(prompt_tokens, **kwargs)
+    with autocast_ctx:
+        for token in stream:
+            generated_tokens.append(token)
+            chunk = tokenizer.decode([token])
+            print(chunk, end="", flush=True)
+    print()
+    torch.cuda.synchronize()
+    t1 = time.time()
+    print(f"Reference time: {t1 - t0:.2f}s")
+    reference_ids = generated_tokens
+    # generate tokens with Engine
+    generated_tokens = []
+    engine = Engine(model, tokenizer)
+    stream = engine.generate(prompt_tokens, num_samples=1, **kwargs) # note: runs in fp32
+    torch.cuda.synchronize()
+    t0 = time.time()
+    with autocast_ctx:
+        for token_column, token_masks in stream:
+            token = token_column[0] # only print out the first row
+            generated_tokens.append(token)
+            chunk = tokenizer.decode([token])
+            print(chunk, end="", flush=True)
+    print()
+    torch.cuda.synchronize()
+    t1 = time.time()
+    print(f"Engine time: {t1 - t0:.2f}s")
+    # compare the two sequences
+    for i in range(len(reference_ids)):
+        if reference_ids[i] != generated_tokens[i]:
+            print(f"Mismatch at {i}: {reference_ids[i]} != {generated_tokens[i]}")
+            break
+    print(f"Match: {reference_ids == generated_tokens}")

nanochat/flash_attention.py

@@ -0,0 +1,179 @@
+"""
+Unified Flash Attention interface with automatic FA3/SDPA switching.
+
+Exports `flash_attn` module that matches the FA3 API exactly, but falls back
+to PyTorch SDPA on non-Hopper GPUs (including Blackwell), MPS, and CPU.
+
+Usage (drop-in replacement for FA3):
+    from nanochat.flash_attention import flash_attn
+
+    # Training (no KV cache)
+    y = flash_attn.flash_attn_func(q, k, v, causal=True, window_size=window_size)
+
+    # Inference (with KV cache)
+    y = flash_attn.flash_attn_with_kvcache(q, k_cache, v_cache, k=k, v=v, ...)
+"""
+import torch
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+
+
+# =============================================================================
+# Detection: Try to load FA3 on Hopper+ GPUs
+# =============================================================================
+def _load_flash_attention_3():
+    """Try to load Flash Attention 3 (requires Hopper GPU, sm90)."""
+    if not torch.cuda.is_available():
+        return None
+    try:
+        major, _ = torch.cuda.get_device_capability()
+        # FA3 kernels are compiled for Hopper (sm90) only
+        # Ada (sm89), Blackwell (sm100) need SDPA fallback until FA3 is recompiled
+        if major != 9:
+            return None
+        import os
+        os.environ["HF_HUB_DISABLE_PROGRESS_BARS"] = "1"
+        from kernels import get_kernel
+        return get_kernel('varunneal/flash-attention-3').flash_attn_interface
+    except Exception:
+        return None
+
+
+_fa3 = _load_flash_attention_3()
+HAS_FA3 = _fa3 is not None
+
+# Override for testing: set to 'fa3', 'sdpa', or None (auto)
+_override_impl = None
+
+
+def _use_fa3():
+    """Determine whether to use FA3 based on availability and override."""
+    if _override_impl == 'fa3':
+        assert HAS_FA3, "Cannot override to FA3: not available on this hardware"
+        return True
+    if _override_impl == 'sdpa':
+        return False
+    return HAS_FA3  # auto
+
+
+# =============================================================================
+# SDPA helpers
+# =============================================================================
+def _sdpa_attention(q, k, v, window_size, enable_gqa):
+    """
+    SDPA attention with sliding window support.
+    q, k, v are (B, H, T, D) format.
+    """
+    Tq = q.size(2)
+    Tk = k.size(2)
+    window = window_size[0]
+
+    # Full context, same length
+    if (window < 0 or window >= Tq) and Tq == Tk:
+        return F.scaled_dot_product_attention(q, k, v, is_causal=True, enable_gqa=enable_gqa)
+
+    # Single token generation
+    if Tq == 1:
+        if window >= 0 and window < Tk:
+            # window is "left" tokens we need to include (window + 1) keys total
+            start = max(0, Tk - (window + 1))
+            k = k[:, :, start:, :]
+            v = v[:, :, start:, :]
+        return F.scaled_dot_product_attention(q, k, v, is_causal=False, enable_gqa=enable_gqa)
+
+    # Need explicit mask for sliding window/chunk inference
+    device = q.device
+    # For chunk inference (Tq != Tk), is_causal is not aligned to cache position => build an explicit bool mask
+    row_idx = (Tk - Tq) + torch.arange(Tq, device=device).unsqueeze(1)
+    col_idx = torch.arange(Tk, device=device).unsqueeze(0)
+    mask = col_idx <= row_idx
+
+    # sliding window (left)
+    if window >= 0 and window < Tk:
+        mask = mask & ((row_idx - col_idx) <= window)
+    
+    return F.scaled_dot_product_attention(q, k, v, attn_mask=mask, enable_gqa=enable_gqa)
+
+# =============================================================================
+# Public API: Same interface as FA3
+# =============================================================================
+def flash_attn_func(q, k, v, causal=False, window_size=(-1, -1)):
+    """
+    Flash Attention for training (no KV cache).
+
+    Args:
+        q, k, v: Tensors of shape (B, T, H, D)
+        causal: Whether to use causal masking
+        window_size: (left, right) sliding window. -1 means unlimited.
+
+    Returns:
+        Output tensor of shape (B, T, H, D)
+    """
+    if _use_fa3():
+        return _fa3.flash_attn_func(q, k, v, causal=causal, window_size=window_size)
+
+    # SDPA fallback: transpose (B, T, H, D) -> (B, H, T, D)
+    q = q.transpose(1, 2)
+    k = k.transpose(1, 2)
+    v = v.transpose(1, 2)
+    enable_gqa = q.size(1) != k.size(1)
+    y = _sdpa_attention(q, k, v, window_size, enable_gqa)
+    return y.transpose(1, 2)  # back to (B, T, H, D)
+
+
+def flash_attn_with_kvcache(q, k_cache, v_cache, k=None, v=None, cache_seqlens=None,
+                            causal=False, window_size=(-1, -1)):
+    """
+    Flash Attention with KV cache for inference.
+
+    FA3 updates k_cache/v_cache in-place. Our SDPA fallback does the same.
+
+    Args:
+        q: Queries, shape (B, T_new, H, D)
+        k_cache, v_cache: Pre-allocated cache tensors, shape (B, T_max, H_kv, D)
+        k, v: New keys/values to insert, shape (B, T_new, H_kv, D)
+        cache_seqlens: Current position in cache, shape (B,) int32
+        causal: Whether to use causal masking
+        window_size: (left, right) sliding window. -1 means unlimited.
+
+    Returns:
+        Output tensor of shape (B, T_new, H, D)
+    """
+    if _use_fa3():
+        return _fa3.flash_attn_with_kvcache(
+            q, k_cache, v_cache, k=k, v=v, cache_seqlens=cache_seqlens,
+            causal=causal, window_size=window_size
+        )
+
+    # SDPA fallback: manually manage KV cache
+    B, T_new, H, D = q.shape
+    pos = cache_seqlens[0].item()  # assume uniform position across batch
+
+    # Insert new k, v into cache (in-place, matching FA3 behavior)
+    if k is not None and v is not None:
+        k_cache[:, pos:pos+T_new, :, :] = k
+        v_cache[:, pos:pos+T_new, :, :] = v
+
+    # Get full cache up to current position + new tokens
+    end_pos = pos + T_new
+    k_full = k_cache[:, :end_pos, :, :]
+    v_full = v_cache[:, :end_pos, :, :]
+
+    # Transpose to SDPA layout: (B, T, H, D) -> (B, H, T, D)
+    q_sdpa = q.transpose(1, 2)
+    k_sdpa = k_full.transpose(1, 2)
+    v_sdpa = v_full.transpose(1, 2)
+
+    enable_gqa = q_sdpa.size(1) != k_sdpa.size(1)
+    y_sdpa = _sdpa_attention(q_sdpa, k_sdpa, v_sdpa, window_size, enable_gqa)
+
+    return y_sdpa.transpose(1, 2)  # back to (B, T, H, D)
+
+
+# =============================================================================
+# Export: flash_attn module interface (drop-in replacement for FA3)
+# =============================================================================
+from types import SimpleNamespace
+flash_attn = SimpleNamespace(
+    flash_attn_func=flash_attn_func,
+    flash_attn_with_kvcache=flash_attn_with_kvcache,
+)

nanochat/fp8.py

@@ -0,0 +1,272 @@
+"""Minimal FP8 training for nanochat — tensorwise dynamic scaling only.
+
+Drop-in replacement for torchao's Float8Linear (~2000 lines) with ~150 lines.
+We only need the "tensorwise" recipe (one scalar scale per tensor), not the full
+generality of torchao (rowwise scaling, FSDP float8 all-gather, DTensor, tensor
+subclass dispatch tables, etc.)
+
+How FP8 training works
+======================
+A standard Linear layer does one matmul in forward and two in backward:
+  forward:      output     = input      @ weight.T
+  backward:     grad_input = grad_output @ weight
+                grad_weight= grad_output.T @ input
+
+FP8 training wraps each of these three matmuls with:
+  1. Compute scale = FP8_MAX / max(|tensor|)  for each operand
+  2. Quantize: fp8_tensor = clamp(tensor * scale, -FP8_MAX, FP8_MAX).to(fp8)
+  3. Matmul via torch._scaled_mm (cuBLAS FP8 kernel, ~2x faster than bf16)
+  4. Dequantize: _scaled_mm handles this internally using the inverse scales
+
+The key insight: torch._scaled_mm and the float8 dtypes are PyTorch built-ins.
+torchao is just orchestration around these primitives. We can call them directly.
+
+FP8 dtype choice
+================
+There are two FP8 formats. We use both, following the standard convention:
+  - float8_e4m3fn: 4-bit exponent, 3-bit mantissa, range [-448, 448]
+    Higher precision (more mantissa bits), used for input and weight.
+  - float8_e5m2:   5-bit exponent, 2-bit mantissa, range [-57344, 57344]
+    Wider range (more exponent bits), used for gradients which can be large.
+
+torch._scaled_mm layout requirements
+=====================================
+The cuBLAS FP8 kernel requires specific memory layouts:
+  - First argument (A):  must be row-major (contiguous)
+  - Second argument (B): must be column-major (B.t().contiguous().t())
+If B is obtained by transposing a contiguous tensor (e.g. weight.t()), it is
+already column-major — no copy needed. Otherwise we use _to_col_major().
+
+How this differs from torchao's approach
+========================================
+torchao uses a "tensor subclass" architecture: Float8TrainingTensor is a subclass
+of torch.Tensor that bundles FP8 data + scale + metadata. It implements
+__torch_dispatch__ with a dispatch table that intercepts every aten op (mm, t,
+reshape, clone, ...) and handles it in FP8-aware fashion. When you call
+  output = input @ weight.T
+the @ operator dispatches to aten.mm, which gets intercepted and routed to
+torch._scaled_mm behind the scenes. This is ~2000 lines of code because you need
+a handler for every tensor operation that might touch an FP8 tensor.
