Update ModelLoader to set default vocab_size if not defined in model config, enhancing compatibility with tokenizer defaults.

* Apply generic fused liger ce for unknown models

* fix deepseek liger modeling

* generic cce and config tiled mlp to use original mlp and auto detect compute params

* fix weight and lint

* update warnings

* address PR feedback

* use lookup for model class prefixes

* revert inadvertent change to flash attn verison

* remove un-needed pylint annotations

* fix import

.github/workflows/tests-nightly.yml

@@ -92,7 +92,7 @@ jobs:
     if: github.repository_owner == 'axolotl-ai-cloud'
     # this job needs to be run on self-hosted GPU runners...
     runs-on: [self-hosted, modal]
-    timeout-minutes: 60
+    timeout-minutes: 120
     needs: [pre-commit, pytest]
 
     strategy:
@@ -116,7 +116,7 @@ jobs:
       - name: Install Modal
         run: |
           python -m pip install --upgrade pip
-          pip install modal==0.71.8 jinja2
+          pip install modal==1.0.2 jinja2
       - name: Update env vars
         run: |
           echo "BASE_TAG=main-base-py${{ matrix.python_version }}-cu${{ matrix.cuda }}-${{ matrix.pytorch }}" >> $GITHUB_ENV

examples/cloud/modal.yaml

@@ -26,3 +26,5 @@ timeout: 86400
 # Preprocess specific configurations
 memory_preprocess: 32
 timeout_preprocess: 14400
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -35,7 +35,6 @@ wandb_watch:
 wandb_name:
 wandb_log_model:
 
-
 gradient_accumulation_steps: 4
 micro_batch_size: 1
 num_epochs: 4
@@ -56,3 +55,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@
         "%%capture\n",
         "# This step can take ~5-10 minutes to install dependencies\n",
         "!pip install --no-build-isolation axolotl[flash-attn]>=0.9.1\n",
-        "!pip install \"cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@78b2a45713a54c9bedf8b33f5e31cf07a1a57154\""
+        "!pip install \"cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@50cef19\""
       ]
     },
     {

examples/deepcogito/cogito-v1-preview-llama-3B-lora.yml

@@ -56,3 +56,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/deepcogito/cogito-v1-preview-qwen-14B-lora.yml

@@ -56,3 +56,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -55,3 +55,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: DeepseekV2DecoderLayer
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -79,3 +79,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: DeepseekV2DecoderLayer
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/devstral/devstral-small-qlora.yml

@@ -62,3 +62,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-1b-deep-qlora.yaml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-1b-qlora.yaml

@@ -46,7 +46,6 @@ wandb_watch:
 wandb_name:
 wandb_log_model:
 
-
 gradient_accumulation_steps: 4
 micro_batch_size: 1
 num_epochs: 4
@@ -69,3 +68,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-34b-qlora.yaml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-3b-qlora.yaml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-500m-qlora.yaml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/falcon-h1/falcon-h1-7b-qlora.yaml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/gemma2/qlora.yml

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/gemma2/reward-model.yaml

@@ -50,3 +50,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -66,3 +66,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -62,3 +62,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/glm4/qlora-32b.yaml

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/jamba/qlora.yaml

@@ -54,3 +54,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/jamba/qlora_deepspeed.yaml

@@ -55,3 +55,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 deepspeed: deepspeed_configs/zero2.json
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/jamba/qlora_fsdp_large.yaml

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: JambaAttentionDecoderLayer,JambaMambaDecoderLayer
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/lfm2/lfm2-350m-fft.yaml

@@ -46,3 +46,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 2
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/fft_optimized.yml

@@ -55,3 +55,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 deepspeed: #deepspeed_configs/zero2.json # multi-gpu only
 weight_decay: 0.1
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/gptq-lora.yml

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ special_tokens:
   bos_token: "<s>"
   eos_token: "</s>"
   unk_token: "<unk>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/lisa.yml

