improve handling of train len

.github/workflows/multi-gpu-e2e.yml

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ on:
       - 'setup.py'
       - 'pyproject.toml'
       - '.github/workflows/multi-gpu-e2e.yml'
-      - 'src/axolotl/core/trainers/mixins/context_parallel.py'
+      - 'src/axolotl/core/trainers/mixins/sequence_parallel.py'
       - 'src/axolotl/utils/distributed.py'
   workflow_dispatch:
   schedule:

_quarto.yml

@@ -75,7 +75,7 @@ quartodoc:
     - title: Context Managers
       desc: Context managers for altering trainer behaviors
       contents:
-        - utils.ctx_managers.context_parallel
+        - utils.ctx_managers.sequence_parallel
     - title: Prompt Strategies
       desc: Prompt formatting strategies
       contents:
@@ -274,7 +274,7 @@ website:
             - docs/unsloth.qmd
             - docs/torchao.qmd
             - docs/custom_integrations.qmd
-            - docs/context_parallelism.qmd
+            - docs/sequence_parallelism.qmd
 
         - section: "Troubleshooting"
           contents:

deepspeed_configs/zero2_torch_compile.json

@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+{
+  "compile": {
+    "disable": false,
+    "backend": "inductor"
+  },
+  "zero_optimization": {
+    "stage": 2,
+    "offload_optimizer": {
+      "device": "cpu"
+    },
+    "contiguous_gradients": true,
+    "overlap_comm": true
+  },
+  "bf16": {
+    "enabled": "auto"
+  },
+  "fp16": {
+    "enabled": "auto",
+    "auto_cast": false,
+    "loss_scale": 0,
+    "initial_scale_power": 32,
+    "loss_scale_window": 1000,
+    "hysteresis": 2,
+    "min_loss_scale": 1
+  },
+  "gradient_accumulation_steps": "auto",
+  "gradient_clipping": "auto",
+  "train_batch_size": "auto",
+  "train_micro_batch_size_per_gpu": "auto",
+  "wall_clock_breakdown": false
+}

docs/config.qmd

@@ -764,13 +764,13 @@ ddp_timeout:
 ddp_bucket_cap_mb:
 ddp_broadcast_buffers:
 
-# Context parallelism
+# Sequence parallelism
 # Set to a divisor of the number of GPUs available to split sequences into chunks of equal size.
 # Use in long context training to prevent OOM when sequences cannot fit into a single GPU's VRAM.
 # E.g., if 4 GPUs are available, set this value to 2 to split each sequence into two equal-sized
 # subsequences, or set to 4 to split into four equal-sized subsequences.
-# See https://docs.axolotl.ai/docs/context_parallelism.html for more details.
-context_parallel_degree:
+# See https://docs.axolotl.ai/docs/sequence_parallelism.html for more details.
+sequence_parallel_degree:
 # Optional; strides across the key dimension. Larger values use more memory but should make training faster.
 # Must evenly divide the number of KV heads in your model.
 heads_k_stride: 1

docs/multi-gpu.qmd

@@ -18,7 +18,7 @@ Axolotl supports several methods for multi-GPU training:
 
 - DeepSpeed (recommended)
 - FSDP (Fully Sharded Data Parallel)
-- Context parallelism
+- Sequence parallelism
 - FSDP + QLoRA
 
 ## DeepSpeed {#sec-deepspeed}
@@ -80,14 +80,14 @@ fsdp_config:
   fsdp_transformer_layer_cls_to_wrap: LlamaDecoderLayer
 ```
 
-## Context parallelism {#sec-sequence-parallelism}
+## Sequence parallelism {#sec-sequence-parallelism}
 
-We support context parallelism (SP) via the
+We support sequence parallelism (SP) via the
 [ring-flash-attention](https://github.com/zhuzilin/ring-flash-attention) project. This
 allows one to split up sequences across GPUs, which is useful in the event that a
 single sequence causes OOM errors during model training.
 
-See our [dedicated guide](context_parallelism.qmd) for more information.
+See our [dedicated guide](sequence_parallelism.qmd) for more information.
 
 ### FSDP + QLoRA {#sec-fsdp-qlora}
 

docs/sequence_parallelism.qmd

@@ -1,16 +1,16 @@
 ---
-title: Context Parallelism
+title: Sequence Parallelism
 description: Train with long sequences split across multiple GPUs.
 ---
 
-Context parallelism is a technique that splits sequences across multiple GPUs,
+Sequence parallelism is a technique that splits sequences across multiple GPUs,
 allowing you to train with very long sequences that wouldn't fit on a single GPU. Each
 GPU processes a different portion of the sequence, and the results are aggregated
 through a ring communication pattern.
 
-## When to Use Context Parallelism
+## When to Use Sequence Parallelism
 
-Use context parallelism when:
+Use sequence parallelism when:
 
 - You need to train with sequence lengths that don't fit into a single GPU's memory
 - You have multiple GPUs available
@@ -18,11 +18,11 @@ Use context parallelism when:
 
 ## Configuration
 
-To enable context parallelism, add the following to your configuration file:
+To enable sequence parallelism, add the following to your configuration file:
 
