{
  "_meta": {
    "note": "single mode: best measured KL that sits fully on the hardware wins; no band caps (if Q8_0 fits, it wins). emergency only when nothing else fits. avoid is never dropped outright: dominance + kl sort handle repo-dependent availability.",
    "bands": {
      "archival": "near-lossless, take when headroom allows (quality only)",
      "avoid": "dominated in size+quality by another quant; only wins when its dominator is absent from the repo",
      "default": "rows 5-8 of PRIORITY.md; balanced picks the best-kl fitting one of these",
      "emergency": "below the quality knee; picked only when nothing else fits, with a warning",
      "knee": "min viable (UD-IQ3_XXS, ~4.4bpw)",
      "step": "step up from default when quality is the priority",
      "tight": "tight budget, between knee and default"
    },
    "method": "llama-perplexity --kl-divergence vs family F16/BF16 ref, 6x repeated calibration text (~2500 tokens, ctx 1024, full GPU offload, stock llama.cpp, RTX 5070). norm_kl: 0 = full-precision ref, 1 = family worst. pooled over LFM2.5-1.2B + Qwen3.5-0.8B + gemma-3-1b-it; ranking was consistent across all 3 families. quality = round(100*(1-log10(1+1000*norm_kl)/3)).",
    "quality_floor_bpw": 4.5,
    "rule_of_thumb": "nothing under ~4.5bpw. default to the default band. avoid band is never the right answer when its dominator is in the same repo.",
    "source": "quant-bench: 150 GGUFs, 12 repos, results.csv + PRIORITY.md (2026-10-14)"
  },
  "quants": [
    {
      "band": "knee",
      "bpw": 4.4,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.1586,
      "q": 27,
      "quant": "UD-IQ3_XXS"
    },
    {
      "band": "tight",
      "bpw": 4.98,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.1166,
      "q": 31,
      "quant": "UD-Q3_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "tight",
      "bpw": 5.46,
      "n": 4,
      "norm_kl": 0.1011,
      "q": 33,
      "quant": "IQ4_XS"
    },
    {
      "band": "tight",
      "bpw": 5.56,
      "n": 4,
      "norm_kl": 0.0811,
      "q": 36,
      "quant": "IQ4_NL"
    },
    {
      "band": "default",
      "bpw": 5.72,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.0541,
      "q": 42,
      "quant": "UD-Q4_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "default",
      "bpw": 5.81,
      "n": 11,
      "norm_kl": 0.0465,
      "q": 44,
      "quant": "Q4_K_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "default",
      "bpw": 6.03,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.0245,
      "q": 53,
      "quant": "Q3_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "default",
      "bpw": 6.32,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.0188,
      "q": 57,
      "quant": "UD-Q5_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "step",
      "bpw": 7.03,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.0118,
      "q": 63,
      "quant": "Q5_K_L"
    },
    {
      "band": "step",
      "bpw": 7.21,
      "n": 10,
      "norm_kl": 0.0044,
      "q": 76,
      "quant": "Q6_K"
    },
    {
      "band": "step",
      "bpw": 7.65,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.0032,
      "q": 79,
      "quant": "UD-Q6_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "step",
      "bpw": 7.9,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.0026,
      "q": 81,
      "quant": "Q6_K_L"
    },
    {
      "band": "archival",
      "bpw": 8.5,
      "n": 12,
      "norm_kl": 0.0012,
      "q": 89,
      "quant": "Q8_0"
    },
    {
      "band": "archival",
      "bpw": 11.11,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.0009,
      "q": 91,
      "quant": "UD-Q8_K_XL"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.21,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.2229,
      "q": 22,
      "quant": "UD-IQ2_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.72,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.3222,
      "q": 16,
      "quant": "IQ2_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.91,
      "n": 5,
      "norm_kl": 0.4585,
      "q": 11,
      "quant": "Q2_K"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.93,
      "n": 4,
      "norm_kl": 0.4761,
      "q": 11,
      "quant": "Q2_K_L"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.46,
      "n": 1,
      "norm_kl": 0.5426,
      "q": 9,
      "quant": "UD-IQ1_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 4.44,
      "n": 1,
      "norm_kl": 0.7422,
      "q": 4,
      "quant": "UD-IQ1_S"
    },
    {
      "band": "emergency",
      "bpw": 3.99,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 1.0,
      "q": 0,
      "quant": "UD-IQ2_XXS"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 6.37,
      "n": 7,
      "norm_kl": 0.0259,
      "q": 52,
      "quant": "Q5_K_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 6.29,
      "n": 6,
      "norm_kl": 0.0368,
      "q": 47,
      "quant": "Q5_K_S"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 6.51,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.0401,
      "q": 46,
      "quant": "Q4_K_L"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.73,
      "n": 6,
      "norm_kl": 0.0596,
      "q": 41,
      "quant": "Q4_K_S"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.85,
      "n": 4,
      "norm_kl": 0.0796,
      "q": 36,
      "quant": "Q3_K_L"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.74,
      "n": 5,
      "norm_kl": 0.1154,
      "q": 31,
      "quant": "Q4_1"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.39,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.12,
      "q": 31,
      "quant": "IQ3_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.05,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.1219,
      "q": 30,
      "quant": "IQ3_XXS"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.25,
      "n": 6,
      "norm_kl": 0.1243,
      "q": 30,
      "quant": "Q3_K_M"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.31,
      "n": 2,
      "norm_kl": 0.1557,
      "q": 27,
      "quant": "IQ3_XS"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.28,
      "n": 8,
      "norm_kl": 0.2075,
      "q": 23,
      "quant": "Q4_0"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 5.0,
      "n": 6,
      "norm_kl": 0.2849,
      "q": 18,
      "quant": "Q3_K_S"
    },
    {
      "band": "avoid",
      "bpw": 4.37,
      "n": 3,
      "norm_kl": 0.5345,
      "q": 9,
      "quant": "UD-Q2_K_XL"
    }
  ]
}