+
+We take a simpler approach: a single autograd.Function (_Float8Matmul) that takes
+full-precision inputs, quantizes to FP8 internally, calls _scaled_mm, and returns
+full-precision outputs. Marked @allow_in_graph so torch.compile treats it as one
+opaque node rather than trying to trace inside.
+
+The trade-off is in how torch.compile sees the two approaches:
+  - torchao: compile decomposes the tensor subclass (via __tensor_flatten__) and
+    sees every individual op (amax, scale, cast, _scaled_mm) as separate graph
+    nodes. Inductor can fuse these with surrounding operations (e.g. fuse the
+    amax computation with the preceding layer's activation function).
+  - ours: compile sees a single opaque call. It can optimize everything around
+    the FP8 linear (attention, norms, etc.) but cannot fuse across the boundary.
+
+Both call the exact same cuBLAS _scaled_mm kernel — the GPU matmul is identical.
+The difference is only in the "glue" ops (amax, scale, cast) which are tiny
+compared to the matmul. In practice this means our version is slightly faster
+(less compilation overhead, no tensor subclass dispatch cost) but can produce
+subtly different floating-point rounding paths under torch.compile, since Inductor
+generates a different graph. Numerics are bitwise identical in eager mode.
+"""
+
+import torch
+import torch.nn as nn
+
+# Avoid division by zero when computing scale from an all-zeros tensor
+EPS = 1e-12
+
+
+@torch.no_grad()
+def _to_fp8(x, fp8_dtype):
+    """Dynamically quantize a tensor to FP8 using tensorwise scaling.
+
+    "Tensorwise" means one scalar scale for the entire tensor (as opposed to
+    "rowwise" which computes a separate scale per row). Tensorwise is faster
+    because cuBLAS handles the scaling; rowwise needs the CUTLASS kernel.
+
+    Returns (fp8_data, inverse_scale) for use with torch._scaled_mm.
+    """
+    fp8_max = torch.finfo(fp8_dtype).max
+    # Compute the max absolute value across the entire tensor
+    amax = x.float().abs().max()
+    # Scale maps [0, amax] -> [0, fp8_max]. Use float64 for the division to
+    # ensure consistent numerics between torch.compile and eager mode.
+    # (torchao does the same upcast — without it, compile/eager can diverge)
+    scale = fp8_max / amax.double().clamp(min=EPS)
+    scale = scale.float()
+    # Quantize: scale into FP8 range, saturate (clamp prevents overflow when
+    # casting — PyTorch's default is to wrap, not saturate), then cast to FP8
+    x_scaled = x.float() * scale
+    x_clamped = x_scaled.clamp(-fp8_max, fp8_max)
+    x_fp8 = x_clamped.to(fp8_dtype)
+    # _scaled_mm expects the *inverse* of our scale (it multiplies by this to
+    # convert FP8 values back to the original range during the matmul)
+    inv_scale = scale.reciprocal()
+    return x_fp8, inv_scale
+
+
+def _to_col_major(x):
+    """Rearrange a 2D tensor's memory to column-major layout.
+
+    torch._scaled_mm requires its second operand in column-major layout.
+    The trick: transpose -> contiguous (forces a copy in transposed order)
+    -> transpose back. The result has the same logical shape but column-major
+    strides, e.g. a [M, N] tensor gets strides (1, M) instead of (N, 1).
+    """
+    return x.t().contiguous().t()
+
+
+# allow_in_graph tells torch.compile to treat this as an opaque operation —
+# dynamo won't try to decompose it into smaller ops. See the module docstring
+# for how this differs from torchao's tensor subclass approach.
+@torch._dynamo.allow_in_graph
+class _Float8Matmul(torch.autograd.Function):
+    """Custom autograd for the three FP8 GEMMs of a Linear layer.
+
+    The forward saves input and weight in their original precision for the
+    backward pass. Each GEMM independently re-quantizes its operands to FP8.
+    (We don't reuse the forward's FP8 tensors in backward — the backward might
+    want different precision, and saving FP8 would lose information.)
+    """
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def forward(ctx, input_2d, weight):
+        ctx.save_for_backward(input_2d, weight)
+
+        # Quantize both operands to e4m3 (higher precision format)
+        input_fp8, input_inv = _to_fp8(input_2d, torch.float8_e4m3fn)
+        weight_fp8, weight_inv = _to_fp8(weight, torch.float8_e4m3fn)
+
+        # output = input @ weight.T
+        # input_fp8 is [B, K] contiguous = row-major (good for first arg)
+        # weight_fp8 is [N, K] contiguous, so weight_fp8.t() is [K, N] with
+        # strides (1, K) = column-major (good for second arg, no copy needed!)
+        output = torch._scaled_mm(
+            input_fp8,
+            weight_fp8.t(),
+            scale_a=input_inv,
+            scale_b=weight_inv,
+            out_dtype=input_2d.dtype,
+            # use_fast_accum=True accumulates the dot products in lower precision.
+            # Slightly less accurate but measurably faster. Standard practice for
+            # the forward pass; we use False in backward for more precise gradients.
+            use_fast_accum=True,
+        )
+        return output
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def backward(ctx, grad_output):
+        input_2d, weight = ctx.saved_tensors
+
+        # === GEMM 1: grad_input = grad_output @ weight ===
+        # Shapes: [B, N] @ [N, K] -> [B, K]
+        # Gradients use e5m2 (wider range), weights use e4m3 (higher precision)
+        go_fp8, go_inv = _to_fp8(grad_output, torch.float8_e5m2)
+        w_fp8, w_inv = _to_fp8(weight, torch.float8_e4m3fn)
+        # go_fp8 is [B, N] contiguous = row-major, good for first arg
+        # w_fp8 is [N, K] contiguous = row-major, need column-major for second arg
+        w_col = _to_col_major(w_fp8)
+        grad_input = torch._scaled_mm(
+            go_fp8,
+            w_col,
+            scale_a=go_inv,
+            scale_b=w_inv,
+            out_dtype=grad_output.dtype,
+            use_fast_accum=False,
+        )
+
+        # === GEMM 2: grad_weight = grad_output.T @ input ===
+        # Shapes: [N, B] @ [B, K] -> [N, K]
+        go_fp8_2, go_inv_2 = _to_fp8(grad_output, torch.float8_e5m2)
+        in_fp8, in_inv = _to_fp8(input_2d, torch.float8_e4m3fn)
+        # go_fp8_2 is [B, N] contiguous, we need go.T = [N, B] as first arg.
+        # Transposing gives column-major, but first arg needs row-major,
+        # so we must call .contiguous() to physically rearrange the memory.
+        go_T = go_fp8_2.t().contiguous()  # [N, B] row-major
+        in_col = _to_col_major(in_fp8)    # [B, K] column-major
+        grad_weight = torch._scaled_mm(
+            go_T,
+            in_col,
+            scale_a=go_inv_2,
+            scale_b=in_inv,
+            out_dtype=grad_output.dtype,
+            use_fast_accum=False,
+        )
+
+        return grad_input, grad_weight
+
+
+class Float8Linear(nn.Linear):
+    """Drop-in nn.Linear replacement that does FP8 compute.
+
+    Weights and biases remain in their original precision (e.g. fp32/bf16).
+    Only the matmul is performed in FP8 via the _Float8Matmul autograd function.
+    """
+
+    def forward(self, input):
+        # Replicate the autocast behavior of F.linear — when autocast is active,
+        # we need to manually cast input to the autocast dtype (e.g. bf16),
+        # since we bypass F.linear's built-in autocast handling.
+        if torch.is_autocast_enabled():
+            input = input.to(torch.get_autocast_gpu_dtype())
+        # _scaled_mm only works on 2D tensors, so flatten batch dimensions
+        orig_shape = input.shape
+        input_2d = input.reshape(-1, orig_shape[-1])
+        output = _Float8Matmul.apply(input_2d, self.weight)
+        output = output.reshape(*orig_shape[:-1], output.shape[-1])
+        if self.bias is not None:
+            output = output + self.bias.to(output.dtype)
+        return output
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_float(cls, mod):
+        """Create Float8Linear from nn.Linear, sharing the same weight and bias.
+
+        Uses meta device to avoid allocating a temporary weight tensor — we
+        create the module shell on meta (shapes/dtypes only, no memory), then
+        point .weight and .bias to the original module's parameters.
+        """
+        with torch.device("meta"):
+            new_mod = cls(mod.in_features, mod.out_features, bias=False)
+        new_mod.weight = mod.weight
+        new_mod.bias = mod.bias
+        return new_mod
+
+
+class Float8LinearConfig:
+    """Minimal config matching torchao's API. Only tensorwise recipe is supported."""
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def from_recipe_name(recipe_name):
+        if recipe_name != "tensorwise":
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"Only 'tensorwise' recipe is supported, got '{recipe_name}'. "
+                f"Rowwise/axiswise recipes require the full torchao library."
+            )
+        return Float8LinearConfig()
+
+
+def convert_to_float8_training(module, *, config=None, module_filter_fn=None):
+    """Replace nn.Linear layers with Float8Linear throughout a module.
+
+    Walks the module tree in post-order (children before parents) and swaps
+    each nn.Linear that passes the optional filter. The new Float8Linear shares
+    the original weight and bias tensors — no copies, no extra memory.
+
+    Args:
+        module: Root module to convert.
+        config: Float8LinearConfig (accepted for API compat, only tensorwise supported).
+        module_filter_fn: Optional filter(module, fqn) -> bool. Only matching Linears
+            are converted. Common use: skip layers with dims not divisible by 16
+            (hardware requirement for FP8 matmuls on H100).
+    """
+    def _convert(mod, prefix=""):
+        for name, child in mod.named_children():
+            fqn = f"{prefix}.{name}" if prefix else name
+            _convert(child, fqn)
+            if isinstance(child, nn.Linear) and not isinstance(child, Float8Linear):
+                if module_filter_fn is None or module_filter_fn(child, fqn):
+                    setattr(mod, name, Float8Linear.from_float(child))
+
+    _convert(module)
+    return module

nanochat/gpt.py

@@ -0,0 +1,459 @@
+"""
+GPT model (rewrite, a lot simpler)
+Notable features:
+- rotary embeddings (and no positional embeddings)
+- QK norm
+- untied weights for token embedding and lm_head
+- relu^2 activation in MLP
+- norm after token embedding
+- no learnable params in rmsnorm
+- no bias in linear layers
+- Group-Query Attention (GQA) support for more efficient inference
+- Flash Attention 3 integration
+"""
+
+from functools import partial
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from torch.utils.checkpoint import checkpoint as torch_checkpoint
+
+import torch
+import torch.nn as nn
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+
+from nanochat.common import get_dist_info, print0
+from nanochat.optim import MuonAdamW, DistMuonAdamW
+
+# Our custom Flash Attention module that automatically uses FA3 on Hopper+ and SDPA fallback elsewhere
+from nanochat.flash_attention import flash_attn
+
+@dataclass
+class GPTConfig:
+    sequence_len: int = 2048
+    vocab_size: int = 32768
+    n_layer: int = 12
+    n_head: int = 6 # number of query heads
+    n_kv_head: int = 6 # number of key/value heads (GQA)
+    n_embd: int = 768
+    # Sliding window attention pattern string, tiled across layers. Final layer always L.
