AstrAI/assets/docs/inference.md

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Inference

Contents

KV Cache

At decode time, only the last query token matters. All previous K/V are cached to avoid recomputation:


o_n = \sum_j \text{softmax}\left(\frac{q_n k_j}{\sqrt{d_k}}\right) v_j

RoPE is applied before KV cache write, not after — otherwise position encoding drift occurs.

KVCache System

Seven classes working together, with two concrete cache implementations:

ContiguousCache (default)

ContiguousCache (simple contiguous per-slot cache)
  ├── ContiguousCacheView  bundles k/v tensors + slot indices for attention layers

Created by default when no cache is passed to InferenceScheduler. Each task occupies a fixed slot of [max_seq_len, n_kv_heads, head_dim]. Simple and efficient for small-to-medium batch sizes.

PageCache (paged with prefix sharing)

PageCache (paged KV cache with prefix sharing, alternative)
  ├── PagePool               orchestrates page allocation + prefix matching
  │     ├── Allocator         bitmask-based page allocator + ref-count + LRU
  │     └── PrefixCache       hash-based prefix matching (page_hash via polynomial hash)
  ├── TaskTable              maps task_id → page_table + cached token count
  ├── Storage                k_cache / v_cache tensors (n_layers × n_pages × page_size × n_kv_heads × head_dim)
  └── PageCacheView          bundles Storage + page_table + total_len for attention layers

isinstance(cache, KVCache) checks dispatch to the correct view. Both implement the abstract KVCache interface used by Executor and InferenceScheduler.

Continuous Batching

InferenceScheduler runs a daemon thread with a 4-phase loop:

1. Cleanup → Remove finished tasks, free KV cache slots/pages
2. Refill  → Pop from waiting_queue, task_alloc resources, activate
3. Prefill → Group by (prompt_len, start_pos), run full forward
4. Decode  → Pick largest same-position group, single-token forward

Sampling (Strategy Pattern)

BaseSamplingStrategy (ABC)
  ├── TemperatureStrategy
  ├── TopKStrategy
  ├── TopPStrategy
  └── SamplingPipeline

SamplingPipeline composes them: Temperature → Top-K → Top-P → softmax → multinomial.
sample() is a convenience shortcut for one-shot usage.

Protocol Handlers (Strategy Pattern)

class ProtocolHandler:  # concrete orchestrator
    def __init__(self, request, engine, builder): ...
    async def handle(self):
        prompt, ctx, stops = builder.prepare(request, engine)
        agen = engine.generate_async(prompt, ...)
        if stream: self._handle_stream(agen, ctx, stops)
        else:      return await self._handle_non_stream(agen, ctx, stops)

ResponseBuilder (ABC): prepare(), format_stream_start(), format_chunk(), format_stream_end(), format_response().

OpenAIResponseBuilder/v1/chat/completions, AnthropicResponseBuilder/v1/messages.

Adding a protocol = one builder file, no handler subclassing needed.

Engine & GenerateResult

InferenceEngine
  ├── generate(prompt, stream, ...) → str | List[str] | Generator
  ├── generate_with_request(req)    → same
  ├── generate_async(prompt, ...)   → AsyncGenerator
  ├── get_stats()                   → Dict
  └── shutdown()

GenerateResult uses Condition for non-streaming (wait_completion()) and Event for streaming (wait()). Stream callback is cb(token).

HTTP API

POST /v1/chat/completions   OpenAI
POST /v1/messages            Anthropic
GET  /health                 {"status":"ok","model_loaded":true}
GET  /stats                  scheduler statistics

OpenAI

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}],"max_tokens":512}'

Response:

{
  "id": "chatcmpl-abc123",
  "object": "chat.completion",
  "created": 1717000000,
  "model": "astrai",
  "choices": [{"index": 0, "message": {"role": "assistant", "content": "Hello!"}, "finish_reason": "stop"}],
  "usage": {"prompt_tokens": 5, "completion_tokens": 10, "total_tokens": 15}
}

Streaming SSE: object: "chat.completion.chunk" — starts with role delta, then token chunks, ends with finish chunk + usage stats, then data: [DONE].

Anthropic

curl -X POST http://localhost:8000/v1/messages \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model":"astrai","system":"You are helpful.","messages":[{"role":"user","content":"Hello"}],"max_tokens":512}'

Supports stop_sequences and streaming via event: content_block_delta.

GenerationRequest Parameters

Param Type Default Description
messages List[dict] required Chat messages (role, content)
top_k int 50 Top-k count
top_p float 1.0 Nucleus threshold
temperature float 1.0 Sampling temperature (> 0.0)
max_tokens Optional[int] None Max generation length
stream bool False Stream output

SSE Streaming Format

OpenAI (/v1/chat/completions, stream=true):

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-...","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":...,"model":"astrai",
       "choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{"role":"assistant"},"finish_reason":null}]}

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-...","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":0,"model":"astrai",
       "choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{"content":"Hello"},"finish_reason":null}]}

data: {"id":"chatcmpl-...","object":"chat.completion.chunk","created":...,"model":"astrai",
       "choices":[{"index":0,"delta":{},"finish_reason":"stop"}]}

data: {"prompt_tokens":5,"completion_tokens":1,"total_tokens":6}

data: [DONE]

Anthropic (/v1/messages, stream=true):

event: message_start
data: {"type":"message_start","message":{"id":"msg_...","model":"astrai","role":"assistant",
       "content":[],"usage":{"input_tokens":0}}}

event: content_block_start
data: {"type":"content_block_start","index":0,"content_block":{"type":"text","text":""}}

event: content_block_delta
data: {"type":"content_block_delta","index":0,"delta":{"type":"text_delta","text":"Hello"}}

event: content_block_stop
data: {"type":"content_block_stop","index":0}

event: message_delta
data: {"type":"message_delta","delta":{"stop_reason":"end_turn","stop_sequence":null},"usage":{...}}

event: message_stop
data: {"type":"message_stop"}

Error Responses

The server returns standard HTTP status codes. Pydantic validation errors (e.g. missing required fields) are handled automatically by FastAPI with 422 status. The only application-level error is engine initialization:

Status Meaning
200 Success
422 Unprocessable entity (Pydantic validation)
503 Service unavailable (model not loaded, engine not ready)

Error response body (503):

{
    "detail": "Engine not initialized"
}

Stats Endpoint

GET /stats

Response:

{
    "total_tasks": 128,
    "total_tokens": 10240,
    "active_tasks": 3,
    "waiting_queue": 2
}

Engine API

# Non-streaming
engine.generate("Hello", stream=False)          # -> str
engine.generate(["A", "B"], stream=False)       # -> List[str]

# Streaming
engine.generate("Hello", stream=True)           # -> Generator[str]
engine.generate(["A", "B"], stream=True)        # -> Generator[Tuple[int, str]]

# Async
async for token in engine.generate_async("Hello", ...):    # -> AsyncGenerator[str]
    print(token)

Document Update Time: 2026-07-05