 ```yaml
 # Set to a divisor (> 1) of the number of GPUs available
-context_parallel_degree: 4  # Split sequences across 4 GPUs
+sequence_parallel_degree: 4  # Split sequences across 4 GPUs
 # Optional; strides across the key dimension. Larger values use more memory but should make training faster.
 heads_k_stride: 1
 # Optional; one of "varlen_llama3" or "batch_ring". Defaults to
@@ -30,23 +30,23 @@ heads_k_stride: 1
 ring_attn_func:
 ```
 
-The `context_parallel_degree` should be a divisor of the total number of GPUs. For example:
+The `sequence_parallel_degree` should be a divisor of the total number of GPUs. For example:
 
 - With 8 GPUs, valid values would be 2, 4, or 8
 - With 4 GPUs, valid values would be 2 or 4
 
 ## Implementation Details
 
-When context parallelism is enabled:
+When sequence parallelism is enabled:
 
-1. Each sequence is divided into equal chunks across the GPUs in a context parallel group
+1. Each sequence is divided into equal chunks across the GPUs in a sequence parallel group
 2. The data collator handles the chunking of input_ids, attention_mask, labels, and position_ids
 3. Position IDs are adjusted to maintain proper relative positions
 4. The trainer uses special ring communication patterns for attention operations
 
 ## Requirements
 
-To use context parallelism, you need:
+To use sequence parallelism, you need:
 
 - Multiple GPUs (at least 2)
 - The `ring-flash-attn` package. Install with:
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ sequence_len: 8192
 
 ...
 
-context_parallel_degree: 4  # Split each sequence into 4 parts, one per GPU
+sequence_parallel_degree: 4  # Split each sequence into 4 parts, one per GPU
 # Optional; strides across the key dimension. Larger values use more memory but should make training faster.
 heads_k_stride: 1
 # Optional; one of "varlen_llama3" or "batch_ring". Defaults to
@@ -79,22 +79,22 @@ ring_attn_func:
 This will train the Llama 3 8B model with 8K context length, with each sequence split
 into 2 subsequences of length 4096 across 2 GPUs.
 
-## Sample Packing with Context Parallelism
+## Sample Packing with Sequence Parallelism
 
-Context parallelism is compatible with Axolotl's sample packing functionality. When using both features together:
+Sequence parallelism is compatible with Axolotl's sample packing functionality. When using both features together:
 
 1. Samples are first packed together
-2. The packed sequences are then divided across GPUs in the context parallel group
+2. The packed sequences are then divided across GPUs in the sequence parallel group
 3. Position IDs are automatically adjusted to maintain proper relative positions
 
 ## Effect on Batch Size
 
-When using context parallelism, your effective global batch size is **divided** by the `context_parallel_degree`. This happens because:
+When using sequence parallelism, your effective global batch size is **divided** by the `sequence_parallel_degree`. This happens because:
 
-- Each group of `context_parallel_degree` GPUs works on the same batch (just different parts of each sequence)
+- Each group of `sequence_parallel_degree` GPUs works on the same batch (just different parts of each sequence)
 - The number of batches processed per step decreases
 
 For example:
-- With 8 GPUs and no context parallelism: 8 different batches processed per step
-- With 8 GPUs and `context_parallel_degree=4`: Only 2 different batches processed per step (each split across 4 GPUs)
+- With 8 GPUs and no sequence parallelism: 8 different batches processed per step
+- With 8 GPUs and `sequence_parallel_degree=4`: Only 2 different batches processed per step (each split across 4 GPUs)
 - If your per-GPU `micro_batch_size` is 2, the global batch size decreases from 16 to 4

src/axolotl/cli/merge_lora.py

@@ -73,7 +73,7 @@ def do_cli(config: Union[Path, str] = Path("examples/"), **kwargs) -> None:
         load_in_8bit=False,
         load_in_4bit=False,
         flash_attention=False,
-        context_parallel_degree=None,
+        sequence_parallel_degree=None,
         deepspeed=None,
         fsdp=None,
         fsdp_config=None,

src/axolotl/core/builders/causal.py

@@ -21,11 +21,6 @@ from axolotl.core.trainers import (
     AxolotlTrainer,
     ReLoRATrainer,
 )
-from axolotl.core.training_args import (
-    AxolotlPRMConfig,
-    AxolotlRewardConfig,
-    AxolotlTrainingArguments,
-)
 from axolotl.integrations.base import PluginManager
 from axolotl.monkeypatch.multipack import SUPPORTED_MULTIPACK_MODEL_TYPES
 from axolotl.monkeypatch.relora import ReLoRACallback
@@ -130,6 +125,9 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
         return callbacks
 
     def _get_trainer_cls(self):
+        """
+        Gets the trainer class for the given configuration.
+        """
         if self.cfg.plugins:
             plugin_manager = PluginManager.get_instance()
             trainer_cls = plugin_manager.get_trainer_cls(self.cfg)
@@ -146,6 +144,12 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
         return AxolotlTrainer
 
     def build(self, total_num_steps):
+        from axolotl.core.training_args import (
+            AxolotlPRMConfig,
+            AxolotlRewardConfig,
+            AxolotlTrainingArguments,
+        )
+
         training_arguments_kwargs, trainer_kwargs = self._set_base_training_args(
             total_num_steps
         )
@@ -314,20 +318,12 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
             training_arguments_kwargs["image_resize_algorithm"] = (
                 self.cfg.image_resize_algorithm
             )
-        if self.cfg.kd_ce_alpha is not None:
-            training_arguments_kwargs["kd_ce_alpha"] = self.cfg.kd_ce_alpha
-        if self.cfg.kd_alpha is not None:
-            training_arguments_kwargs["kd_alpha"] = self.cfg.kd_alpha
-        if self.cfg.kd_temperature is not None:
-            training_arguments_kwargs["kd_temperature"] = self.cfg.kd_temperature
-        if self.cfg.kd_zscore_base_temp is not None:
-            training_arguments_kwargs["kd_zscore_base_temp"] = (
-                self.cfg.kd_zscore_base_temp
-            )
-        if self.cfg.kd_top_k_before_softmax is not None:
-            training_arguments_kwargs["kd_top_k_before_softmax"] = (
-                self.cfg.kd_top_k_before_softmax
-            )
+
+        if self.cfg.plugins:
+            plugin_manager = PluginManager.get_instance()
+            plugin_training_args = plugin_manager.get_training_args(self.cfg)
+            if plugin_training_args:
+                training_arguments_kwargs.update(plugin_training_args)
 
         if self.cfg.reward_model:
             training_args_cls = AxolotlRewardConfig
@@ -408,7 +404,10 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
         return trainer
 
     def build_collator(
-        self, training_args: AxolotlTrainingArguments, is_eval=False, **kwargs
+        self,
+        training_args,  # type: "AxolotlTrainingArguments"  # type: ignore
+        is_eval=False,
+        **kwargs,
     ):
         if training_args.pretraining:
             if (
@@ -437,7 +436,18 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
             ]
         ]
         collator_args = [self.tokenizer]
-        if self.cfg.reward_model:
+
+        if self.cfg.plugins:
+            plugin_manager = PluginManager.get_instance()
+            collator_cls_and_kwargs = plugin_manager.get_collator_cls_and_kwargs(
+                self.cfg, is_eval=is_eval
+            )
+
+        if collator_cls_and_kwargs:
+            collator = collator_cls_and_kwargs[0]
+            if kwargs and isinstance(kwargs, dict):
+                kwargs.update(collator_cls_and_kwargs[1])
+        elif self.cfg.reward_model:
             collator = RewardDataCollatorWithPadding
         elif use_batch_sampler_collator:
             # Use V2BatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq for flex attention,
@@ -468,16 +478,6 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
                 collator_args.pop(0)
                 kwargs.pop("pad_to_multiple_of", None)
                 kwargs.pop("padding", None)
-            elif self.cfg.kd_trainer:
-                from axolotl.integrations.kd.collator import (
-                    DataCollatorForKD,
-                    KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq,
-                )
-
-                if self.cfg.sample_packing:
-                    collator = KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq
-                else:
-                    collator = DataCollatorForKD
             else:
                 collator = DataCollatorForSeq2Seq
 

src/axolotl/core/builders/rl.py

@@ -12,11 +12,6 @@ from axolotl.core.trainers import (
 from axolotl.core.trainers.dpo import DPOStrategy
 from axolotl.core.trainers.dpo.args import AxolotlDPOConfig
 from axolotl.core.trainers.grpo import GRPOStrategy
-from axolotl.core.training_args import (
-    AxolotlCPOConfig,
-    AxolotlKTOConfig,
-    AxolotlORPOConfig,
-)
 from axolotl.integrations.base import PluginManager
 from axolotl.loaders.utils import ensure_dtype
 from axolotl.utils.logging import get_logger
@@ -54,7 +49,7 @@ class HFRLTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
 
         if self.cfg.rl is RLType.GRPO:
             trainer_cls = GRPOStrategy.get_trainer_class(
-                context_parallel=self.cfg.context_parallel_degree > 1
+                sequence_parallel=self.cfg.sequence_parallel_degree > 1
             )
             trainer_cls_args.extend(GRPOStrategy.set_trainer_args(self.cfg))
 
@@ -79,6 +74,12 @@ class HFRLTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
         """
         Returns training_args and trainer_kwargs
         """
+        from axolotl.core.training_args import (
+            AxolotlCPOConfig,
+            AxolotlKTOConfig,
+            AxolotlORPOConfig,
+        )
+
         training_args_kwargs, trainer_kwargs = self._set_base_training_args(
             total_num_steps=total_num_steps
         )
@@ -165,6 +166,13 @@ class HFRLTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
             if blocklist_key in training_args_kwargs:
                 del training_args_kwargs[blocklist_key]
 
+
+        if self.cfg.plugins:
+            plugin_manager = PluginManager.get_instance()
+            plugin_training_args = plugin_manager.get_training_args(self.cfg)
+            if plugin_training_args:
+                training_args_kwargs.update(plugin_training_args)
+
         training_args = training_args_cls(  # pylint: disable=unexpected-keyword-arg
             logging_first_step=True,
             **training_args_kwargs,

src/axolotl/core/trainers/__init__.py

@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 
 from .base import AxolotlTrainer
 from .dpo.trainer import AxolotlDPOTrainer
-from .grpo.trainer import AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer, AxolotlGRPOTrainer
+from .grpo.trainer import AxolotlGRPOSequenceParallelTrainer, AxolotlGRPOTrainer
 from .mamba import AxolotlMambaTrainer
 from .relora import ReLoRATrainer
 from .trl import (

src/axolotl/core/trainers/base.py

@@ -7,13 +7,11 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 import os
 from collections import defaultdict
 from functools import partial, wraps
-from typing import Any, Callable, Literal, Optional
+from typing import Callable, Literal, Optional
 
