chore: refactor normalize_attn to use mapping and loop

examples/cerebras/btlm-ft.yml

@@ -59,9 +59,7 @@ gradient_checkpointing: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
 
-flash_attention: true
-sdp_attention:
-flash_optimum:
+attention: flash
 
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:

examples/cerebras/qlora.yml

@@ -39,8 +39,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 10

examples/code-llama/13b/lora.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/code-llama/13b/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/code-llama/34b/lora.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/code-llama/34b/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/code-llama/7b/lora.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/code-llama/7b/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/cohere/command-r-7b-qlora.yml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/colab-notebooks/colab-axolotl-example.ipynb

@@ -112,9 +112,7 @@
     "early_stopping_patience:\n",
     "resume_from_checkpoint:\n",
     "logging_steps: 1\n",
-    "xformers_attention:\n",
-    "flash_attention: false\n",
-    "sdp_attention: true\n",
+    "attention: sdpa\n",
     "\n",
     "warmup_steps: 1\n",
     "max_steps: 25\n",

examples/dbrx/16bit-lora.yaml

@@ -52,7 +52,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/dbrx/8bit-lora.yaml

@@ -55,7 +55,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/dbrx/fft-ds-zero3.yaml

@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/deepseek-v2/fft-fsdp-16b.yaml

@@ -35,7 +35,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 2

examples/deepseek-v2/qlora-fsdp-2_5.yaml

@@ -59,7 +59,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 2

examples/falcon/config-7b-lora.yml

@@ -43,8 +43,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 40

examples/falcon/config-7b-qlora.yml

@@ -73,8 +73,7 @@ early_stopping_patience: 3
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 auto_resume_from_checkpoints: true
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 10

examples/falcon/config-7b.yml

@@ -40,8 +40,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 40

examples/gemma/qlora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/gemma2/qlora.yml

@@ -53,7 +53,8 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/gemma2/reward-model.yaml

@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/gemma3/gemma-3-1b-qlora.yml

@@ -57,7 +57,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/gemma3/gemma-3-4b-qlora.yml

@@ -51,8 +51,7 @@ gradient_checkpointing: true
 gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
-eager_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/gemma3/gemma-3-4b-vision-qlora.yml

@@ -53,8 +53,7 @@ gradient_checkpointing: true
 gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
-eager_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/gptj/qlora.yml

@@ -36,8 +36,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 10

examples/jamba/qlora.yaml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/jamba/qlora_deepspeed.yaml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/jamba/qlora_fsdp_large.yaml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing: true
 gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/jeopardy-bot/config.yml

@@ -37,8 +37,7 @@ bf16: auto
 tf32: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 5
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/llama-2/fft_optimized.yml

@@ -42,7 +42,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 flash_attn_cross_entropy: false
 flash_attn_rms_norm: true
 flash_attn_fuse_qkv: false

examples/llama-2/gptq-lora.yml

@@ -53,9 +53,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention:
-sdp_attention:
-flash_optimum:
+attention: flash
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1

examples/llama-2/lisa.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 flash_attn_cross_entropy: false
 flash_attn_rms_norm: true
 flash_attn_fuse_qkv: false

examples/llama-2/loftq.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-2/lora.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-2/qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-2/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-2/relora.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3-vision/lora-11b.yaml

@@ -50,8 +50,7 @@ tf32: true
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
-eager_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/llama-3/fft-8b-liger-fsdp.yaml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 2

examples/llama-3/fft-8b.yaml

@@ -34,7 +34,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 2

examples/llama-3/instruct-dpo-lora-8b.yml

@@ -61,7 +61,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/instruct-lora-8b.yml

@@ -56,7 +56,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/lora-1b-deduplicate-dpo.yml

@@ -77,7 +77,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/lora-1b-deduplicate-sft.yml

@@ -53,7 +53,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/lora-1b-kernels.yml

@@ -54,7 +54,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/llama-3/lora-1b-ray.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/llama-3/lora-1b-sample-packing-sequentially.yml