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ special_tokens:
   bos_token: "<s>"
   eos_token: "</s>"
   unk_token: "<unk>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/loftq.yml

@@ -52,3 +52,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/lora.yml

@@ -52,3 +52,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -67,3 +67,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: LlamaDecoderLayer
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/qlora.yml

@@ -53,3 +53,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-2/relora.yml

@@ -58,3 +58,5 @@ special_tokens:
   bos_token: "<s>"
   eos_token: "</s>"
   unk_token: "<unk>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -57,3 +57,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-3/3b-qat-fsdp2.yaml

@@ -77,3 +77,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -72,3 +72,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot_id|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -42,3 +42,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -71,3 +71,5 @@ warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
    pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -83,3 +83,5 @@ warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -61,3 +61,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
    pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -65,3 +65,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|end_of_text|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ special_tokens:
 
 use_ray: true
 ray_num_workers: 4
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -63,3 +63,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|end_of_text|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -57,3 +57,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
    pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -61,3 +61,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|end_of_text|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -62,3 +62,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|end_of_text|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|end_of_text|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-3/qlora.yml

@@ -54,3 +54,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|end_of_text|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-3/sparse-finetuning.yaml

@@ -75,3 +75,5 @@ llmcompressor:
           ]
           start: 0
   save_compressed: true
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/do-no-use-fa2/maverick-qlora-fsdp1.yaml

@@ -86,3 +86,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/do-no-use-fa2/scout-qlora-fsdp1.yaml

@@ -90,3 +90,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/do-no-use-fa2/scout-qlora-single-h100.yaml

@@ -83,3 +83,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/do-no-use-fa2/scout-vision-qlora-fsdp.yaml

@@ -86,3 +86,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/scout-qlora-flexattn-fsdp2.yaml

@@ -84,3 +84,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/scout-qlora-single-h100-flex.yaml

@@ -82,3 +82,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llama-4/scout-vision-qlora-fsdp2-flex.yaml

@@ -87,3 +87,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <|finetune_right_pad_id|>
   eos_token: <|eot|>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/llava/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -53,3 +53,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/magistral/magistral-small-fsdp-qlora.yaml

@@ -70,3 +70,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: MistralDecoderLayer
   fsdp_activation_checkpointing: true
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/magistral/magistral-small-qlora.yaml

@@ -61,3 +61,5 @@ flash_attention: true
 warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mamba/config.yml

@@ -48,3 +48,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
 tokens:
 save_safetensors: False
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/bigstral-ds-zero3.yaml

@@ -53,3 +53,5 @@ special_tokens:
   eos_token: "<|im_end|>"
 tokens:
   - "<|im_start|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/config.yml

@@ -43,3 +43,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/lora-mps.yml

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/lora.yml

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mistral-dpo-qlora.yml

@@ -80,3 +80,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   bos_token: "<|im_start|>"
   eos_token: "<|im_end|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mistral-qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -74,3 +74,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_auto_wrap_policy: TRANSFORMER_BASED_WRAP
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mistral-qlora-orpo.yml

@@ -69,3 +69,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -56,3 +56,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -72,3 +72,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_auto_wrap_policy: TRANSFORMER_BASED_WRAP
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mixtral-qlora-fsdp.yml

@@ -77,3 +77,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_forward_prefetch: false
   fsdp_backward_prefetch: BACKWARD_PRE
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mixtral.yml

@@ -81,3 +81,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 deepspeed: deepspeed_configs/zero2.json
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/mixtral_22.yml

@@ -51,3 +51,5 @@ special_tokens:
   eos_token: "<|im_end|>"
 tokens:
   - "<|im_start|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/mistral/qlora.yml

@@ -64,3 +64,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/orpheus/finetune.yml

@@ -50,3 +50,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.05
 
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <custom_token_7>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/lora-3.5.yaml

@@ -63,3 +63,5 @@ warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 4
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/phi-ft.yml

@@ -57,3 +57,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.1
 resize_token_embeddings_to_32x: true
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|endoftext|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/phi-qlora.yml

