Fifth of five; stacked on #38049. The split gave every namespace a file, but
only for the half an operator types. This is the other half.
## The parallel quotients are declared, not written out
`attn_tp_size` and its five siblings were sixty lines of near-identical
properties in the runtime context, a file away from the leaves they are
quotients of, so reading `parallel.py` told you what you could set and nothing
about what that decides.
They are declared in `Parallel` now, in the same class as those leaves. They
carry no annotation, so they are not dataclass fields and
`collect_input_fields` never puts them on the record -- the same mechanism that
already keeps `_NS_PATH` off it. That is the right exclusion: a quotient has no
operator input to preserve, and the record is what crosses a process boundary,
where a stamped width is one an elastic scale-up will not refresh.
## A quotient is a value in the bag, like every other derived one
`_derived_width` answered from a stamp or, failing that, a live process group.
The group read could never disagree with the stamp:
- `initialize_model_parallel` stamps all six as its last statement,
unconditionally;
- an elastic scale-up restamps `attn_dp_size` through
`update_dp_attention_post_scale` -- the comment claiming it does *not* was
wrong;
- no hardware backend builds groups of its own;
- `multimodal_gen`, which has its own `initialize_model_parallel` and does not
stamp, never reads a quotient.
So a built group was always already stamped, and the group read goes -- and with
it the last reason for a quotient to be resolved on every read.
Every input to `derive_parallel_widths` is a record field. `dcp_enabled` is
`decode_context_parallel_size > 1`, not a fact about a built group; it was
spelled `_DCP is not None`, which is a longer way to say the same thing. So the
six are fixed once the configuration is fixed -- the same test every other
`Derived(fn=...)` in this PR passes. They are declared the same way and computed
the same way: once, at publish, into ordinary bag leaves.
What remains is override -> stamp -> published leaf. The stamp stays above the
leaf because an elastic scale-up restamps `attn_dp_size`; the override stays on
top because that is how a test names a width.
## One answer for the config-derived predicates
`enable_mamba_extra_buffer` and its lazy variant, `is_ep_joiner`,
`is_ep_scale_joiner`, `is_startup_weight_load_overlap`: each existed as a
`ServerArgs` member for the resolution pipeline and, for most of them, again as
a `runtime_context` function for readers after publish. Three places to keep
saying the same thing.
A `Derived(fn=...)` is a pure function of the published configuration, so
`publish` computes it once and stores it as an ordinary bag leaf -- a plain
attribute load, which is what a read inside compiled model code needs. The
function is handed the whole resolved config rather than the bag it lands in,
because a derivation is free to span namespaces and the mamba one does: it
reads `memory.disable_radix_cache` alongside its own `exec.mamba` strategy,
which is why it could never have been a method on either bag.
The pre-publish helpers stay -- resolution needs the predicate before there is
a bag to read -- and three readers keep them, because they run before their own
process publishes: `initialize_dp_attention`, which the weight-cache daemon
calls while building its groups thirty lines before its `publish`, and
`PortArgs.init_new`, a factory handed the record that already reads eighteen
other fields off it.
## Notes for a reviewer
**Overriding a leaf does not move its quotient.** `override(tp_size=2)` leaves
`attn_tp_size` where the published config put it, because nothing is recomputed
on read. A test states a topology by publishing a config -- which is what a
real process does -- or by naming the width it wants, `override(attn_tp_size=2)`.
Six tests say it that way now. This is the price of having one answer computed
once, and it is the same price every other derived value in the config already
carries.
A caller that reads a quotient without publishing or overriding now gets an
explicit error naming the field, instead of a default that an uninitialised
group happened to supply. One fixture was in that state --
`TestMlaWriteDoorsUnderDcp` built a bare pool and asked whether DCP was on --
and it publishes a config now, which is what the process it stands in for
does.
Eighteen sites read these predicates without calling them. That is correct --
they are properties -- but it is worth saying they were checked, because a
census that assumes otherwise reports eighteen always-true conditions.
## The skill that documents this subsystem is updated with it
`.claude/rules/modify-component-must-read.md` points at
`.claude/skills/sglang-runtime-context/SKILL.md` before anyone touches these
files, so a stale sentence there is a wrong instruction rather than a stale
note. Four of its load-bearing statements stopped being true across this series
and are corrected here: `NS(...)` is no longer how a field states its namespace
(the declaring class is); the DCP degrade rule is gone, because the quotients
are not live reads; `mamba_extra_buffer_enabled()` and the other predicate
functions it named as the shape to copy no longer exist; and the
namespace-coverage ratchet is described in terms of the marker. The docstring of
`test_server_args_namespaces.py` said the same thing and is fixed too.