-from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.context_parallel.distributed import get_context_parallel_manager
 import datasets
 import torch
 from datasets import Dataset
-from torch import nn
 from torch.utils.data import (
     BatchSampler,
     DataLoader,
@@ -35,6 +33,7 @@ from axolotl.core.trainers.utils import (
     sanitize_kwargs_for_ds_tagging,
     sanitize_kwargs_for_tagging,
 )
+from axolotl.utils import get_not_null
 from axolotl.utils.logging import get_logger
 from axolotl.utils.samplers import MultipackBatchSampler, get_dataset_lengths
 
@@ -67,32 +66,6 @@ class AxolotlTrainer(SchedulerMixin, OptimizerMixin, RngLoaderMixin, Trainer):
         if self.args.orpo_alpha:
             self.loss_fct = torch.nn.CrossEntropyLoss(reduction="none")
 
-        # SPDA device mesh init
-        import torch.distributed as dist
-
-        world_size = dist.get_world_size()
-        mesh_shape = (
-            world_size // 2,
-            2,
-        )
-        self.world_mesh = dist.DeviceMesh(
-            "cuda",
-            torch.tensor(list(range(world_size))).reshape(mesh_shape),
-            mesh_dim_names=("dp", "cp"),
-        )
-
-    def training_step(
-        self, model: nn.Module, inputs: dict[str, torch.Tensor | Any], num_items_in_batch=None
-    ) -> torch.Tensor:
-        ctx_manager = get_context_parallel_manager(
-            world_mesh=self.world_mesh,
-            model=model,
-        )
-        to_shard = {k: v for k, v in inputs.items() if v.ndim > 1}
-        with ctx_manager(list(to_shard.values())):
-            super().training_step(model, inputs, num_items_in_batch)
-        
-
     def _wrap_model(self, model, training=True, dataloader=None):
         if self.args.torch_compile:
             torch._dynamo.config.accumulated_cache_size_limit = (  # pylint: disable=protected-access
@@ -129,7 +102,7 @@ class AxolotlTrainer(SchedulerMixin, OptimizerMixin, RngLoaderMixin, Trainer):
             )
             batch_max_len = train_batch_size * self.args.max_seq_length
 
-        return MultipackBatchSampler(
+        sampler = MultipackBatchSampler(
             base_sampler,
             lengths=get_dataset_lengths(dataset),
             packing_efficiency_estimate=self.args.sample_packing_efficiency,
@@ -141,6 +114,9 @@ class AxolotlTrainer(SchedulerMixin, OptimizerMixin, RngLoaderMixin, Trainer):
             drop_last=True,
         )
 
+        len(sampler)
+        return sampler
+
     def _get_train_sampler(
         self, train_dataset: Optional[Dataset] = None
     ) -> Optional[Sampler]:
@@ -248,7 +224,9 @@ class AxolotlTrainer(SchedulerMixin, OptimizerMixin, RngLoaderMixin, Trainer):
         }
 
         if not isinstance(dataset, torch.utils.data.IterableDataset):
-            dataloader_params["drop_last"] = self.args.dataloader_drop_last
+            dataloader_params["drop_last"] = get_not_null(
+                self.args.dataloader_drop_last, True
+            )
             if sampler_fn is not None:
                 sampler = sampler_fn(dataset)
                 if isinstance(sampler, BatchSampler):

src/axolotl/core/trainers/grpo/__init__.py

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ from trl.trainer.grpo_trainer import RewardFunc
 
 from axolotl.core.trainers.grpo.args import AxolotlGRPOConfig
 from axolotl.core.trainers.grpo.trainer import (
-    AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer,
+    AxolotlGRPOSequenceParallelTrainer,
     AxolotlGRPOTrainer,
 )
 from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
@@ -23,10 +23,10 @@ class GRPOStrategy:
 
     @classmethod
     def get_trainer_class(
-        cls, context_parallel: bool
-    ) -> type[AxolotlGRPOTrainer] | type[AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer]:
-        if context_parallel:
-            return AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer
+        cls, sequence_parallel: bool
+    ) -> type[AxolotlGRPOTrainer] | type[AxolotlGRPOSequenceParallelTrainer]:
+        if sequence_parallel:
+            return AxolotlGRPOSequenceParallelTrainer
         return AxolotlGRPOTrainer
 
     @classmethod
@@ -69,8 +69,8 @@ class GRPOStrategy:
         grpo_args_kwargs["log_completions"] = trl.log_completions
         grpo_args_kwargs["num_completions_to_print"] = trl.num_completions_to_print
 
-        if cfg.context_parallel_degree > 1:
-            grpo_args_kwargs["context_parallel_degree"] = cfg.context_parallel_degree
+        if cfg.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
+            grpo_args_kwargs["sequence_parallel_degree"] = cfg.sequence_parallel_degree
 
         if trl.reward_weights:
             grpo_args_kwargs["reward_weights"] = trl.reward_weights

src/axolotl/core/trainers/grpo/args.py

@@ -13,4 +13,4 @@ from axolotl.core.training_args import AxolotlTrainingMixins
 class AxolotlGRPOConfig(AxolotlTrainingMixins, GRPOConfig):
     """Axolotl GRPO Config for GRPO training"""
 
-    context_parallel_degree: int | None = None
+    sequence_parallel_degree: int | None = None

src/axolotl/core/trainers/grpo/sampler.py

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 """Repeat random sampler (similar to the one implemented in
 https://github.com/huggingface/trl/blob/main/trl/trainer/grpo_trainer.py) that adds
-context parallelism functionality; i.e., duplicating data across ranks in the same
-context parallel group.
+sequence parallelism functionality; i.e., duplicating data across ranks in the same
+sequence parallel group.
 """
 
 from typing import Iterator, Sized
@@ -10,26 +10,26 @@ import torch
 from torch.utils.data import Sampler
 
 
-class ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
-    """Sampler for GRPO training with context parallelism.
+class SequenceParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
+    """Sampler for GRPO training with sequence parallelism.
 
     This sampler ensures:
-    - Ranks in the same context parallel (SP) group receive identical data.
+    - Ranks in the same sequence parallel (SP) group receive identical data.
     - Each index is repeated multiple times for sampling different completions.
     - Entire batches are repeated for reuse in multiple updates.
-    - Data is properly distributed across CP groups.
+    - Data is properly distributed across SP groups.
 
-    In the table below, the values represent dataset indices. Each CP group has
-    `context_parallel_degree = 2` GPUs working together on the same data. There are 2
-    CP groups (SP0 and SP1), with `world_size = 4` total GPUs.
+    In the table below, the values represent dataset indices. Each SP group has
+    `sequence_parallel_degree = 2` GPUs working together on the same data. There are 2
+    SP groups (SP0 and SP1), with `world_size = 4` total GPUs.
 
-                                               Context Parallel Groups
+                                               Sequence Parallel Groups
                                         |       SP0        |       SP1        |
                                         |  GPU 0  |  GPU 1 |  GPU 2  |  GPU 3 |
                     global_step  step    <---> mini_repeat_count=3
-                                            <----------> batch_size=2 per CP group
-    grad_accum=2   ▲  ▲  0       0         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- CP groups get different data
-                   ▼  |  0       1         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- Same data for each CP group GPU
+                                            <----------> batch_size=2 per SP group
+    grad_accum=2   ▲  ▲  0       0         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- SP groups get different data
+                   ▼  |  0       1         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- Same data for each SP group GPU
                       |
                       |  1       2         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- Repeat same indices for iterations
     num_iterations=2  ▼  1       3         [0 0 0  1 1 1]     [2 2 2  3 3 3]   <- When using gradient accumulation
@@ -45,7 +45,7 @@ class ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
         rank: Rank of current process.
         batch_size: Number of samples per batch.
         repeat_count: How many times to repeat the full sampling process.
-        context_parallel_degree: Number of ranks in a context parallel group.
+        sequence_parallel_degree: Number of ranks in a sequence parallel group.
         shuffle: Whether to shuffle the dataset.
         seed: Random seed for shuffling.
         drop_last: Whether to drop the last incomplete batch.
@@ -59,7 +59,7 @@ class ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
         rank: int,
         batch_size: int = 1,
         repeat_count: int = 1,
-        context_parallel_degree: int = 1,
+        sequence_parallel_degree: int = 1,
         shuffle: bool = True,
         seed: int = 0,
         drop_last: bool = False,
@@ -76,16 +76,16 @@ class ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
         self.world_size = world_size
         self.rank = rank
 
-        # Context parallelism parameters
-        self.context_parallel_degree = context_parallel_degree
-        self.num_sp_groups = world_size // context_parallel_degree
-        self.sp_group_id = rank // context_parallel_degree
+        # Sequence parallelism parameters
+        self.sequence_parallel_degree = sequence_parallel_degree
+        self.num_sp_groups = world_size // sequence_parallel_degree
+        self.sp_group_id = rank // sequence_parallel_degree
 
         # Adjust dataset size for distributed sampling
         self.num_samples = len(self.dataset)
         self.total_size = self.num_samples
 
-        # Calculate effective number of samples per CP group
+        # Calculate effective number of samples per SP group
         if (
             self.drop_last
             and self.total_size % (self.num_sp_groups * self.batch_size) != 0
@@ -125,8 +125,8 @@ class ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(Sampler):
             padding = indices[: self.batch_size - len(indices) % self.batch_size]
             indices += padding
 
-        # Subsample based on CP group ID
-        # Each CP group gets distinct batches of data
+        # Subsample based on SP group ID
+        # Each SP group gets distinct batches of data
         batch_indices = []
         for i in range(0, len(indices), self.batch_size * self.num_sp_groups):
             start_idx = i + self.sp_group_id * self.batch_size

src/axolotl/core/trainers/grpo/trainer.py

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-"""Axolotl GRPO trainers (with and without context parallelism handling)"""
+"""Axolotl GRPO trainers (with and without sequence parallelism handling)"""
 
 # pylint: disable=too-many-lines,duplicate-code,protected-access,no-member
 
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ from trl.trainer.grpo_config import GRPOConfig
 from trl.trainer.grpo_trainer import RewardFunc, nanstd
 from trl.trainer.utils import pad
 
-from axolotl.core.trainers.grpo.sampler import ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler
+from axolotl.core.trainers.grpo.sampler import SequenceParallelRepeatRandomSampler
 from axolotl.core.trainers.mixins import RngLoaderMixin, SchedulerMixin
 from axolotl.core.trainers.mixins.optimizer import OptimizerInitMixin, OptimizerMixin