@@ -60,3 +60,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.1
 resize_token_embeddings_to_32x: true
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|endoftext|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/phi2-ft.yml

@@ -57,3 +57,5 @@ weight_decay: 0.1
 resize_token_embeddings_to_32x: true
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|endoftext|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/phi3-ft-fsdp.yml

@@ -71,3 +71,5 @@ fsdp_config:
 resize_token_embeddings_to_32x: true
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: "<|endoftext|>"
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/phi/phi3-ft.yml

@@ -59,3 +59,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.2
 debug: true
 weight_decay: 0.1
 resize_token_embeddings_to_32x: true
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/pixtral/lora-12b.yml

@@ -55,3 +55,5 @@ saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
   pad_token: <pad>
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

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

@@ -53,3 +53,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen2/dpo.yaml

@@ -54,3 +54,5 @@ warmup_steps: 10
 evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen2/prm.yaml

@@ -55,3 +55,5 @@ eval_steps: 100
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen2/qlora-fsdp.yaml

@@ -67,3 +67,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen2/reward-model.yaml

@@ -26,7 +26,6 @@ wandb_watch:
 wandb_name:
 wandb_log_model:
 
-
 gradient_accumulation_steps: 4
 micro_batch_size: 2
 num_epochs: 4
@@ -50,3 +49,5 @@ evals_per_epoch:
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen2_5-vl/lora-7b.yaml

@@ -53,3 +53,5 @@ warmup_ratio: 0.1
 evals_per_epoch: 1
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen3/32b-qlora.yaml

@@ -67,3 +67,5 @@ evals_per_epoch: 4
 saves_per_epoch: 1
 weight_decay: 0.0
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen3/8b-qat-fsdp2.yml

@@ -76,3 +76,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_activation_checkpointing: true
 
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

examples/qwen3/qlora-fsdp.yaml

@@ -66,3 +66,5 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_state_dict_type: FULL_STATE_DICT
   fsdp_sharding_strategy: FULL_SHARD
 special_tokens:
+
+# save_first_step: true  # uncomment this to validate checkpoint saving works with your config

requirements.txt

@@ -26,7 +26,7 @@ hf_transfer
 sentencepiece
 gradio==5.23.3
 
-modal==0.70.5
+modal==1.0.2
 pydantic==2.10.6
 addict
 fire

scripts/cutcrossentropy_install.py

@@ -29,5 +29,5 @@ UV_PREFIX = "uv " if USE_UV else ""
 
 print(
     UNINSTALL_PREFIX
-    + f'{UV_PREFIX}pip install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@865b899"'
+    + f'{UV_PREFIX}pip install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@50cef19"'
 )

src/axolotl/core/builders/base.py

@@ -36,6 +36,7 @@ from axolotl.utils.callbacks import (
     GCCallback,
     GPUStatsCallback,
     SaveAxolotlConfigtoWandBCallback,
+    SaveModelOnFirstStepCallback,
 )
 from axolotl.utils.callbacks.profiler import PytorchProfilerCallback
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import CustomSupportedOptimizers
@@ -135,6 +136,8 @@ class TrainerBuilderBase(abc.ABC):
             callbacks.append(
                 SaveAxolotlConfigtoCometCallback(self.cfg.axolotl_config_path)
             )
+        if self.cfg.save_first_step:
+            callbacks.append(SaveModelOnFirstStepCallback())
 
         callbacks.append(GPUStatsCallback(cfg=self.cfg))
 

src/axolotl/integrations/cut_cross_entropy/README.md

@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@ python scripts/cutcrossentropy_install.py | sh
 
 - If you are installing from pip
 ```bash
-pip3 uninstall -y cut-cross-entropy && pip3 install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@865b899"
+pip3 uninstall -y cut-cross-entropy && pip3 install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@50cef19"
 ```
 