+    # Characters: L=long (full context), S=short (half context)
+    # Examples: "L"=all full context, "SL"=alternating, "SSL"=two short then one long
+    window_pattern: str = "SSSL"
+
+
+def norm(x):
+    # Purely functional rmsnorm with no learnable params
+    return F.rms_norm(x, (x.size(-1),))
+
+
+def has_ve(layer_idx, n_layer):
+    """Returns True if GPT layer should have Value Embedding (alternating, last layer always included)."""
+    return layer_idx % 2 == (n_layer - 1) % 2
+
+def apply_rotary_emb(x, cos, sin):
+    assert x.ndim == 4  # multihead attention
+    d = x.shape[3] // 2
+    x1, x2 = x[..., :d], x[..., d:] # split up last dim into two halves
+    y1 = x1 * cos + x2 * sin # rotate pairs of dims
+    y2 = x1 * (-sin) + x2 * cos
+    return torch.cat([y1, y2], 3)
+
+class CausalSelfAttention(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config, layer_idx):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.layer_idx = layer_idx
+        self.n_head = config.n_head
+        self.n_kv_head = config.n_kv_head
+        self.n_embd = config.n_embd
+        self.head_dim = self.n_embd // self.n_head
+        assert self.n_embd % self.n_head == 0
+        assert self.n_kv_head <= self.n_head and self.n_head % self.n_kv_head == 0
+        self.c_q = nn.Linear(self.n_embd, self.n_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_k = nn.Linear(self.n_embd, self.n_kv_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_v = nn.Linear(self.n_embd, self.n_kv_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_proj = nn.Linear(self.n_embd, self.n_embd, bias=False)
+        self.ve_gate_channels = 32
+        self.ve_gate = nn.Linear(self.ve_gate_channels, self.n_kv_head, bias=False) if has_ve(layer_idx, config.n_layer) else None
+
+    def forward(self, x, ve, cos_sin, window_size, kv_cache):
+        B, T, C = x.size()
+
+        # Project the input to get queries, keys, and values
+        # Shape: (B, T, H, D) - FA3's native layout, no transpose needed!
+        q = self.c_q(x).view(B, T, self.n_head, self.head_dim)
+        k = self.c_k(x).view(B, T, self.n_kv_head, self.head_dim)
+        v = self.c_v(x).view(B, T, self.n_kv_head, self.head_dim)
+
+        # Value residual (ResFormer): mix in value embedding with input-dependent gate per head
+        if ve is not None:
+            ve = ve.view(B, T, self.n_kv_head, self.head_dim)
+            gate = 2 * torch.sigmoid(self.ve_gate(x[..., :self.ve_gate_channels]))  # (B, T, n_kv_head), range (0, 2)
+            v = v + gate.unsqueeze(-1) * ve
+
+        # Apply Rotary Embeddings to queries and keys to get relative positional encoding
+        cos, sin = cos_sin
+        q, k = apply_rotary_emb(q, cos, sin), apply_rotary_emb(k, cos, sin)
+        q, k = norm(q), norm(k) # QK norm
+
+        # Flash Attention (FA3 on Hopper+, PyTorch SDPA fallback elsewhere)
+        # window_size is (left, right) tuple: (N, 0) for causal, (-1, 0) for full context
+        if kv_cache is None:
+            # Training: causal attention with optional sliding window
+            y = flash_attn.flash_attn_func(q, k, v, causal=True, window_size=window_size)
+        else:
+            # Inference: use flash_attn_with_kvcache which handles cache management
+            k_cache, v_cache = kv_cache.get_layer_cache(self.layer_idx)
+            y = flash_attn.flash_attn_with_kvcache(
+                q, k_cache, v_cache,
+                k=k, v=v,
+                cache_seqlens=kv_cache.cache_seqlens,
+                causal=True,
+                window_size=window_size,
+            )
+            # Advance position after last layer processes
+            if self.layer_idx == kv_cache.n_layers - 1:
+                kv_cache.advance(T)
+
+        # Re-assemble the heads and project back to residual stream
+        y = y.contiguous().view(B, T, -1)
+        y = self.c_proj(y)
+        return y
+
+
+class MLP(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.c_fc = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, 4 * config.n_embd, bias=False)
+        self.c_proj = nn.Linear(4 * config.n_embd, config.n_embd, bias=False)
+
+    def forward(self, x):
+        x = self.c_fc(x)
+        x = F.relu(x).square()
+        x = self.c_proj(x)
+        return x
+
+
+class Block(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config, layer_idx):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.attn = CausalSelfAttention(config, layer_idx)
+        self.mlp = MLP(config)
+
+    def forward(self, x, ve, cos_sin, window_size, kv_cache):
+        x = x + self.attn(norm(x), ve, cos_sin, window_size, kv_cache)
+        x = x + self.mlp(norm(x))
+        return x
+
+
+class GPT(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config, pad_vocab_size_to=64):
+        """
+        NOTE a major footgun: this __init__ function runs in meta device context (!!)
+        Therefore, any calculations inside here are shapes and dtypes only, no actual data.
+        => We actually initialize all data (parameters, buffers, etc.) in init_weights() instead.
+        """
+        super().__init__()
+        self.config = config
+        # Compute per-layer window sizes for sliding window attention
+        # window_size is (left, right) tuple: (-1, 0) for full context, (N, 0) for sliding window
+        self.window_sizes = self._compute_window_sizes(config)
+        # Pad vocab for efficiency (DDP, tensor cores). This is just an optimization - outputs are cropped in forward().
+        # https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/main_classes/model#transformers.PreTrainedModel.resize_token_embeddings
+        padded_vocab_size = ((config.vocab_size + pad_vocab_size_to - 1) // pad_vocab_size_to) * pad_vocab_size_to
+        if padded_vocab_size != config.vocab_size:
+            print0(f"Padding vocab_size from {config.vocab_size} to {padded_vocab_size} for efficiency")
+        self.transformer = nn.ModuleDict({
+            "wte": nn.Embedding(padded_vocab_size, config.n_embd),
+            "h": nn.ModuleList([Block(config, layer_idx) for layer_idx in range(config.n_layer)]),
+        })
+        self.lm_head = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, padded_vocab_size, bias=False)
+        # Per-layer learnable scalars (inspired by modded-nanogpt)
+        # resid_lambdas: scales the residual stream at each layer (init 1.0 = neutral)
+        # x0_lambdas: blends initial embedding back in at each layer (init 0.0 = disabled)
+        # Separate parameters so they can have different optimizer treatment
+        self.resid_lambdas = nn.Parameter(torch.ones(config.n_layer))   # fake init, real init in init_weights()
+        self.x0_lambdas = nn.Parameter(torch.zeros(config.n_layer))     # fake init, real init in init_weights()
+        # Value embeddings (ResFormer-style): alternating layers, last layer always included
+        head_dim = config.n_embd // config.n_head
+        kv_dim = config.n_kv_head * head_dim
+        self.value_embeds = nn.ModuleDict({str(i): nn.Embedding(padded_vocab_size, kv_dim) for i in range(config.n_layer) if has_ve(i, config.n_layer)})
+        # To support meta device initialization, we init the rotary embeddings here, but it's just "fake" meta tensors only.
+        # As for rotary_seq_len, these rotary embeddings are pretty small/cheap in memory,
+        # so let's just over-compute them by 10X, but assert fail if we ever reach that amount.
+        # In the future we can dynamically grow the cache, for now it's fine.
+        self.rotary_seq_len = config.sequence_len * 10 # 10X over-compute should be enough, TODO make nicer?
+        head_dim = config.n_embd // config.n_head
+        cos, sin = self._precompute_rotary_embeddings(self.rotary_seq_len, head_dim)
+        self.register_buffer("cos", cos, persistent=False) # persistent=False means it's not saved to the checkpoint
+        self.register_buffer("sin", sin, persistent=False)
+        self.use_checkpoint = False  # set by training script to enable activation checkpointing
+
+    @torch.no_grad()
+    def init_weights(self):
+        """
+        Initialize the full model in this one function for maximum clarity.
+
+        wte (embedding):     normal, std=1.0
+        lm_head:             normal, std=0.001
+        for each block:
+            attn.c_q:        uniform, std=1/sqrt(n_embd)
+            attn.c_k:        uniform, std=1/sqrt(n_embd)
+            attn.c_v:        uniform, std=1/sqrt(n_embd)
+            attn.c_proj:     zeros
+            mlp.c_fc:        uniform, std=1/sqrt(n_embd)
+            mlp.c_proj:      zeros
+        """
+
+        # Embedding and unembedding
+        torch.nn.init.normal_(self.transformer.wte.weight, mean=0.0, std=1.0)
+        torch.nn.init.normal_(self.lm_head.weight, mean=0.0, std=0.001)
+
+        # Transformer blocks: uniform init with bound = sqrt(3) * std (same standard deviation as normal)
+        n_embd = self.config.n_embd
+        s = 3**0.5 * n_embd**-0.5 # sqrt(3) multiplier makes sure Uniform achieves the same std as Normal
+        for block in self.transformer.h:
+            torch.nn.init.uniform_(block.attn.c_q.weight, -s, s) # weights use Uniform to avoid outliers
+            torch.nn.init.uniform_(block.attn.c_k.weight, -s, s)
+            torch.nn.init.uniform_(block.attn.c_v.weight, -s, s)
+            torch.nn.init.zeros_(block.attn.c_proj.weight) # projections are zero
+            torch.nn.init.uniform_(block.mlp.c_fc.weight, -s, s)
+            torch.nn.init.zeros_(block.mlp.c_proj.weight)
+
+        # Per-layer scalars
+        self.resid_lambdas.fill_(1.0)   # 1.0 => typical residual connections at init
+        self.x0_lambdas.fill_(0.1)      # 0.1 => small initial weight for skip connection to input embedding
+
+        # Value embeddings (init like c_v: uniform with same std)
+        for ve in self.value_embeds.values():
+            torch.nn.init.uniform_(ve.weight, -s, s)
+
+        # Gate weights init to zero so gates start at sigmoid(0) = 0.5, scaled by 2 -> 1.0 (neutral)
+        for block in self.transformer.h:
+            if block.attn.ve_gate is not None:
+                torch.nn.init.zeros_(block.attn.ve_gate.weight)
+
+        # Rotary embeddings
+        head_dim = self.config.n_embd // self.config.n_head
+        cos, sin = self._precompute_rotary_embeddings(self.rotary_seq_len, head_dim)
+        self.cos, self.sin = cos, sin
+
+        # Cast embeddings to bf16: optimizer can tolerate it and it saves memory
+        if self.transformer.wte.weight.device.type == "cuda":
+            self.transformer.wte.to(dtype=torch.bfloat16)
+            for ve in self.value_embeds.values():
+                ve.to(dtype=torch.bfloat16)
+
+    def _precompute_rotary_embeddings(self, seq_len, head_dim, base=10000, device=None):
+        # TODO: bump base theta more? e.g. 100K is more common more recently
+        # autodetect the device from model embeddings
+        if device is None:
+            device = self.transformer.wte.weight.device
+        # stride the channels
+        channel_range = torch.arange(0, head_dim, 2, dtype=torch.float32, device=device)
+        inv_freq = 1.0 / (base ** (channel_range / head_dim))
+        # stride the time steps
+        t = torch.arange(seq_len, dtype=torch.float32, device=device)
+        # calculate the rotation frequencies at each (time, channel) pair
+        freqs = torch.outer(t, inv_freq)
+        cos, sin = freqs.cos(), freqs.sin()
+        cos, sin = cos.bfloat16(), sin.bfloat16() # keep them in bfloat16
+        cos, sin = cos[None, :, None, :], sin[None, :, None, :] # add batch and head dims for later broadcasting
+        return cos, sin
+
+    def _compute_window_sizes(self, config):
+        """
+        Compute per-layer window sizes for sliding window attention.