@@ -55,7 +55,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/lora-1b.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/llama-3/lora-8b.yml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/qlora-1b-kto.yaml

@@ -53,7 +53,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 20
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/qlora-1b.yml

@@ -51,7 +51,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/llama-3/qlora-fsdp-405b.yaml

@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing: true
 gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/qlora-fsdp-70b.yaml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llama-3/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/llava/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -46,8 +46,7 @@ tf32: true
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
-eager_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/mamba/config.yml

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention:
+attention: eager
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/mistral/bigstral-ds-zero3.yaml

@@ -42,7 +42,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 save_total_limit: 1
 save_steps:

examples/mistral/config.yml

@@ -36,7 +36,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/mistral/lora-mps.yml

@@ -53,8 +53,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: false
-sdp_attention: true
+attention: sdpa
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/lora.yml

@@ -54,7 +54,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mistral-dpo-qlora.yml

@@ -71,7 +71,7 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: false
+attention: eager
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/mistral/mistral-qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -51,7 +51,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mistral-qlora-orpo.yml

@@ -59,7 +59,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mistral-small-3.1-24B-lora.yml

@@ -48,9 +48,7 @@ tf32: true
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: false # PixtralVisionModel does not support Flash Attention 2.0 yet.
-eager_attention:
-
+attention: eager  # PixtralVisionModel does not support Flash Attention 2.0 yet.
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1

examples/mistral/mixtral-8x22b-qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mixtral-qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -51,7 +51,8 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mixtral.yml

@@ -69,7 +69,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mistral/mixtral_22.yml

@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 save_total_limit: 1
 save_steps:

examples/mistral/qlora.yml

@@ -54,7 +54,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 loss_watchdog_threshold: 5.0
 loss_watchdog_patience: 3

examples/mpt-7b/config.yml

@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ bf16: auto
 tf32: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 5
-flash_attention:
+attention: eager
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/openllama-3b/config.yml

@@ -39,7 +39,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/openllama-3b/lora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/openllama-3b/qlora.yml

@@ -40,7 +40,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/phi/phi-ft.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: True
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/phi/phi-qlora.yml

@@ -51,7 +51,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: True
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/phi/phi2-ft.yml

@@ -48,7 +48,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: True
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/phi/phi3-ft-fsdp.yml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 100
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/phi/phi3-ft.yml

@@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: True
 early_stopping_patience: 3
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 eval_steps: 1000
 save_steps: 5000

examples/pixtral/lora-12b.yml

@@ -46,8 +46,7 @@ tf32: true
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: false # PixtralVisionModel does not support Flash Attention 2.0 yet
-eager_attention:
+attention: eager  # PixtralVisionModel does not support Flash Attention 2.0 yet
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/qwen/lora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention:
+attention: eager
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen/qlora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen/qwen2-moe-lora.yaml

@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen/qwen2-moe-qlora.yaml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen2-vl/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -46,8 +46,7 @@ tf32: true
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
-eager_attention:
+attention: flash
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1

examples/qwen2/dpo.yaml

@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen2/prm.yaml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/qwen2/qlora-fsdp.yaml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/qwen2/reward-model.yaml

@@ -43,7 +43,8 @@ gradient_checkpointing_kwargs:
   use_reentrant: false
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/redpajama/config-3b.yml

@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ bf16: auto
 tf32: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 5
-flash_attention:
+attention: flash
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/replit-3b/config-lora.yml

@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing:
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention:
+attention: eager
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 20

examples/stablelm-2/1.6b/fft.yml

@@ -44,7 +44,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 flash_attn_cross_entropy: false
 flash_attn_rms_norm: true
 flash_attn_fuse_qkv: false

examples/stablelm-2/1.6b/lora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 flash_attn_cross_entropy: false
 flash_attn_rms_norm: true
 

examples/starcoder2/qlora.yml

@@ -46,7 +46,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 20
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/tiny-llama/lora-mps.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,7 @@ tf32: true
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: false
+attention: eager
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 0

examples/tiny-llama/lora.yml

@@ -45,7 +45,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/tiny-llama/pretrain.yml