 ## Usage

src/axolotl/integrations/cut_cross_entropy/__init__.py

@@ -19,11 +19,13 @@ Cut Cross Entropy is an optimized implementation of cross entropy loss
 from Apple's ML team.
 """
 import importlib
+from functools import partial
 
 import torch
 
 from axolotl.integrations.base import BasePlugin
 from axolotl.utils import get_pytorch_version
+from axolotl.utils.callbacks.models import get_causal_lm_model_cls_prefix
 from axolotl.utils.logging import get_logger
 
 from .args import CutCrossEntropyArgs  # pylint: disable=unused-import. # noqa: F401
@@ -32,7 +34,7 @@ LOG = get_logger(__name__)
 
 _CCE_INSTALL_MESSAGE = (
     "Please install Axolotl's fork of cut_cross_entropy with transformers support using "
-    '`pip install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@865b899"`'
+    '`pip install "cut-cross-entropy[transformers] @ git+https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/ml-cross-entropy.git@50cef19"`'
 )
 
 
@@ -84,6 +86,7 @@ class CutCrossEntropyPlugin(BasePlugin):
         """Apply cut cross entropy before model loading if enabled."""
         if cfg.cut_cross_entropy:
             self._check_requirements()
+            self.patch_llama_like(cfg.model_config_type)
 
             from cut_cross_entropy.transformers.patch import cce_patch
 
@@ -93,3 +96,48 @@ class CutCrossEntropyPlugin(BasePlugin):
 
             # The patch checks model_type internally
             cce_patch(cfg.model_config_type)
+
+    def patch_llama_like(
+        self,
+        model_type: str,
+    ) -> None:
+        """
+        Generic patch for model architectures with causal lm similar to llama
+        """
+        from cut_cross_entropy.transformers.patch import PATCH_FNS
+
+        def patch_generic(
+            maybe_model, patch_options, model_type: str
+        ):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
+            import cut_cross_entropy.transformers.llama
+            from cut_cross_entropy.transformers.llama import cce_forward
+
+            try:
+                # Dynamically import the module and CausalLM class
+                module_path = f"transformers.models.{model_type}.modeling_{model_type}"
+                model_cls_prefix, _ = get_causal_lm_model_cls_prefix(model_type)
+                module = __import__(
+                    module_path, fromlist=[f"{model_cls_prefix}ForCausalLM"]
+                )
+                model_cls = getattr(module, f"{model_cls_prefix}ForCausalLM")
+
+                cut_cross_entropy.transformers.llama._PATCH_OPTS = (  # pylint: disable=protected-access
+                    patch_options
+                )
+
+                model_cls.forward = cce_forward
+            # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+            except (ImportError, AttributeError) as e:
+                raise RuntimeError(
+                    f"Could not import ForCausalLM class for model_type: {model_type}. "
+                    f"Error: {str(e)}"
+                ) from e
+
+        if model_type not in PATCH_FNS:
+            LOG.warning_once(
+                "Setting up generic cce patch for model type: %s", model_type
+            )
+            LOG.warning_once(
+                f"Generic Cut Cross Entropy + {model_type} support is experimental and may not work as expected."
+            )
+            PATCH_FNS[model_type] = partial(patch_generic, model_type=model_type)

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/kernels/models.py

@@ -22,6 +22,8 @@ except ImportError:
         TransformersKwargs,
     )
 
+from axolotl.utils.callbacks.models import get_causal_lm_model_cls_prefix
+
 
 def kldiv_forward_llama_like(
     self,
@@ -97,7 +99,7 @@ def kldiv_forward_llama_like(
 def apply_kernel(model_type):
     # Dynamically import the module and attention class
     module_path = f"transformers.models.{model_type}.modeling_{model_type}"
-    model_cls_prefix = "".join([part.capitalize() for part in model_type.split("_")])
+    model_cls_prefix, _ = get_causal_lm_model_cls_prefix(model_type)
     module = __import__(module_path, fromlist=[f"{model_cls_prefix}ForCausalLM"])
     model_cls = getattr(module, f"{model_cls_prefix}ForCausalLM")
     model_cls.forward = kldiv_forward_llama_like

src/axolotl/integrations/liger/__init__.py

@@ -18,170 +18,10 @@ Module for the Plugin for LIGER integraton with Axolotl.
 Liger Kernel is the collection of Triton-native kernels for LLM Training.
 It is designed to be performant, correct, and light-weight.
 """
-import inspect
-import sys
+from .args import LigerArgs
+from .plugin import LigerPlugin
 
