# Night shift 2026-09-27 (UTC)

Plan (user, carried from 09-26): close the DeepSeek perf gap by making weight/
engram I/O **node-local NVMe** (the way the published references do), EXL3
first, then Aiden SGLang engram staging.

## EXL3 3bpw 2x — weight localization (dgx1+dgx2)

Baseline: 13.3 t/s decode — weights streamed from NAS on every forward.
Reference (coolbho3k, same kit rev 878e0ee): weights+engrams on each host's
local NVMe, ~30.8 t/s.

Staging of `models--coolbho3k--DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-EXL3-3bpw`
(+ DSpark drafter) to `/home/kilork/hf-local/hub`, page15 pack intentionally
**not** staged (optional +1.4% decode per the release notes; 195 G/node).

The staging itself turned into a six-generation saga — every generation of my
mirror script taught a different lesson about the hub layout:

1. **hub-level vs repo-level blob stores** — snapshot entries link
   `../../blobs/<sha>`; on the NAS that link may itself be a symlink into the
   2-char hub store (`hub/blobs/4d/<sha>`). A mirror that materializes only
   the link string's own path leaves 51 weight shards resolving through NAS
   (and later hardlink/fetch passes re-fetching 130 G+ of data that was
   already local).
2. **page15's content lives as real files** inside `snapshots/<rev>/` on the
   NAS — `shutil.copytree` copies them silently (195 G/node wasted, ENOSPC
   on both nodes); `copytree(dirs_exist_ok=True)` is additionally **not
   idempotent on symlinks** (EEXIST aborts the pass).
3. **NAS `st_mtime` staleness over NFS** made a size-only "already copied"
   check report a complete mirror while link targets were absent — size+
   sampled-content hashing (head+tail reads) is the only check that survives
   NFS.
4. Size-based hardlink dedup between stores can bind the *wrong* file when
   two weights share a size; must verify content first (caught: 4 weight
   blobs had been relinked to the wrong shard — engine then failed with
   `Duplicate mapped checkpoint key: …experts.300.w1.trellis`).
5. Final clean pass: wipe local repos, mirror trees + materialize every link
   target, `realpath`-map through the hub store, then per-blob sample-hash
   verify against NAS. Both nodes: 141/141 links local, 0 mismatches
   (`/tmp/stage-exl3-v9.py`, `links ok: 141, dangling: 0`).

## The three crash layers after staging

- `EngineCore init` failure #1: **51 weight blobs silently wrong** (see 4).
  Fixed by the verify pass.
- `FileExistsError: /cache/ds41-backend-attestation` — the kit's receipt
  writer is strict-on-exists (`ROOT.mkdir(exist_ok=False)` + `open('xb')`):
  receipts are **per-run** and the stale root/`worker.json` from yesterday's
  bench run was root-owned, so a plain `rm -rf` as the launcher user failed
  and poisoned every restart. The recipe's `before_serve` now clears all
  three receipt roots (`ds41-backend-attestation`, `ds41-combined-ready`,
  `ds41-display-kv`) with `sudo rm -rf` — correct fresh-run semantics.
- Same error persisted: the **page15 binds** were gone with my no-page15
  tree (the pack is optional, but the kit's loader still references it when
  mounted — the 171-mount manifest of the healthy baseline included 30 NAS
  fallback binds). The hook now falls back to the NAS tree for any snapshot
  directory not staged locally, so the manifest is back to 171 mounts
  (141 local + 30 NAS page15, read-only).

## Result (measured, 27 Sep ~04:20 UTC)

- API up 9 min after serve (streaming weights from local NVMe, full
  attestation passes on both ranks).
- Smoke: 127*89 → 11303, 1.5 s.
- Decode probe (487-token prompt, 400 tok, temp 0): **35.0 t/s**
  (34–41 under DSpark), previous **13.3 t/s** — 2.6×, above the 30.78 t/s
  reference. Prefill unchanged in profile; a bench is queued to verify the
  164/176 quality baseline stands with local weights.

Recipe changes committed: page15 NAS-fallback binds + receipt-clean hook.

## Mia AI-Lab TP4 — forum thread discovery (end of shift)

The thread /t/382725 continuation (posts #136–#156) points at
**MiaAI-Lab/DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-DGX-Sparks** — an SGLang TP4 "production
line" (knapcio's fork + RoCEnante + b12x + prefill SP + gated decode
adapters). Claims that matter: prose decode c1 **87.7 tok/s** (ours,
aiden16 lane: ~20), prefill 4.0–5.9K tok/s cold, 8M-token KV pin with a
1,011,084-token needle **verified**, qeval 72/75; stu.miller's independent
A/B (post #142, Sept 15 → Sept 25 builds, same 4 Sparks): prefill 300K
223.4s → 83.8s, decode c1 43.5 → 67.3, tool-eval 89/100, median turn
2.74 s. Repo is real, dense (29 adapters, row_store.cpp, packed engram
shards, sources.manifest), pinned `lmsysorg/sglang:dev-dsv41@3dbc3130…` +
checkpoint `fb2764a5`. Claims unverified until benched here.
Their `pack_engram.py` (≈48 GiB/rank) is exactly our staging sparse-rows
spec — the localization story and this lane converge.