@@ -36,7 +36,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch:

examples/tiny-llama/qlora.yml

@@ -47,7 +47,8 @@ tf32: false
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 logging_steps: 1
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 
 warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4

examples/xgen-7b/xgen-7b-8k-qlora.yml

@@ -71,8 +71,7 @@ early_stopping_patience: 3
 resume_from_checkpoint:
 auto_resume_from_checkpoints: true
 logging_steps: 1
-xformers_attention: true
-flash_attention:
+attention: xformers
 gptq_groupsize:
 gptq_model_v1:
 warmup_steps: 10

examples/yi-34B-chat/qlora.yml

@@ -10,7 +10,8 @@ load_in_4bit: true
 sequence_len: 1024
 bf16: auto
 tf32: false
-flash_attention: true
+attention: flash
+
 special_tokens:
   bos_token: "<|startoftext|>"
   eos_token: "<|endoftext|>"

src/axolotl/utils/schemas/config.py

@@ -27,7 +27,7 @@ from axolotl.utils.schemas.datasets import (
     StepwiseSupervisedDataset,
 )
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.deprecated import DeprecatedParameters, RemappedParameters
-from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import ChatTemplate, RLType
+from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import AttentionBackend, ChatTemplate, RLType
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.integrations import (
     CometConfig,
     GradioConfig,
@@ -222,6 +222,10 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
         },
     )
 
+    attention: AttentionBackend | None = Field(
+        default=None,
+        json_schema_extra={"description": "attention backend to use"},
+    )
     xformers_attention: bool | None = None
     sdp_attention: bool | None = None
     s2_attention: bool | None = None
@@ -436,6 +440,65 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
             )
         return data
 
+    @model_validator(mode="before")
+    @classmethod
+    def normalize_attn(cls, data):  # pylint: disable=too-many-return-statements
+        attention = data.get("attention")
+
+        # Define mapping between enum values and flag names
+        backend_mapping = {
+            AttentionBackend.eager: "eager_attention",
+            AttentionBackend.flash: "flash_attention",
+            AttentionBackend.flex: "flex_attention",
+            AttentionBackend.s2: "s2_attention",
+            AttentionBackend.sdpa: "sdp_attention",
+            AttentionBackend.xformers: "xformers_attention",
+        }
+
+        # Check if any attention flag is set
+        any_flag_set = any(
+            data.get(flag_name) for flag_name in backend_mapping.values()
+        )
+
+        # CASE 1: attention is set but no flags are set - set the corresponding flag
+        if attention and not any_flag_set:
+            flag_name = backend_mapping.get(attention)
+            if flag_name:
+                data[flag_name] = True
+            return data
+
+        # CASE 2: no attention set but flags are set - set attention from flags
+        if not attention:
+            LOG.warning(
+                "*_attention will be deprecated soon. One of `attention: eager | flash | flex | s2 | sdp | xformers` is recommended"
+            )
+
+            # Find the first True flag and set attention accordingly
+            for backend, flag_name in backend_mapping.items():
+                if data.get(flag_name):
+                    data["attention"] = backend
+                    return data
+
+        # CASE 3: both attention and flags are set - check for consistency
+        if attention:
+            expected_flag = backend_mapping.get(attention)
+            for backend, flag_name in backend_mapping.items():
+                # If a flag is set that doesn't match the attention value
+                if data.get(flag_name) and flag_name != expected_flag:
+                    raise ValueError(f"attention mismatch with {flag_name} already set")
+
+        return data
+
+    @model_validator(mode="before")
+    @classmethod
+    def check_sample_packing_w_xformers(cls, data):
+        if data.get("sample_packing") and data.get("xformers_attention"):
+            raise ValueError(
+                "sample_packing not compatible with xformers_attention. Use flash_attention"
+            )
+
+        return data
+
     @model_validator(mode="before")
     @classmethod
     # pylint: disable=duplicate-code