The consequence a test author actually trips over is stated there as well:
overriding a leaf no longer moves its quotient, so a topology is stated by
publishing a config or by naming the width.
## Verification
A full registered-unit sweep (648 files) against this stack's merge-base:
19 failures on both sides, the same 19 -- AMD `gfx950`, `modelopt`,
`cuda_vmm`, `weight_checker` and friends, none of them config. The narrower 139-file config sweep used earlier in this series
does not contain the files this change reaches -- `test_kv_index_translator`
never names `get_parallel()`, it constructs an object that does -- which is why
the baseline differential over everything is what is quoted here.
The previous batch counted `self.server_args.X` and called the runner surface
done. It was not: the same read spelled through a local alias --
`server_args = model_runner.server_args` (or `sa = kvc.server_args`, `args = ...`)
followed by `server_args.leaf` -- is the same process-global read wearing a
local name, and the AST census counts **57 of them** across eleven files that
the grep never saw. Census per function, following the alias.
52 were leaves and go to their bag (`spec` 11, `schedule` 9, `memory` 7,
`exec.graph` 5, `exec.moe` 5, `parallel` 4, `disagg` 4, `model` 3,
`exec.mamba` 2, `exec.overlap` 2). Five were not leaves:
three derived members on the eager runner --
`max_speculative_num_draft_tokens` and `enable_mamba_extra_buffer` already had
accessors, and `max_prefill_buffer_tokens` gets one (all its inputs are `schedule`
leaves plus the configured PP size, so it derives from the bags and follows a
post-publish override; `TestDerivedPredicatesAgreeAcrossTiers` pins it against
the member over a 48-case matrix) -- plus `get_attention_backends()`, which the
same commit routes through `attention_backends()`, and a dict that merely shares
the name (`server_args_dict.items`). That dict is the one read left behind.
`build_attention_backends` also stops resolving the pair from the record: it
runs after publish, so it asks `attention_backends()` like every other consumer.
The draft override on the runner still wins first.
`dispatch_event_loop`'s three PP checks read the *configured* PP size, not the
live topology: the MLX runner stub never initializes torch.distributed, so the
live property asserts before the MLX event loop can start (a Codex catch). The
configured leaf answers the same value wherever the live groups exist.
`flashinfer_gdn_prefill_default`'s guard is the one read here that asks what the
*operator* named rather than what the config resolved to, and the bag leaf now
answers exactly that: the per-runner auto-default is stamped on the runner and
deliberately never recorded process-wide, so nothing writes that leaf after
launch and reading it back cannot mistake another runner's default for a flag.
Three test doubles injected a `SimpleNamespace`/`MagicMock` record for exactly
these reads and now publish instead (pool configurator, cache registry, GDN
prefill policy) -- the fixture publishes what the case configures and hands the
published instance to the whole-object contracts that still take one.
The functions this sweep partially converted stop mixing sources (review
catches): the flash-attention constructor's remaining seed reads
(`speculative_eagle_topk`, `speculative_algorithm`, both deterministic gates)
read their bags next to the leaves already converted;
`_should_disable_scheduler_metadata_precompute` reads the parallel config
leaves itself instead of taking the record (its alias binding was the last
use); and the autotune gates (`disable_flashinfer_autotune`, deterministic,
`flashinfer_autotune_skip_ops`) join the moe leaves the same function already
reads from the bags. The pool-configurator fixture drops a parameter nothing
published or read.
Six reads were left on `self.server_args` outside the per-instance boundary the
plan reserves for the tokenizer-manager family, and each had a different reason
to be there:
- `scheduler.process_input_requests` (`mm_feature_transport`) and
`BaseSpecWorker._build_hicache_draft_plan` (`enable_hierarchical_cache`) are
plain leaves -> `get_mm()` / `get_memory()`.
- `DraftBackendFactory._create_backend` read the split backend through a
*runtime-computed name* (`getattr(self.server_args, backend_name)`) and then
fell back to the base field by hand -- the census's documented blind spot.
The two names it can be handed are exactly the pair `attention_backends()`
returns with that fallback already applied, so it reads the pair and indexes
it. The draft runner's own stamp still wins when it has one.