 from axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn import get_ring_attn_group
@@ -59,8 +59,8 @@ class AxolotlGRPOTrainer(
     _tag_names = ["trl", "grpo", "axolotl"]
 
 
-class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
-    """Extend the base GRPOTrainer for context parallelism handling"""
+class AxolotlGRPOSequenceParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
+    """Extend the base GRPOTrainer for sequence parallelism handling"""
 
     def __init__(
         self,
@@ -97,11 +97,11 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
             optimizer_cls_and_kwargs=optimizer_cls_and_kwargs,
         )
 
-        # Get number of CP groups (number of processes divided by CP degree)
+        # Get number of SP groups (number of processes divided by SP degree)
         num_processes = self.accelerator.num_processes
-        num_sp_groups = num_processes // self.args.context_parallel_degree
+        num_sp_groups = num_processes // self.args.sequence_parallel_degree
 
-        # Calculate batch size per CP group (not per process)
+        # Calculate batch size per SP group (not per process)
         sp_group_batch_size = self.args.per_device_train_batch_size * num_sp_groups
         possible_values = [
             n_gen
@@ -111,7 +111,7 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
 
         if self.num_generations not in possible_values:
             raise ValueError(
-                f"The batch size per CP group ({num_sp_groups} x "
+                f"The batch size per SP group ({num_sp_groups} x "
                 f"{self.args.per_device_train_batch_size}) must be evenly divisible by "
                 f"the number of generations per prompt ({self.num_generations}). Given "
                 "the current configuration, the valid values for the number of "
@@ -119,7 +119,7 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
             )
 
         if self.args.eval_strategy != "no":
-            # If context parallelism is enabled, calculate batch size per CP group
+            # If sequence parallelism is enabled, calculate batch size per SP group
             sp_group_eval_batch_size = args.per_device_eval_batch_size * num_sp_groups  # type: ignore[union-attr]
             possible_values = [
                 n_gen
@@ -129,8 +129,8 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
 
             if self.num_generations not in possible_values:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    f"With context parallelism (degree {self.args.context_parallel_degree}), "
-                    f"the eval batch size per CP group ({num_sp_groups} x {self.args.per_device_eval_batch_size}) "
+                    f"With sequence parallelism (degree {self.args.sequence_parallel_degree}), "
+                    f"the eval batch size per SP group ({num_sp_groups} x {self.args.per_device_eval_batch_size}) "
                     f"must be evenly divisible by the number of generations per prompt "
                     f"({self.num_generations}). Given the current eval batch size, "
                     f"the valid values for the number of generations are: {possible_values}."
@@ -143,7 +143,7 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
         self.local_world_size = 1
 
     def train(self, *args, **kwargs):
-        # Initialize the CP group
+        # Initialize the SP group
         self.sp_group = get_ring_attn_group()
         self.rank = dist.get_rank()
         self.world_size = dist.get_world_size()
@@ -159,16 +159,16 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
             * self.args.gradient_accumulation_steps
         )
 
-        return ContextParallelRepeatRandomSampler(
+        return SequenceParallelRepeatRandomSampler(
             dataset=self.train_dataset,
             mini_repeat_count=self.num_generations,
             world_size=self.world_size,
             rank=self.rank,
             batch_size=effective_batch_size
             // self.num_generations
-            // self.args.context_parallel_degree,
+            // self.args.sequence_parallel_degree,
             repeat_count=self.num_iterations * self.args.gradient_accumulation_steps,
-            context_parallel_degree=self.args.context_parallel_degree,
+            sequence_parallel_degree=self.args.sequence_parallel_degree,
             shuffle=True,
             seed=self.args.seed,
             drop_last=True,
@@ -226,11 +226,11 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
         ):
             self.accelerator.even_batches = False
 
-        # Return unprepared dataloader if using context parallelism
+        # Return unprepared dataloader if using sequence parallelism
         # TODO(djsaunde): We might be able to use `accelerate`'s dataloader preparation
         # if we use `dispatch_batches` and `slice_fn_for_dispatch` properly (i.e.,
         # slice each batch along the sequence dimension).
-        if self.args.context_parallel_degree > 1:
+        if self.args.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
             return dataloader
 
         # Otherwise prepare with accelerator
@@ -303,21 +303,21 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
             # Generate completions using vLLM: gather all prompts and use them in a single call in the main process
             all_prompts_text = gather_object(prompts_text)
             if self.accelerator.is_main_process:
-                if self.args.context_parallel_degree > 1:
-                    # Calculate context parallel group information
+                if self.args.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
+                    # Calculate sequence parallel group information
                     world_size = self.accelerator.num_processes
-                    context_parallel_degree = self.args.context_parallel_degree
-                    num_sp_groups = world_size // context_parallel_degree
+                    sequence_parallel_degree = self.args.sequence_parallel_degree
+                    num_sp_groups = world_size // sequence_parallel_degree
 
-                    # Since processes in the same CP group have the same prompts, we need to ensure
-                    # we only take one copy of each prompt from each CP group
+                    # Since processes in the same SP group have the same prompts, we need to ensure
+                    # we only take one copy of each prompt from each SP group
                     ordered_set_of_prompts = []
                     for sp_group_id in range(num_sp_groups):
-                        # Get the first process from each CP group (typically the group leader)
-                        group_leader_rank = sp_group_id * context_parallel_degree
+                        # Get the first process from each SP group (typically the group leader)
+                        group_leader_rank = sp_group_id * sequence_parallel_degree
 
-                        # Extract prompts from this CP group, accounting for num_generations duplicates
-                        # We only need prompts from one rank in each CP group
+                        # Extract prompts from this SP group, accounting for num_generations duplicates
+                        # We only need prompts from one rank in each SP group
                         group_prompts = all_prompts_text[
                             group_leader_rank
                             * len(prompts_text) : (group_leader_rank + 1)
@@ -330,7 +330,7 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
                     # num_generations outputs for each one. This is faster than generating outputs for each duplicate
                     # prompt individually.
                     ordered_set_of_prompts = all_prompts_text[
-                        :: self.num_generations * self.args.context_parallel_degree
+                        :: self.num_generations * self.args.sequence_parallel_degree
                     ]
 
                 with profiling_context(self, "vLLM.generate"):
@@ -347,28 +347,28 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
                     )
             else:
                 completion_ids = [None] * (
-                    len(all_prompts_text) // self.args.context_parallel_degree
+                    len(all_prompts_text) // self.args.sequence_parallel_degree
                 )
 
             # Broadcast the completions from the main process to all processes
             completion_ids = broadcast_object_list(completion_ids, from_process=0)
 
-            # Determine the appropriate slice based on context parallelism
-            if self.args.context_parallel_degree > 1:
-                # Calculate CP group ID (which group of ranks this rank belongs to)
+            # Determine the appropriate slice based on sequence parallelism
+            if self.args.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
+                # Calculate SP group ID (which group of ranks this rank belongs to)
                 sp_group_id = self.accelerator.process_index // self.local_world_size
 
-                # Calculate the start index for this CP group
+                # Calculate the start index for this SP group
                 sp_group_start = sp_group_id * len(prompts) * self.local_world_size
 
-                # All ranks in the same CP group get the same data slice
+                # All ranks in the same SP group get the same data slice
                 process_slice = slice(
                     sp_group_start,
                     sp_group_start + len(prompts),
                 )
                 completion_ids = completion_ids[process_slice]
             else:
-                # Original behavior for non-context parallel case
+                # Original behavior for non-sequence parallel case
                 process_slice = slice(
                     self.accelerator.process_index * len(prompts),
                     (self.accelerator.process_index + 1) * len(prompts),
@@ -578,20 +578,20 @@ class AxolotlGRPOContextParallelTrainer(AxolotlGRPOTrainer):
             advantages = advantages / (std_grouped_rewards + 1e-4)
 
         # Slice to keep only the local part of the data
-        if self.args.context_parallel_degree > 1:
-            # Calculate CP group ID (which group of ranks this rank belongs to)
+        if self.args.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
+            # Calculate SP group ID (which group of ranks this rank belongs to)
             sp_group_id = self.accelerator.process_index // self.local_world_size
 
-            # Calculate the start index for this CP group
+            # Calculate the start index for this SP group
             sp_group_start = sp_group_id * len(prompts) * self.local_world_size
 
-            # All ranks in the same CP group get the same data slice
+            # All ranks in the same SP group get the same data slice
             process_slice = slice(
                 sp_group_start,
                 sp_group_start + len(prompts),
             )
         else:
-            # Original behavior for non-context parallel case
+            # Original behavior for non-sequence parallel case
             process_slice = slice(
                 self.accelerator.process_index * len(prompts),
                 (self.accelerator.process_index + 1) * len(prompts),

src/axolotl/core/training_args.py