-from axolotl.integrations.base import BasePlugin
-from axolotl.utils.logging import get_logger
-
-from .args import LigerArgs  # pylint: disable=unused-import. # noqa: F401
-from .utils import patch_with_compile_disable
-
-LOG = get_logger(__name__)
-
-
-class LigerPlugin(BasePlugin):
-    """
-    Plugin for LIGER integraton with Axolotl.
-    """
-
-    def get_input_args(self):
-        return "axolotl.integrations.liger.LigerArgs"
-
-    def pre_model_load(self, cfg):
-        if cfg.torch_compile:
-            # torch compile will unnecessarily attempt to optimize the triton kernel unless explicitly disabled
-            import liger_kernel.ops.fused_linear_cross_entropy
-
-            patch_with_compile_disable(
-                liger_kernel.ops.fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                "fused_linear_cross_entropy_forward",
-            )
-            patch_with_compile_disable(
-                liger_kernel.ops.fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                "fused_linear_cross_entropy_backward",
-            )
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.cross_entropy import LigerCrossEntropyLoss
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.functional import liger_cross_entropy
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.layer_norm import LigerLayerNorm
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.monkey_patch import MODEL_TYPE_TO_APPLY_LIGER_FN
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.rms_norm import LigerRMSNorm
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.rope import liger_rotary_pos_emb
-        from liger_kernel.transformers.swiglu import LigerSwiGLUMLP
-
-        if cfg.liger_cross_entropy and cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy:
-            raise ValueError(
-                "Cannot have both `liger_cross_entropy` and `liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy` set."
-            )
-
-        if cfg.model_config_type in MODEL_TYPE_TO_APPLY_LIGER_FN:
-            apply_liger_fn = MODEL_TYPE_TO_APPLY_LIGER_FN[cfg.model_config_type]
-            liger_fn_sig = inspect.signature(apply_liger_fn)
-            kwargs = {}
-            if "rope" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["rope"] = cfg.liger_rope
-            if "cross_entropy" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["cross_entropy"] = cfg.liger_cross_entropy
-            if "fused_linear_cross_entropy" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["fused_linear_cross_entropy"] = (
-                    cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy
-                )
-            if "rms_norm" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["rms_norm"] = cfg.liger_rms_norm
-            if "layer_norm" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["layer_norm"] = cfg.liger_layer_norm
-            if "geglu" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["geglu"] = cfg.liger_glu_activation
-            elif "swiglu" in liger_fn_sig.parameters:
-                kwargs["swiglu"] = cfg.liger_glu_activation
-            LOG.info(f"Applying LIGER to {cfg.model_config_type} with kwargs: {kwargs}")
-            apply_liger_fn(**kwargs)
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "jamba":
-            from transformers.models.jamba import modeling_jamba
-
-            from .models.jamba import lce_forward as jamba_lce_forward
-
-            if cfg.liger_rope:
-                modeling_jamba.apply_rotary_pos_emb = liger_rotary_pos_emb
-            if cfg.liger_rms_norm:
-                modeling_jamba.JambaRMSNorm = LigerRMSNorm
-            if cfg.liger_glu_activation:
-                modeling_jamba.JambaMLP = LigerSwiGLUMLP
-            if cfg.liger_layer_norm:
-                modeling_jamba.nn.LayerNorm = LigerLayerNorm
-            if cfg.liger_cross_entropy:
-                from transformers.loss.loss_utils import nn
-
-                nn.functional.cross_entropy = liger_cross_entropy
-            if cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy:
-                modeling_jamba.JambaForCausalLM.forward = jamba_lce_forward