- `remote_instance_weight_loader_use_transfer_engine` and
`pre_capture_activation_reserve_mb` are derived members. Both are computed
from published leaves only, so both get a named accessor that derives from
the bags (and therefore follows a post-publish override).
The first of those two has all its inputs in one bag, so it follows the
established shape: one `*_of(cfg)` helper in `arg_groups/overrides.py`, the
`ServerArgs` member delegating to it, and the accessor calling it on
`get_model()`. `modelexpress_transport_of` splits out the JSON parse both
sides need. The second spans four bags plus the configured parallel sizes, so
it exists twice like the mamba pair -- and `TestDerivedPredicatesAgreeAcrossTiers`
now pins both new pairs equal over their input matrices (92 subtests).
`self.server_args.X` outside the tokenizer-manager family: 11 -> 5, and the
five that remain are the documented ones (the encode server's own record, the
nixl connector's rank arithmetic, `GrammarManager`'s handed instance).
The post-capture headroom path calls the same bag-backed
`pre_capture_activation_reserve_mb` accessor the configurator uses -- the
accessor advertises override-following, and a reserve that reads the record
while its sibling reads the bags can disagree after a post-publish override.
And the conversions' orphans go with them: `RemoteInstanceWeightTransporter`
kept a `server_args` field nothing reads, and `DraftBackendFactory` parked a
record it no longer consults -- both drop the parameter, and the four factory
call sites stop threading one.
`ServerArgs.override(source, **fields)` was the last way to change a resolved
`ServerArgs` in place. Every remaining call-site was one of two things, and
neither wanted an in-place write:
- **A config for someone else.** A draft worker's context length, an encode
worker's device, the compile script's watchdog, the client's port pick, a test
fixture's backends. These already deepcopied first — the write was on the copy.
- **A launcher-stage resolution.** `resolve_auto_parsers` detected the chat
template's parsers and wrote them back, to be inherited by the schedulers it
spawns.
Both are "one config becomes another", so `derive(source, **fields)` returns the
variant and leaves the receiver — and any bags projected from it — untouched. It
deliberately is not `dataclasses.replace`: resolution does not re-run, because
the values being set are decided after it, from inputs it never had. Provenance
and the resolvable-field stash work as before, on the copy.
`resolve_auto_parsers` now computes the parsers and returns the config to launch
with; the detection helpers stop taking a config to mutate. `HiMambaRadixCache`
re-applied a HiCache layout normalization `__post_init__` already performs (the
same duplicate removed from `UnifiedRadixCache` in ebb1c88d23) and just goes.
With no in-place mutation left, `ServerArgs.__setattr__` raising after
resolution *is* the guarantee, so the textual writer ratchet retires and
`test_server_args_derive.py` pins the contract instead: the receiver survives
deriving, the published instance still refuses assignment, and deriving does not
publish. `SGLANG_STRICT_CONFIG_MUTATION` was already unused — the guard has been
unconditional since the mutation sweep — and goes with it.
The detection tests drop their `SimpleNamespace` stand-in for a real
`ServerArgs`; the test kit and the MLA chunk-metadata fixture publish a derived
variant instead of writing the runner's published config.
The parallel namespace joins the accessor migration: 106 config-leaf reads
(enable_dp_lm_head, enable_dp_attention, pp_async_batch_depth, dp_size,
ep_join_rank_offset, dwdp_size, ...) flip from get_server_args()/
self.server_args to get_parallel(), which serves config leaves from the
published parallel bag via __getattr__.
- ParallelContext.__getattr__ is restructured to stay dynamo-traceable
(object.__getattribute__ graph-breaks): gate helpers such as
enable_moe_dense_fully_dp() run inside compiled model forwards. A
fullgraph regression test pins the pattern.
- The five live-shadowed topology sizes (tp/pp/dcp/attn_cp/moe_dp_size)
keep their server_args reads: the live @property wins on the accessor,
and conditionally-initialized groups would fail loud at unconditional
call sites.
- Elastic-EP scale writers (ep_size/dp_size x4 in model_runner) reroute
to get_context().override together with their remaining instance
readers (expert_location gpus-per-node paths); the ServerArgs.override
ratchet drops 39 -> 35.
- The expert placement helpers (compute_logical_to_rank_dispatch_
physical_map, _compute_logical_to_all_physical_map,
_prefer_same_node_experts) now read everything from the bags and drop
their server_args parameter; their unit tests publish the config they
need instead of stubbing it.
Cheng Wan