@@ -2,238 +2,17 @@
 extra axolotl specific training args
 """
 
-from dataclasses import dataclass, field
-from typing import Optional
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from dataclasses import dataclass, field
+from typing import Optional, Type
 
-from PIL.Image import Resampling
 from transformers import TrainingArguments
 from trl import CPOConfig, KTOConfig, ORPOConfig, PRMConfig, RewardConfig
 
+from axolotl.integrations.config import merge_training_args
 
-@dataclass
-class AxolotlTrainingMixins:
-    """
-    Mixin class for the Axolotl training args.
-    """
-
-    # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
-    model_type: Optional[str] = field(
-        default=None, metadata={"help": "HF model configuration model_type."}
-    )
-    lr_quadratic_warmup: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={"help": "Use quadratic warmup for cosine scheduling."},
-    )
-    pretraining: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "Indicates to trainer whether we are doing continued pretraining."
-        },
-    )
-    sample_packing: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={"help": "Use sample packing for efficient training."},
-    )
-    sample_packing_sequentially: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "Use next-fit sample packing that preserves the order of samples coming from the sampler. Use in combination with curriculum_sampling for fully sequential packing."
-        },
-    )
-    multipack_real_batches: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={"help": "Use real batches for efficient training."},
-    )
-    eval_sample_packing: Optional[bool] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "Use sample packing for efficient evals."},
-    )
-    sample_packing_efficiency: float = field(
-        default=1.0,
-        metadata={"help": "Sample packing efficiency for calculating batch length."},
-    )
-    sample_packing_bin_size: int = field(
-        default=200,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "The max number of samples that packed sample can contain after packing. Increase for better packing."
-        },
-    )
-    sample_packing_group_size: int = field(
-        default=100000,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "The number of samples to group together for packing. Increase for better packing."
-        },
-    )
-    max_seq_length: int = field(
-        default=2048,
-        metadata={"help": "The maximum sequence length the model can handle"},
-    )
-    relora_steps: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "how often to reset for ReLoRA"},
-    )
-    relora_warmup_steps: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "how many warmup steps to take after reset for ReLoRA"},
-    )
-    relora_anneal_steps: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "how many warmup steps to take after reset for ReLoRA"},
-    )
-    relora_prune_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=0.9,
-        metadata={"help": "prune ratio for magnitude pruning of the optimizer"},
-    )
-    bench_split: Optional[str] = field(
-        default="eval", metadata={"help": "The benchmark split to run on"}
-    )
-    bench_dataset: Optional[str] = field(
-        default="pharaouk/dharma-1/dharma_1_mini.json",
-        metadata={
-            "help": "Benchmark dataset to use: options are `mmlu-zs`, `mmlu-fs`, or the full path to the dataset file"
-        },
-    )
-    do_bench_eval: Optional[bool] = field(
-        default=False, metadata={"help": "Whether to run the Benchmark evaluation."}
-    )
-    do_causal_lm_eval: Optional[bool] = field(
-        default=False, metadata={"help": "Whether to run the Causal LM evaluation."}
-    )
-    max_bench_samples: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "If set, only evaluates on `max_bench_samples` of the benchmark dataset."
-        },
-    )
-    bench_source_max_len: int = field(
-        default=2048, metadata={"help": "Maximum source sequence length for bench."}
-    )
-    dataloader_prefetch_factor: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "prefetch_factor argument to the dataloader"},
-    )
-    cosine_min_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "Minimum learning rate is min_lr_ratio * learning_rate"},
-    )
-    cosine_constant_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "Starting constant learning rate step is cosine_constant_lr_ratio * max_steps"
-        },
-    )
-    loraplus_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None, metadata={"help": "loraplus learning rate ratio lr_B / lr_A."}
-    )
-    loraplus_lr_embedding: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=1e-6,
-        metadata={"help": "loraplus learning rate for lora embedding layers."},
-    )
-    embedding_lr_scale: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "Scale the learning rate for the embedding layers."},
-    )
-    lr_groups: Optional[list[dict]] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "Specify learning rate groups for with different LRs."},
-    )
-    embedding_lr: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "absolute learning rate for the embedding layers."},
-    )
-    qlora: bool = field(
-        default=False,
-        metadata={"help": "whether this is a qlora training"},
-    )
-    orpo_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-    )
-    lisa_n_layers: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "the number of activate layers in LISA"},
-    )
-    lisa_step_interval: Optional[int] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "how often to switch layers in LISA"},
-    )
-    lisa_layers_attribute: Optional[str] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "path under the model to access the layers"},
-    )
-    curriculum_sampling: Optional[bool] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "whether to use sequential sampling for curriculum learning"},
-    )
-    alternate_lr_scheduler_type: Optional[str] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "workaround to pass an alternate lr scheduler to the HF trainer"
-        },
-    )
-    chat_template: Optional[str] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "Chat template converting chat messages to text"},
-    )
-
-    kd_ce_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "The alpha scaling parameter for SFT cross entropy loss when using KD"
-        },
-    )
-
-    kd_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=1.0,
-        metadata={"help": "The alpha scaling parameter for KD loss"},
-    )
-
-    kd_temperature: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=1.0,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "the temperature parameter for KL divergence loss when using KD"
-        },
-    )
-
-    kd_zscore_base_temp: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "the base temperature parameter for KL divergence with z-score when using KD"
-        },
-    )
-
-    kd_top_k_before_softmax: Optional[bool] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "Whether to apply top_k_before_softmax to the logits when using KD"
-        },
-    )
-
-    adam_beta3: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "The beta3 hyperparameter used in some optimizers such as CAME"
-        },
-    )
-    adam_epsilon2: Optional[float] = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={
-            "help": "The epsilon2 hyperparameter used in some optimizers such as CAME"
-        },
-    )
-
-    # multi-modal section
-
-    image_size: int | tuple[int, int] | None = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "The size of the image to resize to"},
-    )
-
-    image_resize_algorithm: Resampling | None = field(
-        default=None,
-        metadata={"help": "The algorithm to use for image resizing"},
-    )
-
-    # end of multi-modal section
+AxolotlTrainingMixins: Type = merge_training_args()
 
 
 @dataclass

src/axolotl/core/training_args_base.py

@@ -0,0 +1,220 @@
+"""
+Base Axolotl Training Mixins shared across various trainer configs
+"""
+
+from dataclasses import dataclass, field
+from typing import Optional
+
+from PIL.Image import Resampling
+
+
+@dataclass
+class AxolotlTrainingMixins:
+    """
+    Mixin class for the Axolotl training args.
+    """
+
+    # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+    model_type: Optional[str] = field(
+        default=None, metadata={"help": "HF model configuration model_type."}
+    )
+    lr_quadratic_warmup: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={"help": "Use quadratic warmup for cosine scheduling."},
+    )
+    pretraining: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "Indicates to trainer whether we are doing continued pretraining."
+        },
+    )
+    sample_packing: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={"help": "Use sample packing for efficient training."},
+    )
+    sample_packing_sequentially: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "Use next-fit sample packing that preserves the order of samples coming from the sampler. Use in combination with curriculum_sampling for fully sequential packing."
+        },
+    )
+    multipack_real_batches: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={"help": "Use real batches for efficient training."},
+    )
+    eval_sample_packing: Optional[bool] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "Use sample packing for efficient evals."},
+    )
+    sample_packing_efficiency: float = field(
+        default=1.0,
+        metadata={"help": "Sample packing efficiency for calculating batch length."},
+    )
+    sample_packing_bin_size: int = field(
+        default=200,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "The max number of samples that packed sample can contain after packing. Increase for better packing."
+        },
+    )
+    sample_packing_group_size: int = field(
+        default=100000,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "The number of samples to group together for packing. Increase for better packing."
+        },
+    )
+    max_seq_length: int = field(
+        default=2048,
+        metadata={"help": "The maximum sequence length the model can handle"},
+    )
+    relora_steps: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "how often to reset for ReLoRA"},
+    )
+    relora_warmup_steps: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "how many warmup steps to take after reset for ReLoRA"},
+    )
+    relora_anneal_steps: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "how many warmup steps to take after reset for ReLoRA"},
+    )
+    relora_prune_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=0.9,
+        metadata={"help": "prune ratio for magnitude pruning of the optimizer"},
+    )
+    bench_split: Optional[str] = field(
+        default="eval", metadata={"help": "The benchmark split to run on"}
+    )
+    bench_dataset: Optional[str] = field(
+        default="pharaouk/dharma-1/dharma_1_mini.json",
+        metadata={
+            "help": "Benchmark dataset to use: options are `mmlu-zs`, `mmlu-fs`, or the full path to the dataset file"
+        },
+    )
+    do_bench_eval: Optional[bool] = field(
+        default=False, metadata={"help": "Whether to run the Benchmark evaluation."}
+    )
+    do_causal_lm_eval: Optional[bool] = field(
