- backward used to read the global fp8 flag at loss.backward() time, so calling it outside fp8_autocast silently fell back to bf16 mm (953 ms cublas per step, 49.9% of the model step)
- _LinearFp8(torch.autograd.Function) now owns the fwd/bwd pair: forward captures fmt/recipe/meta on ctx inside the autocast region, backward reads only ctx (scales from the meta rings, masks from ctx.needs_input_grad), so backward is fp8 wherever it runs
- register the aten::linear impl on AutogradCUDA (replaces torch's generated linear formula that calls aten::linear_backward into the bf16 fallback) and keep the CUDA key for inference_mode
- drop the aten::linear_backward override and fp8_linear_backward (dead paths)
- regression test asserts the fp8 backward fires outside the autocast region and grads match the bf16 reference by direction/norm (E5M2 noise)
- model step (0.67B, CE loss, batch 4x1024): backward GEMMs 953 -> 618 ms (1.54x), full step ~1.2x
ViperEkura
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