+
+        Returns list of (left, right) tuples for FA3's window_size parameter:
+        - left: how many tokens before current position to attend to (-1 = unlimited)
+        - right: how many tokens after current position to attend to (0 for causal)
+
+        Pattern string is tiled across layers. Final layer always gets L (full context).
+        Characters: L=long (full context), S=short (half context)
+        """
+        pattern = config.window_pattern.upper()
+        assert all(c in "SL" for c in pattern), f"Invalid window_pattern: {pattern}. Use only S and L."
+        # Map characters to window sizes
+        long_window = config.sequence_len
+        short_window = long_window // 2
+        char_to_window = {
+            "L": (long_window, 0),
+            "S": (short_window, 0),
+        }
+        # Tile pattern across layers
+        window_sizes = []
+        for layer_idx in range(config.n_layer):
+            char = pattern[layer_idx % len(pattern)]
+            window_sizes.append(char_to_window[char])
+        # Final layer always gets full context
+        window_sizes[-1] = (long_window, 0)
+        return window_sizes
+
+    def get_device(self):
+        return self.transformer.wte.weight.device
+
+    def estimate_flops(self):
+        """
+        Return the estimated FLOPs per token for the model (forward + backward).
+        Each matmul weight parameter contributes 2 FLOPs (multiply *, accumulate +) in forward, and 2X that in backward => 2+4=6.
+        Cleanest explanation of this: https://medium.com/@dzmitrybahdanau/the-flops-calculus-of-language-model-training-3b19c1f025e4
+        On top of that, 12 * h * q * effective_seq_len accounts for key @ query matmul flops inside attention.
+        With sliding windows, effective_seq_len varies per layer (capped by window size).
+        Ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.02311 (PaLM paper).
+        This is ~1% off from the exact formulas of Chinchilla paper, the difference is:
+        - Chinchilla counts the embedding layer as flops (? weird, it's just a lookup => we ignore)
+        - Chinchilla counts exp/sum/divide in attention softmax as flops (a little sus and very tiny => we ignore)
+        """
+        nparams = sum(p.numel() for p in self.parameters())
+        # Exclude non-matmul params: embeddings and per-layer scalars
+        value_embeds_numel = sum(ve.weight.numel() for ve in self.value_embeds.values())
+        nparams_exclude = (self.transformer.wte.weight.numel() + value_embeds_numel +
+                          self.resid_lambdas.numel() + self.x0_lambdas.numel())
+        h, q, t = self.config.n_head, self.config.n_embd // self.config.n_head, self.config.sequence_len
+        # Sum attention FLOPs per layer, accounting for sliding window
+        attn_flops = 0
+        for window_size in self.window_sizes:
+            window = window_size[0]  # (left, right) tuple, we use left
+            effective_seq = t if window < 0 else min(window, t)
+            attn_flops += 12 * h * q * effective_seq
+        num_flops_per_token = 6 * (nparams - nparams_exclude) + attn_flops
+        return num_flops_per_token
+
+    def num_scaling_params(self):
+        """
+        Return detailed parameter counts for scaling law analysis.
+        Different papers use different conventions:
+        - Kaplan et al. excluded embedding parameters
+        - Chinchilla included all parameters
+        Ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.15556 (Chinchilla paper)
+        Ref: https://arxiv.org/abs/2001.08361 (Kaplan et al. original scaling laws paper)
+
+        Returns a dict with counts for each parameter group, so downstream analysis
+        can experiment with which combination gives the cleanest scaling laws.
+        """
+        # Count each group separately (mirrors the grouping in setup_optimizers)
+        wte = sum(p.numel() for p in self.transformer.wte.parameters())
+        value_embeds = sum(p.numel() for p in self.value_embeds.parameters())
+        lm_head = sum(p.numel() for p in self.lm_head.parameters())
+        transformer_matrices = sum(p.numel() for p in self.transformer.h.parameters())
+        scalars = self.resid_lambdas.numel() + self.x0_lambdas.numel()
+        total = wte + value_embeds + lm_head + transformer_matrices + scalars
+        assert total == sum(p.numel() for p in self.parameters()), "Parameter count mismatch"
+        return {
+            'wte': wte,
+            'value_embeds': value_embeds,
+            'lm_head': lm_head,
+            'transformer_matrices': transformer_matrices,
+            'scalars': scalars,
+            'total': total,
+        }
+
+    def setup_optimizer(self, unembedding_lr=0.004, embedding_lr=0.2, matrix_lr=0.02, weight_decay=0.0, adam_betas=(0.8, 0.95), scalar_lr=0.5):
+        model_dim = self.config.n_embd
+        ddp, rank, local_rank, world_size = get_dist_info()
+
+        # Separate out all parameters into groups
+        matrix_params = list(self.transformer.h.parameters())
+        value_embeds_params = list(self.value_embeds.parameters())
+        embedding_params = list(self.transformer.wte.parameters())
+        lm_head_params = list(self.lm_head.parameters())
+        resid_params = [self.resid_lambdas]
+        x0_params = [self.x0_lambdas]
+        assert len(list(self.parameters())) == len(matrix_params) + len(embedding_params) + len(lm_head_params) + len(value_embeds_params) + len(resid_params) + len(x0_params)
+
+        # Scale the LR for the AdamW parameters by ∝1/√dmodel (tuned for 768 dim model)
+        dmodel_lr_scale = (model_dim / 768) ** -0.5
+        print0(f"Scaling the LR for the AdamW parameters ∝1/√({model_dim}/768) = {dmodel_lr_scale:.6f}")
+
+        # Build param_groups with all required fields explicit
+        param_groups = [
+            # AdamW groups (embeddings, lm_head, scalars)
+            dict(kind='adamw', params=lm_head_params, lr=unembedding_lr * dmodel_lr_scale, betas=adam_betas, eps=1e-10, weight_decay=0.0),
+            dict(kind='adamw', params=embedding_params, lr=embedding_lr * dmodel_lr_scale, betas=adam_betas, eps=1e-10, weight_decay=0.0),
+            dict(kind='adamw', params=value_embeds_params, lr=embedding_lr * dmodel_lr_scale, betas=adam_betas, eps=1e-10, weight_decay=0.0),
+            dict(kind='adamw', params=resid_params, lr=scalar_lr * 0.01, betas=adam_betas, eps=1e-10, weight_decay=0.0),
+            dict(kind='adamw', params=x0_params, lr=scalar_lr, betas=(0.96, 0.95), eps=1e-10, weight_decay=0.0),  # higher beta1 for x0
+        ]
+        # Muon groups (matrix params, grouped by shape for stacking)
+        for shape in sorted({p.shape for p in matrix_params}):
+            group_params = [p for p in matrix_params if p.shape == shape]
+            param_groups.append(dict(
+                kind='muon', params=group_params, lr=matrix_lr,
+                momentum=0.95, ns_steps=5, beta2=0.95, weight_decay=weight_decay,
+            ))
+
+        Factory = DistMuonAdamW if ddp else MuonAdamW
+        optimizer = Factory(param_groups)
+        for group in optimizer.param_groups:
+            group["initial_lr"] = group["lr"]
+        return optimizer
+
+    def forward(self, idx, targets=None, kv_cache=None, loss_reduction='mean'):
+        B, T = idx.size()
+
+        # Grab the rotary embeddings for the current sequence length (they are of shape (1, seq_len, 1, head_dim/2))
+        assert T <= self.cos.size(1), f"Sequence length grew beyond the rotary embeddings cache: {T} > {self.cos.size(1)}"
+        assert idx.device == self.cos.device, f"Rotary embeddings and idx are on different devices: {idx.device} != {self.cos.device}"
+        assert self.cos.dtype == torch.bfloat16, "Rotary embeddings must be in bfloat16"
+        # if kv cache exists, we need to offset the rotary embeddings to the current position in the cache
+        T0 = 0 if kv_cache is None else kv_cache.get_pos()
+        cos_sin = self.cos[:, T0:T0+T], self.sin[:, T0:T0+T] # truncate cache to current sequence length
+
+        # Forward the trunk of the Transformer
+        x = self.transformer.wte(idx) # embed current token
+        x = norm(x)
+        x0 = x  # save initial normalized embedding for x0 residual
+        for i, block in enumerate(self.transformer.h):
+            x = self.resid_lambdas[i] * x + self.x0_lambdas[i] * x0
+            ve = self.value_embeds[str(i)](idx) if str(i) in self.value_embeds else None
+            if self.use_checkpoint and kv_cache is None:
+                x = torch_checkpoint(block, x, ve, cos_sin, self.window_sizes[i], kv_cache, use_reentrant=False)
+            else:
+                x = block(x, ve, cos_sin, self.window_sizes[i], kv_cache)
+        x = norm(x)
+
+        # Forward the lm_head (compute logits)
+        softcap = 15 # smoothly cap the logits to the range [-softcap, softcap]
+        logits = self.lm_head(x) # (B, T, padded_vocab_size) <- very big tensor, large amount of memory
+        logits = logits[..., :self.config.vocab_size] # slice to remove padding
+        logits = logits.float() # switch to fp32 for logit softcap and loss computation
+        logits = softcap * torch.tanh(logits / softcap) # squash the logits
+
+        if targets is not None:
+            # training: given the targets, compute and return the loss
+            # TODO experiment with chunked cross-entropy?
+            loss = F.cross_entropy(logits.view(-1, logits.size(-1)), targets.view(-1), ignore_index=-1, reduction=loss_reduction)
+            return loss
+        else:
+            # inference: just return the logits directly
+            return logits
+
+    @torch.inference_mode()
+    def generate(self, tokens, max_tokens, temperature=1.0, top_k=None, seed=42):
+        """
+        Naive autoregressive streaming inference.
+        To make it super simple, let's assume:
+        - batch size is 1
+        - ids and the yielded tokens are simple Python lists and ints
+        """
+        assert isinstance(tokens, list)
+        device = self.get_device()
+        rng = None
+        if temperature > 0:
+            rng = torch.Generator(device=device)
+            rng.manual_seed(seed)
+        ids = torch.tensor([tokens], dtype=torch.long, device=device) # add batch dim
+        for _ in range(max_tokens):
+            logits = self.forward(ids) # (B, T, vocab_size)
+            logits = logits[:, -1, :] # (B, vocab_size)
+            if top_k is not None and top_k > 0:
+                v, _ = torch.topk(logits, min(top_k, logits.size(-1)))
+                logits[logits < v[:, [-1]]] = -float('Inf')
+            if temperature > 0:
+                logits = logits / temperature
+                probs = F.softmax(logits, dim=-1)
+                next_ids = torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1, generator=rng)
+            else:
+                next_ids = torch.argmax(logits, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
+            ids = torch.cat((ids, next_ids), dim=1)
+            token = next_ids.item()
+            yield token

nanochat/loss_eval.py

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+"""
+A number of functions that help with evaluating a base model.