+        default=False, metadata={"help": "Whether to run the Causal LM evaluation."}
+    )
+    max_bench_samples: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "If set, only evaluates on `max_bench_samples` of the benchmark dataset."
+        },
+    )
+    bench_source_max_len: int = field(
+        default=2048, metadata={"help": "Maximum source sequence length for bench."}
+    )
+    dataloader_prefetch_factor: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "prefetch_factor argument to the dataloader"},
+    )
+    cosine_min_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "Minimum learning rate is min_lr_ratio * learning_rate"},
+    )
+    cosine_constant_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "Starting constant learning rate step is cosine_constant_lr_ratio * max_steps"
+        },
+    )
+    loraplus_lr_ratio: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None, metadata={"help": "loraplus learning rate ratio lr_B / lr_A."}
+    )
+    loraplus_lr_embedding: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=1e-6,
+        metadata={"help": "loraplus learning rate for lora embedding layers."},
+    )
+    embedding_lr_scale: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "Scale the learning rate for the embedding layers."},
+    )
+    lr_groups: Optional[list[dict]] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "Specify learning rate groups for with different LRs."},
+    )
+    embedding_lr: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "absolute learning rate for the embedding layers."},
+    )
+    qlora: bool = field(
+        default=False,
+        metadata={"help": "whether this is a qlora training"},
+    )
+    orpo_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+    )
+    lisa_n_layers: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "the number of activate layers in LISA"},
+    )
+    lisa_step_interval: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "how often to switch layers in LISA"},
+    )
+    lisa_layers_attribute: Optional[str] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "path under the model to access the layers"},
+    )
+    curriculum_sampling: Optional[bool] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "whether to use sequential sampling for curriculum learning"},
+    )
+    alternate_lr_scheduler_type: Optional[str] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "workaround to pass an alternate lr scheduler to the HF trainer"
+        },
+    )
+    chat_template: Optional[str] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "Chat template converting chat messages to text"},
+    )
+
+    # kd_ce_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
+    #     default=None,
+    #     metadata={
+    #         "help": "The alpha scaling parameter for SFT cross entropy loss when using KD"
+    #     },
+    # )
+    #
+    # kd_alpha: Optional[float] = field(
+    #     default=1.0,
+    #     metadata={"help": "The alpha scaling parameter for KD loss"},
+    # )
+    #
+    # kd_temperature: Optional[float] = field(
+    #     default=1.0,
+    #     metadata={
+    #         "help": "the temperature parameter for KL divergence loss when using KD"
+    #     },
+    # )
+
+    adam_beta3: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "The beta3 hyperparameter used in some optimizers such as CAME"
+        },
+    )
+    adam_epsilon2: Optional[float] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "The epsilon2 hyperparameter used in some optimizers such as CAME"
+        },
+    )
+
+    # multi-modal section
+
+    image_size: int | tuple[int, int] | None = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "The size of the image to resize to"},
+    )
+
+    image_resize_algorithm: Resampling | None = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={"help": "The algorithm to use for image resizing"},
+    )
+
+    # end of multi-modal section

src/axolotl/integrations/base.py

@@ -22,6 +22,7 @@ from __future__ import annotations
 
 import collections
 import importlib
+import traceback
 from typing import TYPE_CHECKING, Callable, OrderedDict, Union
 
 from peft import PeftModel
@@ -83,6 +84,11 @@ class BasePlugin:
     def get_input_args(self) -> str | None:
         """Returns a pydantic model for the plugin's input arguments."""
 
+    def get_training_args_mixin(self) -> str | None:
+        """
+        Returns a dataclass model for the plugin's training arguments.
+        """
+
     def load_datasets(
         self, cfg: DictDefault, preprocess: bool = False
     ) -> Union["TrainDatasetMeta", None]:
@@ -158,6 +164,31 @@ class BasePlugin:
             trainer: The trainer object for training.
         """
 
+    def get_training_args(self, cfg: DictDefault):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument):
+        """
+        Returns custom training arguments to set on TrainingArgs.
+
+        Args:
+            cfg: The global axolotl configuration.
+
+        Returns:
+            object: dict containing the training arguments.
+        """
+
+    def get_collator_cls_and_kwargs(
+        self, cfg: DictDefault, is_eval: bool = False
+    ):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument):
+        """
+        Returns a custom class for the collator.
+
+        Args:
+            cfg: The global axolotl configuration.
+            is_eval: Whether this is an eval split.
+
+        Returns:
+            class: The class for the collator.
+        """
+
     # pylint: disable=unused-argument
     def create_optimizer(self, cfg: DictDefault, trainer: Trainer) -> Optimizer | None:
         """Creates and returns an optimizer for training.
@@ -278,7 +309,7 @@ def load_plugin(plugin_name: str) -> BasePlugin:
     return plugin
 
 
-class PluginManager:
+class PluginManager:  # pylint: disable=too-many-public-methods
     """The `PluginManager` class is responsible for loading and managing plugins. It
     should be a singleton so it can be accessed from anywhere in the codebase.
 
@@ -337,8 +368,11 @@ class PluginManager:
             plugin = load_plugin(plugin_name)
             self.plugins[plugin_name] = plugin
             LOG.info(f"Plugin loaded successfully: {plugin_name}")
-        except ImportError:
+        except ImportError as exc:
             LOG.error(f"Failed to load plugin: {plugin_name}")
+            # print stacktrace
+            traceback.print_exc()
+            print(f"Error: {exc}")
 
     def get_input_args(self) -> list[str]:
         """Returns a list of Pydantic classes for all registered plugins' input arguments.'
@@ -353,6 +387,20 @@ class PluginManager:
                 input_args.append(input_args_from_plugin)
         return input_args
 
+    def get_training_args_mixin(self):
+        """
+        Returns a list of dataclasses for all registered plugins' training args mixins'
+
+        Returns:
+        list[str]: A list of dataclsses
+        """
+        training_args = []
+        for plugin in self.plugins.values():
+            training_args_from_plugin = plugin.get_training_args_mixin()
+            if training_args_from_plugin is not None:
+                training_args.append(training_args_from_plugin)
+        return training_args
+
     def load_datasets(
         self, cfg: DictDefault, preprocess: bool = False
     ) -> Union["TrainDatasetMeta", None]:
@@ -442,6 +490,42 @@ class PluginManager:
                 return trainer_cls
         return None
 
+    def get_training_args(self, cfg):
+        """
+        Calls the get_training_args method of all registered plugins and returns the combined training arguments.
+
+        Parameters:
+        cfg (dict): The configuration for the plugins.
+
+        Returns:
+        object: The training arguments
+        """
+        training_args_kwargs = {}
+        for plugin in self.plugins.values():
+            training_args = plugin.get_training_args(cfg)
+            if training_args is not None:
+                training_args_kwargs.update(training_args)
+
+        return training_args_kwargs
+
+    def get_collator_cls_and_kwargs(self, cfg, is_eval=False):
+        """
+        Calls the get_collator_cls_and_kwargs method of all registered plugins and returns the first non-None collator class.
+
+        Parameters:
+        cfg (dict): The configuration for the plugins.
+        is_eval (bool): Whether this is an eval split.
+
+        Returns:
+        object: The collator class, or None if none was found.
+        """
+        for plugin in self.plugins.values():
+            collator = plugin.get_collator_cls_and_kwargs(cfg, is_eval=is_eval)
+            if collator is not None:
+                collator_cls, collator_kwargs = collator
+                return collator_cls, collator_kwargs
+        return None
+
     def post_trainer_create(self, cfg: DictDefault, trainer: Trainer):
         """Calls the `post_trainer_create` method of all registered plugins.
 

src/axolotl/integrations/config.py

@@ -16,7 +16,7 @@ Module to handle merging the plugins' input arguments with the base configuratio
 This was moved here to prevent circular imports.
 """
 
-from typing import Any, Dict, List
+from typing import Any, Dict, List, Type
 
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.config import (
     AxolotlConfigWCapabilities as AxolotlConfigWCapabilitiesBase,
@@ -61,3 +61,43 @@ def merge_input_args():
         ]
         return AxolotlConfigWCapabilities, AxolotlInputConfig
     return AxolotlConfigWCapabilitiesBase, AxolotlInputConfigBase
+
+
+def merge_training_args() -> Type:
+    """
+    Merges training arguments from registered plugins with the base TrainingArguments.
+
+    This function retrieves the training arguments from registered plugins using the PluginManager.
+    It then dynamically creates new classes, AxolotlTrainingMixins,
+    that inherit from the base configurations and include the training arguments from the plugins.
+
+    Returns:
+    tuple: A tuple containing the newly created classes, AxolotlTrainingMixins.
+    """
+    # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+    from axolotl.core.training_args_base import (
+        AxolotlTrainingMixins as AxolotlTrainingMixinsBase,
+    )
+    from axolotl.integrations.base import PluginManager
+
+    plugin_manager = PluginManager.get_instance()
+    training_args_mixins: List[str] = plugin_manager.get_training_args_mixin()
+    mixin_classes = []
+    dynamic_input = ""
+    for plugin_args in training_args_mixins:
+        plugin_module, plugin_cls = plugin_args.rsplit(".", 1)
+        dynamic_input += f"from {plugin_module} import {plugin_cls}\n"
+        mixin_classes.append(plugin_cls)
+    if dynamic_input:
+        dynamic_input += f"class AxolotlTrainingMixins(AxolotlTrainingMixinsBase, {', '.join(mixin_classes)}):\n    pass\n"
+
+        namespace: Dict[Any, Any] = {}
+        local_vars = {"AxolotlTrainingMixinsBase": AxolotlTrainingMixinsBase}
+        exec(  # pylint: disable=exec-used  # nosec B102
+            dynamic_input, {**globals(), **local_vars}, namespace
+        )
+        AxolotlTrainingMixins = namespace[  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+            "AxolotlTrainingMixins"
+        ]
+        return AxolotlTrainingMixins
+    return AxolotlTrainingMixinsBase

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/README.md

@@ -21,3 +21,32 @@ datasets:
 ```
 
