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quantization

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Work on vLLM-Omni quantization for diffusion, autoregressive, omni, or multi-stage models. Use when choosing or adding methods such as fp8, int8, gguf, mxfp8, mxfp4, mxfp4_dualscale, ModelOpt, AutoRound, INC, msModelSlim, awq, or gptq; debugging quantized loading; or validating memory, speed, and output quality.

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vLLM-Omni Quantization

Use this skill for quantization work in vllm-omni. Start from the local code and docs, then pick the smallest validated path for the model, method, hardware, and quality target.

First Checks

Before changing code or recommending a command, identify:

  • Model and task: AR text, omni/TTS, text-to-image, text-to-video, or multi-stage diffusion.
  • Hardware backend: CUDA generation, Ascend NPU, Intel XPU, or another platform.
  • Quantization mode: online from BF16/FP16 weights, pre-quantized checkpoint, runtime KV/FA quantization, or per-component routing.
  • Scope: transformer/DiT, thinker language model, text encoder, VAE, audio/vision encoder, talker, or a specific stage.
  • Validation target: memory reduction, latency/throughput, output quality, or all three.

Do not assume a method is supported just because the CLI accepts the string. Check docs/user_guide/quantization/ and the closest implementation first.

Quick Decision

TaskStart With
Choose a method or commandreferences/methods.md and references/modality-compat.md
Use build_quant_config() or per-component routingreferences/methods.md
Work on diffusion quantizationreferences/diffusion.md
Add quantization to a new modelreferences/adding-models.md
Convert or load ModelOpt FP8 checkpointsreferences/modelopt-fp8.md
Debug ModelOpt, GGUF, AutoRound, MXFP, or serialized Int8 loadingreferences/diffusion.md and method docs under docs/user_guide/quantization/

Current Runtime Shape

The unified entrypoint is:

from vllm_omni.quantization import build_quant_config

It supports method strings, flat method dictionaries, per-component dictionaries, existing QuantizationConfig objects, and None. The factory delegates generic methods to upstream vllm and keeps vLLM-Omni overrides for diffusion or omni-specific routing:

  • gguf
  • int8
  • mxfp8
  • mxfp4
  • mxfp4_dualscale
  • inc, auto-round, auto_round
  • ModelOpt auto-detected configs: modelopt, modelopt_fp4, modelopt_mixed

Use ComponentQuantizationConfig when only one stage or component should be quantized. Pre-quantized ModelOpt-style checkpoints should not spill into vision/audio encoders that have no corresponding scale tensors.

Ownership Boundary

  • Upstream vllm owns generic quantization configs, kernels, loader semantics, hardware capability rules, and generic AR quantization methods.
  • vllm-omni owns unified config routing, diffusion-specific wrappers, component scoping, GGUF or ModelOpt checkpoint adapters, model-specific prefix mapping, docs, examples, and validation.

If a new method needs missing generic kernels or loader behavior, fix upstream vllm first. In vllm-omni, add thin integration and model wiring.

Working Loop

  1. Read the local method doc under docs/user_guide/quantization/.
  2. Inspect the active factory and config class in vllm_omni/quantization/.
  3. Inspect the target model pipeline and transformer for stable prefixes and whether every relevant vLLM linear layer receives quant_config.
  4. For pre-quantized checkpoints, inspect transformer/config.json and the checkpoint tensor names before running full generation.
  5. Validate with the same prompt, seed, size, scheduler, steps, dtype, eager or non-eager mode, and parallelism as the BF16 baseline.
  6. Report quality, latency, and memory separately. Do not call a method supported until quality is checked.

Common Mistakes

SymptomLikely CauseFix
--quantization has no visible effectWrong scope or unsupported model pathCheck component routing and method docs
Some layers stay BF16 unexpectedlyquant_config was not threaded into all vLLM linear layersAudit transformer constructors and prefixes
Quality collapses but loading succeedsToo many sensitive layers were quantizedAdd model-specific ignored_layers and compare to BF16
ModelOpt checkpoint loads but output is corruptedPrefixes, packed-module mapping, scale routing, or BF16 fallback is wrongUse references/modelopt-fp8.md
GGUF shape or tensor mismatchMissing architecture-specific adapterAdd explicit adapter mapping; avoid generic fallback
Online and offline MXFP4 disagreeWrong mxfp4 vs mxfp4_dualscale modeCheck docs/user_guide/quantization/mxfp4.md
Quantized path is slower than BF16Kernel path, compile mode, dtype, or shape mismatchCompare eager-to-eager and non-eager-to-non-eager

References