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "deepseek_v2":
-            from accelerate import init_empty_weights
-            from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
-
-            with init_empty_weights():
-                model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(
-                    cfg.base_model, trust_remote_code=cfg.trust_remote_code or False
-                )
-                modeling_mod = sys.modules[model.__class__.__module__]
-
-            from .models.deepseekv2 import lce_forward as deepseekv2_lce_forward
-
-            if cfg.liger_rope:
-                # The DeepseekV2 version of RoPE is different than upstream LLaMA.
-                # See https://github.com/linkedin/Liger-Kernel/issues/129#issuecomment-2313763528
-                LOG.warning("Fused liger_rope is not supported for DeepseekV2.")
-            if cfg.liger_glu_activation:
-                LOG.warning("liger_glu_activation is not supported for DeepseekV2.")
-            if cfg.liger_rms_norm:
-                modeling_mod.DeepseekV2RMSNorm = LigerRMSNorm
-            if cfg.liger_glu_activation:
-                modeling_mod.DeepseekV2MLP.forward = LigerSwiGLUMLP.forward
-            if cfg.liger_layer_norm:
-                modeling_mod.DeepseekV2MLP.forward = LigerLayerNorm.forward
-            if cfg.liger_cross_entropy:
-                # We do not patch `nn.functional.cross_entropy` for DeepseekV2 as it still uses
-                # nn.CrossEntropyLoss in the forward method.
-                modeling_mod.CrossEntropyLoss = LigerCrossEntropyLoss
-            if cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy:
-                modeling_mod.DeepseekV2ForCausalLM.forward = deepseekv2_lce_forward
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "llama4":
-            from axolotl.integrations.liger.models.llama4 import (
-                apply_liger_kernel_to_llama4,
-            )
-
-            apply_liger_kernel_to_llama4(
-                cross_entropy=cfg.liger_cross_entropy,
-                fused_linear_cross_entropy=cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                glu_activation=cfg.liger_glu_activation,
-                rms_norm=cfg.liger_rms_norm,
-                layer_norm=cfg.liger_layer_norm,
-            )
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "qwen3":
-            from axolotl.integrations.liger.models.qwen3 import (
-                apply_liger_kernel_to_qwen3,
-            )
-
-            apply_liger_kernel_to_qwen3(
-                cross_entropy=cfg.liger_cross_entropy,
-                fused_linear_cross_entropy=cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                glu_activation=cfg.liger_glu_activation,
-                rms_norm=cfg.liger_rms_norm,
-                layer_norm=cfg.liger_layer_norm,
-            )
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "qwen3_moe":
-            from axolotl.integrations.liger.models.qwen3_moe import (
-                apply_liger_kernel_to_qwen3_moe,
-            )
-
-            apply_liger_kernel_to_qwen3_moe(
-                cross_entropy=cfg.liger_cross_entropy,
-                fused_linear_cross_entropy=cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                glu_activation=cfg.liger_glu_activation,
-                rms_norm=cfg.liger_rms_norm,
-                layer_norm=cfg.liger_layer_norm,
-            )
-        elif cfg.model_config_type == "granitemoe":
-            from liger_kernel.transformers import apply_liger_kernel_to_granite
-
-            apply_liger_kernel_to_granite(
-                rope=cfg.liger_rope,
-                cross_entropy=cfg.liger_cross_entropy,
-                fused_linear_cross_entropy=cfg.liger_fused_linear_cross_entropy,
-                rms_norm=cfg.liger_rms_norm,
-                swiglu=cfg.liger_glu_activation,
-            )
-        else:
-            LOG.warning(
-                f"Unsupported model config type: {cfg.model_config_type}. Liger not applied."
-            )
+__all__ = [
+    "LigerArgs",
+    "LigerPlugin",
+]