 An example dataset can be found at [`axolotl-ai-co/evolkit-logprobs-pipeline-75k-v2-sample`](https://huggingface.co/datasets/axolotl-ai-co/evolkit-logprobs-pipeline-75k-v2-sample)
+
+## Online KD (sglang)
+
+```bash
+export UV_TORCH_BACKEND=cu124
+uv venv sglang --python 3.11
+source sglang/bin/activate
+uv pip install --upgrade pip
+uv pip install setuptools
+uv pip install torch~=2.5.1 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu124
+uv pip install sgl-kernel --force-reinstall --no-deps
+uv pip install "sglang[all]>=0.4.2.post4" --find-links https://flashinfer.ai/whl/cu124/torch2.5/flashinfer/
+```
+
+## Online KD (vllm)
+
+```bash
+VLLM_USE_V1=0 vllm serve open-r1/OlympicCoder-32B --max-model-len 16400 --port 8888 --max-logprobs 128 --return-tokens-as-token-ids --tensor-parallel-size 8 --max-num-seqs
+256 --gpu_memory_utilization 0.2 --enable-chunked-prefill
+```
+
+```bash
+vllm serve open-r1/OlympicCoder-32B --max-model-len 16400 --port 8888 --max-logprobs 128 --return-tokens-as-token-ids --tensor-parallel-size 8 --no-enable-prefix-caching --gpu-memory-utilization 0.3 --max-num-batched-tokens 131072 --host 0.0.0.0
+```
+
+
+```bash
+python -m sglang.launch_server --model-path open-r1/OlympicCoder-32B --tensor-parallel-size 8 --port 8080 --host 0.0.0.0 --max-running-requests 256 --context-length 16400 --mem-fraction-static 0.2 --schedule-conservativeness 0.3 --chunked-prefill-size 131072 --schedule-policy fcfs --skip-tokenizer-init
+```