## Mia AI-Lab TP4 — adopted as `dsv41-flash-4x-mia` (live tonight)

- Vendored `MiaAI-Lab/DeepSeek-v4.1-Flash-DGX-Sparks@cad252b7d3` into
  `docker-images/mia-tp4` (build.sh + versions.env; the Dockerfile.canary-roce
  fetch stage pulls its pinned trees per `runtime/sources.manifest`). Image
  built on dgx1 in ~15 min — all 17 in-image adapter tests green.
- Two integration bugs found and fixed (each a class of its own):
  1. **`DSV41_LAUNCHER=tp4`** — every TP4 adapter is gated on sitecustomize's
     `_tp4_launcher()`, which boot.py/start-tp4.sh set via env. Unset = the
     gated world silently off and the stock FlashInfer MoE rejects the
     576-wide EP1 experts (`ValueError … multiples of 128`).
  2. **`TP_SIZE`/`EP_SIZE`/`DSV41_TP_PAD=0`** — the adapters read the world
     shape from env, not sglang's flags; `tp3_pad.py` defaults `TP_SIZE` to 3,
     padded heads 64→96 under our TP4 (24 heads/rank) and the sparse-MLA
     kernel aborted warmup. Our launcher injects NODE_RANK only; boot.py
     exported these globals and we don't run boot.py.
- Boot: all production-line log signatures present — indexer chunked v3
  ARMED (SG18 TP split True), RoCEnante ready world=4, moe_b12x_next armed
  (EP_SIZE=1), shared-expert K padding, verify_cap conf:0.1, DSpark gamma=5
  folded, `The server is fired up and ready to roll!`. Load weight from NAS
  took 2060 s (their 170 s is local-NVMe — this is staging P1/P2's case).
- Smoke: 19+23=42, API at `http://192.168.88.14:30000` (`deepseek-v4.1-flash`,
  1M context, KV pool 5.79M after autotune clamp from our 8M pin).
  Decode c1 probe ≈ 29 t/s warm vs 87.7 claimed — explained by unpacked
  engram rows read over NFS (their measured worker penalty +11 ms/step) and
  no local pack; expect a jump when staging P2 lands.

## Open

- Bench re-run passed on the localized lane: **169/184 (92/100, ★★★★★)**
  — same standing as the 164/176 (93/100) baseline across the slightly
  different scenario pools (harness moved v2.7.0 → v2.7.1.dev7 by the
  operator; TC-74 injection failure is identical to the previous run — not a
  localization regression). Perf table: **pp 690–795 t/s** (was 112),
  **tg 17–33 t/s** (was ~13.3). Report
  `recipes/dsv41-flash-exl3-2x/reports/2026-09-27_053009_exl3-2x-local.*`.
- Aiden SGLang 4x engram localization — ranges derived (tables
  384,006,168 / 384,016,682 rows, contiguous quarter-partitions per rank,
  ~47.2 GiB/rank per Aiden docs); needs dgx3/4 powered and dgx1/2 freed.
- Registry go-live + r39 prod cut — operator decisions.

## Staging P1 — hub-mirror in the launcher

Implemented per `specs/tech-architecture/staging-feature.md` (operator
directive: recipes declare staging, plain `serve` does everything):

- `[[staging]]` recipe block (`src/config/staging.rs`): kind
  `hub-mirror` (P1) / `sparse-rows` (P2 placeholder, serve aborts with the
  hint), `id/src/dst/repos/skip/verify/min_free`.
- Engine `src/staging/scripts/hub_mirror.py`: walks the repo tree, copies
  real files atomically, materializes out-of-source link targets as regular
  files, rewrites snapshot symlinks to the mirror, verifies by **sampled
  content hashes** in a ledger inside the mirror
  (`dst/hub/.sm121-staging-ledger.json`) — never mtime/size (the stale-NFS
  class that drove the EXL3 six-generation saga).
- `src/staging/{rs,mirror.rs}`: per-node parallel upload+run, markers,
  min-free preflight, dry-run plan; serve integration mounts the mirror's
  `dst` instead of the shared cache (spec swap) and rejects `--mirror`
  combination; `--stage=auto|skip|force`.
- E2E on dgx1 (read-only fixture, Mia untouched): first pass copies, second
  verifies only (copied=0), same-size mutation of a staged blob was detected
  and re-copied, `--skip` honored, dangling source link aborted. 345 tests.

Next: migrate EXL3's recipe hook to the declarative block and re-verify.