+"""
+import math
+import torch
+import torch.distributed as dist
+
+@torch.no_grad()
+def evaluate_bpb(model, batches, steps, token_bytes):
+    """
+    Instead of the naive 'mean loss', this function returns the bits per byte (bpb),
+    which is a tokenization vocab size-independent metric, meaning you are still comparing
+    apples:apples if you change the vocab size. The way this works is that instead of just
+    calculating the average loss as usual, you calculate the sum loss, and independently
+    also the sum bytes (of all the target tokens), and divide. This normalizes the loss by
+    the number of bytes that the target tokens represent.
+
+    The added complexity is so that:
+    1) All "normal" tokens are normalized by the length of the token in bytes
+    2) No special tokens (e.g. <|bos|>) are included in the metric - they are masked out.
+    3) No actively masked tokens (using ignore_index of e.g. -1) are included in the metric.
+
+    In addition to evaluate_loss, we need the token_bytes tensor:
+    It is a 1D tensor of shape (vocab_size,), indicating the number of bytes for
+    each token id, or 0 if the token is to not be counted (e.g. special tokens).
+    """
+    # record the losses
+    total_nats = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device=model.get_device())
+    total_bytes = torch.tensor(0, dtype=torch.int64, device=model.get_device())
+    batch_iter = iter(batches)
+    for _ in range(steps):
+        x, y = next(batch_iter)
+        loss2d = model(x, y, loss_reduction='none') # (B, T)
+        loss2d = loss2d.view(-1) # flatten
+        y = y.view(-1) # flatten
+        if (y.int() < 0).any(): # mps does not currently have kernel for < 0 for int64, only int32
+            # slightly more complex code path if some target tokens are ignore_index (e.g. -1)
+            # any target token < 0 is to be ignored: do NOT index token_bytes with negatives
+            valid = y >= 0
+            y_safe = torch.where(valid, y, torch.zeros_like(y))
+            # map valid targets to their byte length; ignored targets contribute 0 bytes
+            num_bytes2d = torch.where(
+                valid,
+                token_bytes[y_safe],
+                torch.zeros_like(y, dtype=token_bytes.dtype)
+            )
+            total_nats += (loss2d * (num_bytes2d > 0)).sum()
+            total_bytes += num_bytes2d.sum()
+        else:
+            # fast path: no ignored targets, safe to index directly
+            num_bytes2d = token_bytes[y]
+            total_nats += (loss2d * (num_bytes2d > 0)).sum()
+            total_bytes += num_bytes2d.sum()
+    # sum reduce across all ranks
+    world_size = dist.get_world_size() if dist.is_initialized() else 1
+    if world_size > 1:
+        dist.all_reduce(total_nats, op=dist.ReduceOp.SUM)
+        dist.all_reduce(total_bytes, op=dist.ReduceOp.SUM)
+    # move both to cpu, calculate bpb and return
+    total_nats = total_nats.item()
+    total_bytes = total_bytes.item()
+    if total_bytes == 0:
+        return float('inf')
+    bpb = total_nats / (math.log(2) * total_bytes)
+    return bpb

nanochat/optim.py

@@ -0,0 +1,533 @@
+"""
+A nice and efficient mixed AdamW/Muon Combined Optimizer.
+Usually the embeddings and scalars go into AdamW, and the matrix parameters go into Muon.
+Two versions are provided (MuonAdamW, DistMuonAdamW), for single GPU and distributed.
+
+Addapted from: https://github.com/KellerJordan/modded-nanogpt
+Further contributions from @karpathy and @chrisjmccormick.
+"""
+
+import torch
+import torch.distributed as dist
+from torch import Tensor
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+"""
+Good old AdamW optimizer, fused kernel.
+https://arxiv.org/abs/1711.05101
+"""
+
+@torch.compile(dynamic=False, fullgraph=True)
+def adamw_step_fused(
+    p: Tensor,              # (32768, 768) - parameter tensor
+    grad: Tensor,           # (32768, 768) - gradient, same shape as p
+    exp_avg: Tensor,        # (32768, 768) - first moment, same shape as p
+    exp_avg_sq: Tensor,     # (32768, 768) - second moment, same shape as p
+    step_t: Tensor,         # () - 0-D CPU tensor, step count
+    lr_t: Tensor,           # () - 0-D CPU tensor, learning rate
+    beta1_t: Tensor,        # () - 0-D CPU tensor, beta1
+    beta2_t: Tensor,        # () - 0-D CPU tensor, beta2
+    eps_t: Tensor,          # () - 0-D CPU tensor, epsilon
+    wd_t: Tensor,           # () - 0-D CPU tensor, weight decay
+) -> None:
+    """
+    Fused AdamW step: weight_decay -> momentum_update -> bias_correction -> param_update
+    All in one compiled graph to eliminate Python overhead between ops.
+    The 0-D CPU tensors avoid recompilation when hyperparameter values change.
+    """
+    # Weight decay (decoupled, applied before the update)
+    p.mul_(1 - lr_t * wd_t)
+    # Update running averages (lerp_ is cleaner and fuses well)
+    exp_avg.lerp_(grad, 1 - beta1_t)
+    exp_avg_sq.lerp_(grad.square(), 1 - beta2_t)
+    # Bias corrections
+    bias1 = 1 - beta1_t ** step_t
+    bias2 = 1 - beta2_t ** step_t
+    # Compute update and apply
+    denom = (exp_avg_sq / bias2).sqrt() + eps_t
+    step_size = lr_t / bias1
+    p.add_(exp_avg / denom, alpha=-step_size)
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+"""
+Muon optimizer adapted and simplified from modded-nanogpt.
+https://github.com/KellerJordan/modded-nanogpt
+
+Background:
+Newton-Schulz iteration to compute the zeroth power / orthogonalization of G. We opt to use a
+quintic iteration whose coefficients are selected to maximize the slope at zero. For the purpose
+of minimizing steps, it turns out to be empirically effective to keep increasing the slope at
+zero even beyond the point where the iteration no longer converges all the way to one everywhere
+on the interval. This iteration therefore does not produce UV^T but rather something like US'V^T
+where S' is diagonal with S_{ii}' ~ Uniform(0.5, 1.5), which turns out not to hurt model
+performance at all relative to UV^T, where USV^T = G is the SVD.
+
+Here, an alternative to Newton-Schulz iteration with potentially better convergence properties:
+Polar Express Sign Method for orthogonalization.
+https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.16932
+by Noah Amsel, David Persson, Christopher Musco, Robert M. Gower.
+
+NorMuon variance reduction: per-neuron/column adaptive learning rate that normalizes
+update scales after orthogonalization (Muon's output has non-uniform scales across neurons).
+https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.05491
+
+Some of the changes in nanochat implementation:
+- Uses a simpler, more general approach to parameter grouping and stacking
+- Uses a single fused kernel for the momentum -> polar_express -> variance_reduction -> update step
+- Makes no assumptions about model architecture (e.g. that attention weights are fused into QKVO format)
+"""
+
+# Coefficients for Polar Express (computed for num_iters=5, safety_factor=2e-2, cushion=2)
+# From https://arxiv.org/pdf/2505.16932
+polar_express_coeffs = [
+    (8.156554524902461, -22.48329292557795, 15.878769915207462),
+    (4.042929935166739, -2.808917465908714, 0.5000178451051316),
+    (3.8916678022926607, -2.772484153217685, 0.5060648178503393),
+    (3.285753657755655, -2.3681294933425376, 0.46449024233003106),
+    (2.3465413258596377, -1.7097828382687081, 0.42323551169305323),
+]
+
+@torch.compile(dynamic=False, fullgraph=True)
+def muon_step_fused(
+    stacked_grads: Tensor,          # (12, 768, 3072) - stacked gradients
+    stacked_params: Tensor,         # (12, 768, 3072) - stacked parameters
+    momentum_buffer: Tensor,        # (12, 768, 3072) - first moment buffer
+    second_momentum_buffer: Tensor, # (12, 768, 1) or (12, 1, 3072) - factored second moment
+    momentum_t: Tensor,             # () - 0-D CPU tensor, momentum coefficient
+    lr_t: Tensor,                   # () - 0-D CPU tensor, learning rate
+    wd_t: Tensor,                   # () - 0-D CPU tensor, weight decay
+    beta2_t: Tensor,                # () - 0-D CPU tensor, beta2 for second moment
+    ns_steps: int,                  # 5 - number of Newton-Schulz/Polar Express iterations
+    red_dim: int,                   # -1 or -2 - reduction dimension for variance
+) -> None:
+    """
+    Fused Muon step: momentum -> polar_express -> variance_reduction -> cautious_update
+    All in one compiled graph to eliminate Python overhead between ops.
+    Some of the constants are 0-D CPU tensors to avoid recompilation when values change.
+    """
+
+    # Nesterov momentum
+    momentum = momentum_t.to(stacked_grads.dtype)
+    momentum_buffer.lerp_(stacked_grads, 1 - momentum)
+    g = stacked_grads.lerp_(momentum_buffer, momentum)
+
+    # Polar express
+    X = g.bfloat16()
+    X = X / (X.norm(dim=(-2, -1), keepdim=True) * 1.02 + 1e-6)
+    if g.size(-2) > g.size(-1): # Tall matrix
+        for a, b, c in polar_express_coeffs[:ns_steps]:
+            A = X.mT @ X
+            B = b * A + c * (A @ A)
+            X = a * X + X @ B
+    else: # Wide matrix (original math)
+        for a, b, c in polar_express_coeffs[:ns_steps]:
+            A = X @ X.mT
+            B = b * A + c * (A @ A)
+            X = a * X + B @ X
+    g = X
+
+    # Variance reduction
+    beta2 = beta2_t.to(g.dtype)
+    v_mean = g.float().square().mean(dim=red_dim, keepdim=True)
+    red_dim_size = g.size(red_dim)
+    v_norm_sq = v_mean.sum(dim=(-2, -1), keepdim=True) * red_dim_size
+    v_norm = v_norm_sq.sqrt()
+    second_momentum_buffer.lerp_(v_mean.to(dtype=second_momentum_buffer.dtype), 1 - beta2)
+    step_size = second_momentum_buffer.clamp_min(1e-10).rsqrt()
+    scaled_sq_sum = (v_mean * red_dim_size) * step_size.float().square()
+    v_norm_new = scaled_sq_sum.sum(dim=(-2, -1), keepdim=True).sqrt()
+    final_scale = step_size * (v_norm / v_norm_new.clamp_min(1e-10))
+    g = g * final_scale.to(g.dtype)
+
+    # Cautious weight decay + parameter update
+    lr = lr_t.to(g.dtype)
+    wd = wd_t.to(g.dtype)
+    mask = (g * stacked_params) >= 0
+    stacked_params.sub_(lr * g + lr * wd * stacked_params * mask)
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Single GPU version of the MuonAdamW optimizer.
+# Used mostly for reference, debugging and testing.
+
+class MuonAdamW(torch.optim.Optimizer):
+    """
+    Combined optimizer: Muon for 2D matrix params, AdamW for others, single GPU version.
+
+    AdamW - Fused AdamW optimizer step.
+
+    Muon - MomentUm Orthogonalized by Newton-schulz
+    https://kellerjordan.github.io/posts/muon/
+
+    Muon internally runs standard SGD-momentum, and then performs an orthogonalization post-
+    processing step, in which each 2D parameter's update is replaced with the nearest orthogonal
+    matrix. To efficiently orthogonalize each update, we use a Newton-Schulz iteration, which has
+    the advantage that it can be stably run in bfloat16 on the GPU.
+
+    Some warnings:
+    - The Muon optimizer should not be used for the embedding layer, the final fully connected layer,
+    or any {0,1}-D parameters; those should all be optimized by a standard method (e.g., AdamW).
+    - To use it with 4D convolutional filters, it works well to just flatten their last 3 dimensions.
+
+    Arguments:
+        param_groups: List of dicts, each containing:
+            - 'params': List of parameters
+            - 'kind': 'adamw' or 'muon'
+            - For AdamW groups: 'lr', 'betas', 'eps', 'weight_decay'
+            - For Muon groups: 'lr', 'momentum', 'ns_steps', 'beta2', 'weight_decay'
+    """
+    def __init__(self, param_groups: list[dict]):
+        super().__init__(param_groups, defaults={})
+        # 0-D CPU tensors to avoid torch.compile recompilation when values change
+        # AdamW tensors
+        self._adamw_step_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_lr_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_beta1_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_beta2_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_eps_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_wd_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        # Muon tensors
+        self._muon_momentum_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_lr_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_wd_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_beta2_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+
+    def _step_adamw(self, group: dict) -> None:
+        """
+        AdamW update for each param in the group individually.
+        Lazy init the state, fill in all 0-D tensors, call the fused kernel.
+        """
+        for p in group['params']:
+            if p.grad is None:
+                continue
+            grad = p.grad
+            state = self.state[p]
+
+            # State init
+            if not state:
+                state['step'] = 0
+                state['exp_avg'] = torch.zeros_like(p)
+                state['exp_avg_sq'] = torch.zeros_like(p)
+            exp_avg = state['exp_avg']
+            exp_avg_sq = state['exp_avg_sq']
+            state['step'] += 1
+
+            # Fill 0-D tensors with current values
+            self._adamw_step_t.fill_(state['step'])
+            self._adamw_lr_t.fill_(group['lr'])
+            self._adamw_beta1_t.fill_(group['betas'][0])
+            self._adamw_beta2_t.fill_(group['betas'][1])
+            self._adamw_eps_t.fill_(group['eps'])
+            self._adamw_wd_t.fill_(group['weight_decay'])
+
+            # Fused update: weight_decay -> momentum -> bias_correction -> param_update
+            adamw_step_fused(
+                p, grad, exp_avg, exp_avg_sq,
+                self._adamw_step_t, self._adamw_lr_t, self._adamw_beta1_t,
+                self._adamw_beta2_t, self._adamw_eps_t, self._adamw_wd_t,
+            )
+
+    def _step_muon(self, group: dict) -> None:
+        """
+        Muon update for all params in the group (stacked for efficiency).
+        Lazy init the state, fill in all 0-D tensors, call the fused kernel.
+        """
+        params: list[Tensor] = group['params']
+        if not params:
+            return
+
+        # Get or create group-level buffers (stored in first param's state for convenience)
+        p = params[0]
+        state = self.state[p]
+        num_params = len(params)
+        shape, device, dtype = p.shape, p.device, p.dtype
+
+        # Momentum for every individual parameter
+        if "momentum_buffer" not in state:
+            state["momentum_buffer"] = torch.zeros(num_params, *shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        momentum_buffer = state["momentum_buffer"]
+
+        # Second momentum buffer is factored, either per-row or per-column
+        if "second_momentum_buffer" not in state:
+            state_shape = (num_params, shape[-2], 1) if shape[-2] >= shape[-1] else (num_params, 1, shape[-1])
+            state["second_momentum_buffer"] = torch.zeros(state_shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        second_momentum_buffer = state["second_momentum_buffer"]
+        red_dim = -1 if shape[-2] >= shape[-1] else -2
+
+        # Stack grads and params (NOTE: this assumes all params have the same shape)
+        stacked_grads = torch.stack([p.grad for p in params])
+        stacked_params = torch.stack(params)
+
+        # Fill all the 0-D tensors with current values
+        self._muon_momentum_t.fill_(group["momentum"])
+        self._muon_beta2_t.fill_(group["beta2"] if group["beta2"] is not None else 0.0)
+        self._muon_lr_t.fill_(group["lr"] * max(1.0, shape[-2] / shape[-1])**0.5)
+        self._muon_wd_t.fill_(group["weight_decay"])
+
+        # Single fused kernel: momentum -> polar_express -> variance_reduction -> update
+        muon_step_fused(
+            stacked_grads,
+            stacked_params,
+            momentum_buffer,
+            second_momentum_buffer,
+            self._muon_momentum_t,
+            self._muon_lr_t,
+            self._muon_wd_t,
+            self._muon_beta2_t,
+            group["ns_steps"],
+            red_dim,
+        )
+
+        # Copy back to original params
+        torch._foreach_copy_(params, list(stacked_params.unbind(0)))
+
+    @torch.no_grad()
+    def step(self):
+        for group in self.param_groups:
+            if group['kind'] == 'adamw':
+                self._step_adamw(group)
+            elif group['kind'] == 'muon':
+                self._step_muon(group)
+            else:
+                raise ValueError(f"Unknown optimizer kind: {group['kind']}")
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Distributed version of the MuonAdamW optimizer.
+# Used for training on multiple GPUs.
+
+class DistMuonAdamW(torch.optim.Optimizer):
+    """
+    Combined distributed optimizer: Muon for 2D matrix params, AdamW for others.
+
+    See MuonAdamW for the algorithmic details of each optimizer. This class adds
+    distributed communication to enable multi-GPU training without PyTorch DDP.
+
+    Design Goals:
+    - Overlap communication with computation (async ops)
+    - Minimize memory by sharding optimizer states across ranks (ZeRO-2 style)
+    - Batch small tensors into single comm ops where possible
+
+    Communication Pattern (3-phase async):
+    We use a 3-phase structure to maximize overlap between communication and compute:
+
+        Phase 1: Launch all async reduce ops
+            - Kick off all reduce_scatter/all_reduce operations
+            - Don't wait - let them run in background while we continue
+
+        Phase 2: Wait for reduces, compute updates, launch gathers
+            - For each group: wait for its reduce, compute the update, launch gather
+            - By processing groups in order, earlier gathers run while later computes happen
+
+        Phase 3: Wait for gathers, copy back
+            - Wait for all gathers to complete
+            - Copy updated params back to original tensors (Muon only)
+
+    AdamW Communication (ZeRO-2 style):
+    - Small params (<1024 elements): all_reduce gradients, update full param on each rank.
+      Optimizer state is replicated but these params are tiny (scalars, biases).
+    - Large params: reduce_scatter gradients so each rank gets 1/N of the grad, update
+      only that slice, then all_gather the updated slices. Optimizer state (exp_avg,
+      exp_avg_sq) is sharded - each rank only stores state for its slice.
+      Requires param.shape[0] divisible by world_size.
+
+    Muon Communication (stacked + chunked):
+    - All params in a Muon group must have the same shape (caller's responsibility).
+    - Stack all K params into a single (K, *shape) tensor for efficient comm.
+    - Divide K params across N ranks: each rank "owns" ceil(K/N) params.
+    - reduce_scatter the stacked grads so each rank gets its chunk.
+    - Each rank computes Muon update only for params it owns.
+    - all_gather the updated params back to all ranks.
+    - Optimizer state (momentum_buffer, second_momentum_buffer) is sharded by chunk.
+    - Padding: if K doesn't divide evenly, we zero-pad to (ceil(K/N) * N) for comm,
+      then ignore the padding when copying back.
+
+    Buffer Reuse:
+    - For Muon, we allocate stacked_grads for reduce_scatter input, then reuse the
+      same buffer as the output for all_gather (stacked_params). This saves memory
+      since we don't need both buffers simultaneously.
+
+    Arguments:
+        param_groups: List of dicts, each containing:
+            - 'params': List of parameters
+            - 'kind': 'adamw' or 'muon'
+            - For AdamW groups: 'lr', 'betas', 'eps', 'weight_decay'
+            - For Muon groups: 'lr', 'momentum', 'ns_steps', 'beta2', 'weight_decay'
+    """
+    def __init__(self, param_groups: list[dict]):
+        super().__init__(param_groups, defaults={})
+        # 0-D CPU tensors to avoid torch.compile recompilation when values change
+        self._adamw_step_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_lr_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_beta1_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_beta2_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_eps_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._adamw_wd_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_momentum_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_lr_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_wd_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+        self._muon_beta2_t = torch.tensor(0.0, dtype=torch.float32, device="cpu")
+
+    def _reduce_adamw(self, group: dict, world_size: int) -> dict:
+        """Launch async reduce ops for AdamW group. Returns info dict with per-param infos."""
+        param_infos = {}
+        for p in group['params']:
+            grad = p.grad
+            if p.numel() < 1024:
+                # Small params: all_reduce (no scatter/gather needed)
+                future = dist.all_reduce(grad, op=dist.ReduceOp.AVG, async_op=True).get_future()
+                param_infos[p] = dict(future=future, grad_slice=grad, is_small=True)
+            else:
+                # Large params: reduce_scatter
+                assert grad.shape[0] % world_size == 0, f"AdamW reduce_scatter requires shape[0] ({grad.shape[0]}) divisible by world_size ({world_size})"
+                rank_size = grad.shape[0] // world_size
+                grad_slice = torch.empty_like(grad[:rank_size])
+                future = dist.reduce_scatter_tensor(grad_slice, grad, op=dist.ReduceOp.AVG, async_op=True).get_future()
+                param_infos[p] = dict(future=future, grad_slice=grad_slice, is_small=False)
+        return dict(param_infos=param_infos)
+
+    def _reduce_muon(self, group: dict, world_size: int) -> dict:
+        """Launch async reduce op for Muon group. Returns info dict."""
+        params = group['params']
+        chunk_size = (len(params) + world_size - 1) // world_size
+        padded_num_params = chunk_size * world_size
+        p = params[0]
+        shape, device, dtype = p.shape, p.device, p.dtype
+
+        # Stack grads and zero-pad to padded_num_params
+        grad_stack = torch.stack([p.grad for p in params])
+        stacked_grads = torch.empty(padded_num_params, *shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        stacked_grads[:len(params)].copy_(grad_stack)
+        if len(params) < padded_num_params:
+            stacked_grads[len(params):].zero_()
+
+        # Reduce_scatter to get this rank's chunk
+        grad_chunk = torch.empty(chunk_size, *shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        future = dist.reduce_scatter_tensor(grad_chunk, stacked_grads, op=dist.ReduceOp.AVG, async_op=True).get_future()
+
+        return dict(future=future, grad_chunk=grad_chunk, stacked_grads=stacked_grads, chunk_size=chunk_size)
+
+    def _compute_adamw(self, group: dict, info: dict, gather_list: list, rank: int, world_size: int) -> None:
+        """Wait for reduce, compute AdamW updates, launch gathers for large params."""
+        param_infos = info['param_infos']
+        for p in group['params']:
+            pinfo = param_infos[p]
+            pinfo['future'].wait()
+            grad_slice = pinfo['grad_slice']
+            state = self.state[p]
+
+            # For small params, operate on full param; for large, operate on slice
+            if pinfo['is_small']:
+                p_slice = p
+            else:
+                rank_size = p.shape[0] // world_size
+                p_slice = p[rank * rank_size:(rank + 1) * rank_size]
+
+            # State init
+            if not state:
+                state['step'] = 0
+                state['exp_avg'] = torch.zeros_like(p_slice)
+                state['exp_avg_sq'] = torch.zeros_like(p_slice)
+            state['step'] += 1
+
+            # Fill 0-D tensors and run fused kernel
+            self._adamw_step_t.fill_(state['step'])
+            self._adamw_lr_t.fill_(group['lr'])
+            self._adamw_beta1_t.fill_(group['betas'][0])
+            self._adamw_beta2_t.fill_(group['betas'][1])
+            self._adamw_eps_t.fill_(group['eps'])
+            self._adamw_wd_t.fill_(group['weight_decay'])
+            adamw_step_fused(
+                p_slice, grad_slice, state['exp_avg'], state['exp_avg_sq'],
+                self._adamw_step_t, self._adamw_lr_t, self._adamw_beta1_t,
+                self._adamw_beta2_t, self._adamw_eps_t, self._adamw_wd_t,
+            )
+
+            # Large params need all_gather
+            if not pinfo['is_small']:
+                future = dist.all_gather_into_tensor(p, p_slice, async_op=True).get_future()
+                gather_list.append(dict(future=future, params=None))
+
+    def _compute_muon(self, group: dict, info: dict, gather_list: list, rank: int) -> None:
+        """Wait for reduce, compute Muon updates, launch gather."""
+        info['future'].wait()
+        params = group['params']
+        chunk_size = info['chunk_size']
+        grad_chunk = info['grad_chunk']
+        p = params[0]
+        shape, device, dtype = p.shape, p.device, p.dtype
+
+        # How many params does this rank own?
+        start_idx = rank * chunk_size
+        num_owned = min(chunk_size, max(0, len(params) - start_idx))
+
+        # Get or create group-level state
+        state = self.state[p]
+        if "momentum_buffer" not in state:
+            state["momentum_buffer"] = torch.zeros(chunk_size, *shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        if "second_momentum_buffer" not in state:
+            state_shape = (chunk_size, shape[-2], 1) if shape[-2] >= shape[-1] else (chunk_size, 1, shape[-1])
+            state["second_momentum_buffer"] = torch.zeros(state_shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+        red_dim = -1 if shape[-2] >= shape[-1] else -2
+
+        # Build output buffer for all_gather
+        updated_params = torch.empty(chunk_size, *shape, dtype=dtype, device=device)
+
+        if num_owned > 0:
+            owned_params = [params[start_idx + i] for i in range(num_owned)]
+            stacked_owned = torch.stack(owned_params)
+
+            # Fill 0-D tensors and run fused kernel
+            self._muon_momentum_t.fill_(group["momentum"])
+            self._muon_beta2_t.fill_(group["beta2"])
+            self._muon_lr_t.fill_(group["lr"] * max(1.0, shape[-2] / shape[-1])**0.5)
+            self._muon_wd_t.fill_(group["weight_decay"])
+            muon_step_fused(
+                grad_chunk[:num_owned], stacked_owned,
+                state["momentum_buffer"][:num_owned], state["second_momentum_buffer"][:num_owned],
+                self._muon_momentum_t, self._muon_lr_t, self._muon_wd_t, self._muon_beta2_t,
+                group["ns_steps"], red_dim,
+            )
+            updated_params[:num_owned].copy_(stacked_owned)
+
+        if num_owned < chunk_size:
+            updated_params[num_owned:].zero_()
+
+        # Reuse stacked_grads buffer for all_gather output
+        stacked_params = info["stacked_grads"]
+        future = dist.all_gather_into_tensor(stacked_params, updated_params, async_op=True).get_future()
+        gather_list.append(dict(future=future, stacked_params=stacked_params, params=params))
+
+    def _finish_gathers(self, gather_list: list) -> None:
+        """Wait for all gathers and copy Muon params back."""
+        for info in gather_list:
+            info["future"].wait()
+            if info["params"] is not None:
+                # Muon: copy from stacked buffer back to individual params
+                torch._foreach_copy_(info["params"], list(info["stacked_params"][:len(info["params"])].unbind(0)))
+
+    @torch.no_grad()
+    def step(self):
+        rank = dist.get_rank()
+        world_size = dist.get_world_size()
+
+        # Phase 1: launch all async reduce ops
+        reduce_infos: list[dict] = []
+        for group in self.param_groups:
+            if group['kind'] == 'adamw':
+                reduce_infos.append(self._reduce_adamw(group, world_size))
+            elif group['kind'] == 'muon':
+                reduce_infos.append(self._reduce_muon(group, world_size))
+            else:
+                raise ValueError(f"Unknown optimizer kind: {group['kind']}")
+
+        # Phase 2: wait for reduces, compute updates, launch gathers
+        gather_list: list[dict] = []
+        for group, info in zip(self.param_groups, reduce_infos):
+            if group['kind'] == 'adamw':
+                self._compute_adamw(group, info, gather_list, rank, world_size)
+            elif group['kind'] == 'muon':
+                self._compute_muon(group, info, gather_list, rank)
+            else:
+                raise ValueError(f"Unknown optimizer kind: {group['kind']}")
+
+        # Phase 3: wait for gathers, copy back
+        self._finish_gathers(gather_list)

nanochat/tokenizer.py

@@ -0,0 +1,406 @@
+"""
+BPE Tokenizer in the style of GPT-4.
+
+Two implementations are available:
+1) HuggingFace Tokenizer that can do both training and inference but is really confusing
+2) Our own RustBPE Tokenizer for training and tiktoken for efficient inference
+"""
+
+import os
+import copy
+from functools import lru_cache
+
+SPECIAL_TOKENS = [
+    # every document begins with the Beginning of Sequence (BOS) token that delimits documents
+    "<|bos|>",
+    # tokens below are only used during finetuning to render Conversations into token ids
+    "<|user_start|>", # user messages
+    "<|user_end|>",
+    "<|assistant_start|>", # assistant messages
+    "<|assistant_end|>",
+    "<|python_start|>", # assistant invokes python REPL tool
+    "<|python_end|>",
+    "<|output_start|>", # python REPL outputs back to assistant
+    "<|output_end|>",
+]
+
+# NOTE: this split pattern deviates from GPT-4 in that we use \p{N}{1,2} instead of \p{N}{1,3}
+# I did this because I didn't want to "waste" too many tokens on numbers for smaller vocab sizes.
+# I verified that 2 is the sweet spot for vocab size of 32K. 1 is a bit worse, 3 was worse still.
+SPLIT_PATTERN = r"""'(?i:[sdmt]|ll|ve|re)|[^\r\n\p{L}\p{N}]?+\p{L}+|\p{N}{1,2}| ?[^\s\p{L}\p{N}]++[\r\n]*|\s*[\r\n]|\s+(?!\S)|\s+"""
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Generic GPT-4-style tokenizer based on HuggingFace Tokenizer
+from tokenizers import Tokenizer as HFTokenizer
+from tokenizers import pre_tokenizers, decoders, Regex
+from tokenizers.models import BPE
+from tokenizers.trainers import BpeTrainer
+
+class HuggingFaceTokenizer:
+    """Light wrapper around HuggingFace Tokenizer for some utilities"""
+
+    def __init__(self, tokenizer):
+        self.tokenizer = tokenizer
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_pretrained(cls, hf_path):
+        # init from a HuggingFace pretrained tokenizer (e.g. "gpt2")
+        tokenizer = HFTokenizer.from_pretrained(hf_path)
+        return cls(tokenizer)
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_directory(cls, tokenizer_dir):
+        # init from a local directory on disk (e.g. "out/tokenizer")
+        tokenizer_path = os.path.join(tokenizer_dir, "tokenizer.json")
+        tokenizer = HFTokenizer.from_file(tokenizer_path)
+        return cls(tokenizer)
+
+    @classmethod
+    def train_from_iterator(cls, text_iterator, vocab_size):
+        # train from an iterator of text
+        # Configure the HuggingFace Tokenizer
+        tokenizer = HFTokenizer(BPE(
+            byte_fallback=True, # needed!
+            unk_token=None,
+            fuse_unk=False,
+        ))
+        # Normalizer: None
+        tokenizer.normalizer = None
+        # Pre-tokenizer: GPT-4 style
+        # the regex pattern used by GPT-4 to split text into groups before BPE
+        # NOTE: The pattern was changed from \p{N}{1,3} to \p{N}{1,2} because I suspect it is harmful to
+        # very small models and smaller vocab sizes, because it is a little bit wasteful in the token space.
+        # (but I haven't validated this! TODO)
+        gpt4_split_regex = Regex(SPLIT_PATTERN) # huggingface demands that you wrap it in Regex!!
+        tokenizer.pre_tokenizer = pre_tokenizers.Sequence([
+            pre_tokenizers.Split(pattern=gpt4_split_regex, behavior="isolated", invert=False),
+            pre_tokenizers.ByteLevel(add_prefix_space=False, use_regex=False)
+        ])
+        # Decoder: ByteLevel (it pairs together with the ByteLevel pre-tokenizer)
+        tokenizer.decoder = decoders.ByteLevel()
+        # Post-processor: None
+        tokenizer.post_processor = None
+        # Trainer: BPE
+        trainer = BpeTrainer(
+            vocab_size=vocab_size,
+            show_progress=True,
+            min_frequency=0, # no minimum frequency
+            initial_alphabet=pre_tokenizers.ByteLevel.alphabet(),
+            special_tokens=SPECIAL_TOKENS,
+        )
+        # Kick off the training
+        tokenizer.train_from_iterator(text_iterator, trainer)
+        return cls(tokenizer)
+
+    def get_vocab_size(self):
+        return self.tokenizer.get_vocab_size()
+
+    def get_special_tokens(self):
+        special_tokens_map = self.tokenizer.get_added_tokens_decoder()
+        special_tokens = [w.content for w in special_tokens_map.values()]
+        return special_tokens
+
+    def id_to_token(self, id):
+        return self.tokenizer.id_to_token(id)
+
+    def _encode_one(self, text, prepend=None, append=None, num_threads=None):
+        # encode a single string
+        # prepend/append can be either a string of a special token or a token id directly.
+        # num_threads is ignored (only used by the nanochat Tokenizer for parallel encoding)
+        assert isinstance(text, str)
+        ids = []
+        if prepend is not None:
+            prepend_id = prepend if isinstance(prepend, int) else self.encode_special(prepend)
+            ids.append(prepend_id)
+        ids.extend(self.tokenizer.encode(text, add_special_tokens=False).ids)
+        if append is not None:
+            append_id = append if isinstance(append, int) else self.encode_special(append)
+            ids.append(append_id)
+        return ids
+
+    def encode_special(self, text):
+        # encode a single special token via exact match
+        return self.tokenizer.token_to_id(text)
+
+    def get_bos_token_id(self):
+        # Different HuggingFace models use different BOS tokens and there is little consistency
+        # 1) attempt to find a <|bos|> token
+        bos = self.encode_special("<|bos|>")
+        # 2) if that fails, attempt to find a <|endoftext|> token (e.g. GPT-2 models)
+        if bos is None:
+            bos = self.encode_special("<|endoftext|>")
+        # 3) if these fail, it's better to crash than to silently return None
+        assert bos is not None, "Failed to find BOS token in tokenizer"
+        return bos
+
+    def encode(self, text, *args, **kwargs):
+        if isinstance(text, str):
+            return self._encode_one(text, *args, **kwargs)
+        elif isinstance(text, list):
+            return [self._encode_one(t, *args, **kwargs) for t in text]
+        else:
+            raise ValueError(f"Invalid input type: {type(text)}")
+
+    def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        return self.encode(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def decode(self, ids):
+        return self.tokenizer.decode(ids, skip_special_tokens=False)
+
+    def save(self, tokenizer_dir):
+        # save the tokenizer to disk
+        os.makedirs(tokenizer_dir, exist_ok=True)
+        tokenizer_path = os.path.join(tokenizer_dir, "tokenizer.json")
+        self.tokenizer.save(tokenizer_path)
+        print(f"Saved tokenizer to {tokenizer_path}")
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Tokenizer based on rustbpe + tiktoken combo
+import pickle
+import rustbpe
+import tiktoken
+
+class RustBPETokenizer:
+    """Light wrapper around tiktoken (for efficient inference) but train with rustbpe"""
+
+    def __init__(self, enc, bos_token):
+        self.enc = enc
+        self.bos_token_id = self.encode_special(bos_token)
+
+    @classmethod
+    def train_from_iterator(cls, text_iterator, vocab_size):
+        # 1) train using rustbpe
+        tokenizer = rustbpe.Tokenizer()
+        # the special tokens are inserted later in __init__, we don't train them here
+        vocab_size_no_special = vocab_size - len(SPECIAL_TOKENS)
+        assert vocab_size_no_special >= 256, f"vocab_size_no_special must be at least 256, got {vocab_size_no_special}"
+        tokenizer.train_from_iterator(text_iterator, vocab_size_no_special, pattern=SPLIT_PATTERN)
+        # 2) construct the associated tiktoken encoding for inference
+        pattern = tokenizer.get_pattern()
+        mergeable_ranks_list = tokenizer.get_mergeable_ranks()
+        mergeable_ranks = {bytes(k): v for k, v in mergeable_ranks_list}
+        tokens_offset = len(mergeable_ranks)
+        special_tokens = {name: tokens_offset + i for i, name in enumerate(SPECIAL_TOKENS)}
+        enc = tiktoken.Encoding(
+            name="rustbpe",
+            pat_str=pattern,
+            mergeable_ranks=mergeable_ranks, # dict[bytes, int] (token bytes -> merge priority rank)
+            special_tokens=special_tokens, # dict[str, int] (special token name -> token id)
+        )
+        return cls(enc, "<|bos|>")
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_directory(cls, tokenizer_dir):
+        pickle_path = os.path.join(tokenizer_dir, "tokenizer.pkl")
+        with open(pickle_path, "rb") as f:
+            enc = pickle.load(f)
+        return cls(enc, "<|bos|>")
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_pretrained(cls, tiktoken_name):
+        # https://github.com/openai/tiktoken/blob/eedc8563/tiktoken_ext/openai_public.py
+        enc = tiktoken.get_encoding(tiktoken_name)
+        # tiktoken calls the special document delimiter token "<|endoftext|>"
+        # yes this is confusing because this token is almost always PREPENDED to the beginning of the document
+        # it most often is used to signal the start of a new sequence to the LLM during inference etc.
+        # so in nanoChat we always use "<|bos|>" short for "beginning of sequence", but historically it is often called "<|endoftext|>".
+        return cls(enc, "<|endoftext|>")
+
+    def get_vocab_size(self):
+        return self.enc.n_vocab
+
+    def get_special_tokens(self):
+        return self.enc.special_tokens_set
+
+    def id_to_token(self, id):
+        return self.enc.decode([id])
+
+    @lru_cache(maxsize=32)
+    def encode_special(self, text):
+        return self.enc.encode_single_token(text)
+
+    def get_bos_token_id(self):
+        return self.bos_token_id
+
+    def encode(self, text, prepend=None, append=None, num_threads=8):
+        # text can be either a string or a list of strings
+
+        if prepend is not None:
+            prepend_id = prepend if isinstance(prepend, int) else self.encode_special(prepend)
+        if append is not None:
+            append_id = append if isinstance(append, int) else self.encode_special(append)
+
+        if isinstance(text, str):
+            ids = self.enc.encode_ordinary(text)
+            if prepend is not None:
+                ids.insert(0, prepend_id) # TODO: slightly inefficient here? :( hmm
+            if append is not None:
+                ids.append(append_id)
+        elif isinstance(text, list):
+            ids = self.enc.encode_ordinary_batch(text, num_threads=num_threads)
+            if prepend is not None:
+                for ids_row in ids:
+                    ids_row.insert(0, prepend_id) # TODO: same
+            if append is not None:
+                for ids_row in ids:
+                    ids_row.append(append_id)
+        else:
+            raise ValueError(f"Invalid input type: {type(text)}")
+
+        return ids
+
+    def __call__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        return self.encode(*args, **kwargs)
+
+    def decode(self, ids):
+        return self.enc.decode(ids)
+
+    def save(self, tokenizer_dir):
+        # save the encoding object to disk
+        os.makedirs(tokenizer_dir, exist_ok=True)
+        pickle_path = os.path.join(tokenizer_dir, "tokenizer.pkl")
+        with open(pickle_path, "wb") as f:
+            pickle.dump(self.enc, f)
+        print(f"Saved tokenizer encoding to {pickle_path}")
+
+    def render_conversation(self, conversation, max_tokens=2048):
+        """
+        Tokenize a single Chat conversation (which we call a "doc" or "document" here).
+        Returns:
+        - ids: list[int] is a list of token ids of this rendered conversation
+        - mask: list[int] of same length, mask = 1 for tokens that the Assistant is expected to train on.
+        """
+        # ids, masks that we will return and a helper function to help build them up.
+        ids, mask = [], []
+        def add_tokens(token_ids, mask_val):
+            if isinstance(token_ids, int):
+                token_ids = [token_ids]
+            ids.extend(token_ids)
+            mask.extend([mask_val] * len(token_ids))
+
+        # sometimes the first message is a system message...
+        # => just merge it with the second (user) message
+        if conversation["messages"][0]["role"] == "system":
+            # some conversation surgery is necessary here for now...
+            conversation = copy.deepcopy(conversation) # avoid mutating the original
+            messages = conversation["messages"]
+            assert messages[1]["role"] == "user", "System message must be followed by a user message"
+            messages[1]["content"] = messages[0]["content"] + "\n\n" + messages[1]["content"]
+            messages = messages[1:]
+        else:
+            messages = conversation["messages"]
+        assert len(messages) >= 1, f"Conversation has less than 1 message: {messages}"
+
+        # fetch all the special tokens we need
+        bos = self.get_bos_token_id()
+        user_start, user_end = self.encode_special("<|user_start|>"), self.encode_special("<|user_end|>")
+        assistant_start, assistant_end = self.encode_special("<|assistant_start|>"), self.encode_special("<|assistant_end|>")
+        python_start, python_end = self.encode_special("<|python_start|>"), self.encode_special("<|python_end|>")
+        output_start, output_end = self.encode_special("<|output_start|>"), self.encode_special("<|output_end|>")
+
+        # now we can tokenize the conversation
+        add_tokens(bos, 0)
+        for i, message in enumerate(messages):
+
+            # some sanity checking here around assumptions, to prevent footguns
+            must_be_from = "user" if i % 2 == 0 else "assistant"
+            assert message["role"] == must_be_from, f"Message {i} is from {message['role']} but should be from {must_be_from}"
+
+            # content can be either a simple string or a list of parts (e.g. containing tool calls)
+            content = message["content"]
+
+            if message["role"] == "user":
+                assert isinstance(content, str), "User messages are simply expected to be strings"
+                value_ids = self.encode(content)
+                add_tokens(user_start, 0)
+                add_tokens(value_ids, 0)
+                add_tokens(user_end, 0)
+            elif message["role"] == "assistant":
+                add_tokens(assistant_start, 0)
+                if isinstance(content, str):
+                    # simple string => simply add the tokens
+                    value_ids = self.encode(content)
+                    add_tokens(value_ids, 1)
+                elif isinstance(content, list):
+                    for part in content:
+                        value_ids = self.encode(part["text"])
+                        if part["type"] == "text":
+                            # string part => simply add the tokens
+                            add_tokens(value_ids, 1)
+                        elif part["type"] == "python":
+                            # python tool call => add the tokens inside <|python_start|> and <|python_end|>
+                            add_tokens(python_start, 1)
+                            add_tokens(value_ids, 1)
+                            add_tokens(python_end, 1)
+                        elif part["type"] == "python_output":
+                            # python output => add the tokens inside <|output_start|> and <|output_end|>
+                            # none of these tokens are supervised because the tokens come from Python at test time
+                            add_tokens(output_start, 0)
+                            add_tokens(value_ids, 0)
+                            add_tokens(output_end, 0)
+                        else:
+                            raise ValueError(f"Unknown part type: {part['type']}")
+                else:
+                    raise ValueError(f"Unknown content type: {type(content)}")
+                add_tokens(assistant_end, 1)
+
+        # truncate to max_tokens tokens MAX (helps prevent OOMs)
+        ids = ids[:max_tokens]
+        mask = mask[:max_tokens]
+        return ids, mask
+
+    def visualize_tokenization(self, ids, mask, with_token_id=False):
+        """Small helper function useful in debugging: visualize the tokenization of render_conversation"""
+        RED = '\033[91m'
+        GREEN = '\033[92m'
+        RESET = '\033[0m'
+        GRAY = '\033[90m'
+        tokens = []
+        for i, (token_id, mask_val) in enumerate(zip(ids, mask)):
+            token_str = self.decode([token_id])
+            color = GREEN if mask_val == 1 else RED
+            tokens.append(f"{color}{token_str}{RESET}")
+            if with_token_id:
+                tokens.append(f"{GRAY}({token_id}){RESET}")
+        return '|'.join(tokens)
+
+    def render_for_completion(self, conversation):
+        """
+        Used during Reinforcement Learning. In that setting, we want to
+        render the conversation priming the Assistant for a completion.
+        Unlike the Chat SFT case, we don't need to return the mask.
+        """
+        # We have some surgery to do: we need to pop the last message (of the Assistant)
+        conversation = copy.deepcopy(conversation) # avoid mutating the original
+        messages = conversation["messages"]
+        assert messages[-1]["role"] == "assistant", "Last message must be from the Assistant"
+        messages.pop() # remove the last message (of the Assistant) inplace
+
+        # Now tokenize the conversation
+        ids, mask = self.render_conversation(conversation)
+
+        # Finally, to prime the Assistant for a completion, append the Assistant start token
+        assistant_start = self.encode_special("<|assistant_start|>")
+        ids.append(assistant_start)
+        return ids
+
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# nanochat-specific convenience functions
+
+def get_tokenizer():
+    from nanochat.common import get_base_dir
+    base_dir = get_base_dir()
+    tokenizer_dir = os.path.join(base_dir, "tokenizer")
+    # return HuggingFaceTokenizer.from_directory(tokenizer_dir)
+    return RustBPETokenizer.from_directory(tokenizer_dir)
+
+def get_token_bytes(device="cpu"):
+    import torch
+    from nanochat.common import get_base_dir
+    base_dir = get_base_dir()
+    tokenizer_dir = os.path.join(base_dir, "tokenizer")
+    token_bytes_path = os.path.join(tokenizer_dir, "token_bytes.pt")
+    assert os.path.exists(token_bytes_path), f"Token bytes not found at {token_bytes_path}? It gets written by tok_train.py"
+    with open(token_bytes_path, "rb") as f:
+        token_bytes = torch.load(f, map_location=device)
+    return token_bytes

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