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/__init__.py

@@ -15,7 +15,12 @@
 """
 Plugin init to add KD support to Axolotl.
 """
+from typing import Any
+
+from transformers import Trainer
+
 from axolotl.integrations.base import BasePlugin
+from axolotl.integrations.kd.callbacks import KDTemperatureSchedulerCallback
 
 from .args import KDArgs  # pylint: disable=unused-import. # noqa: F401
 
@@ -28,9 +33,75 @@ class KDPlugin(BasePlugin):
     def get_input_args(self):
         return "axolotl.integrations.kd.KDArgs"
 
+    def get_training_args_mixin(self):
+        return "axolotl.integrations.kd.args.KDTrainingArgsMixin"
+
     def get_trainer_cls(self, cfg):
         if cfg.kd_trainer:
             from .trainer import AxolotlKDTrainer
 
             return AxolotlKDTrainer
         return None
+
+    def get_training_args(self, cfg):
+        return {
+            "kd_ce_alpha": cfg.kd_ce_alpha,
+            "kd_alpha": cfg.kd_alpha,
+            "kd_temperature": cfg.kd_temperature,
+            "kd_beta": cfg.kd_beta,
+            "kd_normalize_topk": cfg.kd_normalize_topk,
+        }
+
+    def get_collator_cls_and_kwargs(self, cfg, is_eval=False):
+        if not cfg.kd_trainer:
+            return None, None
+
+        from .collator import DataCollatorForKD, KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq
+
+        use_batch_sampler_collator = False
+        if is_eval is False and cfg.sample_packing:
+            use_batch_sampler_collator = True
+        if cfg.eval_sample_packing and is_eval:
+            use_batch_sampler_collator = True
+
+        if cfg.kd_online_server_base_url:
+            from .collator_online_teacher import OnlineTeacherCollator
+
+            return OnlineTeacherCollator, {
+                "kd_online_server_base_url": cfg.kd_online_server_base_url,
+                "kd_online_topk": cfg.kd_online_topk,
+                "kd_temperature": cfg.kd_temperature,
+                "kd_online_server": cfg.kd_online_server,
+                "kd_online_timeout": cfg.kd_online_timeout,
+                "kd_normalize_topk": cfg.kd_normalize_topk,
+            }
+
+        if use_batch_sampler_collator:
+            return KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq, {}
+        return DataCollatorForKD, {}
+
+    def pre_model_load(self, cfg):
+        from .kernels.models import apply_kernel
+
+        apply_kernel(cfg.model_config_type)
+
+    def add_callbacks_post_trainer(self, cfg: Any, trainer: Trainer) -> list:
+        """
+        Adds temp scheduler callback to the Trainer instance.
+
+        Args:
+            cfg (Any): Configuration object containing the sparse recipe.
+            trainer (Trainer): Huggingface Trainer instance.
+
+        Returns:
+            list: List containing the configured callback instances.
+        """
+        if cfg.kd_temperature_min is not None and cfg.kd_online_server_base_url:
+            callback = KDTemperatureSchedulerCallback(
+                cfg.kd_temperature,
+                cfg.kd_temperature_min,
+                trainer,
+            )
+            return [callback]
+
+        return []

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/args.py

@@ -15,9 +15,19 @@
 """
 Plugin args for KD support.
 """
-from typing import Optional
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+from enum import Enum
 
-from pydantic import BaseModel
+from pydantic import BaseModel, Field
+
+
+class InferenceServerType(str, Enum):
+    """
+    Online inferences server types to handle different request args
+    """
+
+    vllm = "vllm"  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+    sglang = "sglang"  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
 
 
 class KDArgs(BaseModel):
@@ -25,13 +35,41 @@ class KDArgs(BaseModel):
     Input args for knowledge distillation.
     """
 
-    kd_trainer: Optional[bool] = None  # whether to use KD trainer
-    kd_ce_alpha: Optional[float] = (
+    kd_trainer: float | None = None  # whether to use KD trainer
+    kd_ce_alpha: float | None = (
         None  # loss coefficient for cross-entropy loss during KD
     )
-    kd_alpha: Optional[float] = None  # loss coefficient for KD loss
-    kd_temperature: Optional[float] = None  # temperature for sampling during KD
-    kd_zscore_base_temp: Optional[float] = None  # base temperature for zscore scaling
-    kd_top_k_before_softmax: Optional[bool] = (
-        None  # whether to sample top k before softmax during KD
+    kd_alpha: float | None = None  # loss coefficient for KD loss
+    kd_temperature: float | None = None  # temperature for sampling during KD
+    kd_beta: float | None = None  # beta coefficient for ratio of fwd and reverse KL
+    kd_normalize_topk: bool | None = (
+        None  # whether to normalize student logits during KD
+    )
+
+    # TODO online kd
+    kd_online_server_base_url: str | None = None
+    kd_online_topk: int | None = None
+    kd_online_server: InferenceServerType | None = Field(
+        default_factory=lambda: InferenceServerType.vllm
+    )
+    kd_online_timeout: int | None = 120
+    kd_temperature_min: float | None = (
+        None  # kd temperature scheduling during online kd
+    )
+
+
+@dataclass
+class KDTrainingArgsMixin:
+    """
+    Additional args for KD training.
+    """
+
+    kd_ce_alpha: float | None = (
+        None  # loss coefficient for cross-entropy loss during KD
+    )
+    kd_alpha: float | None = None  # loss coefficient for KD loss
+    kd_temperature: float | None = None  # temperature for sampling during KD
+    kd_beta: float | None = None  # beta coefficient for ratio of fwd and reverse KL
+    kd_normalize_topk: float | None = (
+        None  # whether to normalize student logits during KD
     )

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/callbacks.py

@@ -0,0 +1,36 @@
+"""
+Transformers trainer callbacks to schedule the KD temperature during training
+"""
+
+import math
+
+from transformers.trainer_callback import TrainerCallback
+
+
+class KDTemperatureSchedulerCallback(TrainerCallback):
+    """
+    KD temperature scheduler callback for the trainer.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(self, temperature_start, temperature_min, trainer):
+        self.temperature_start = temperature_start
+        self.temperature_min = temperature_min
+        self.temperature = temperature_start
+
+        self.trainer = trainer
+
+    def on_step_end(
+        self, args, state, control, **kwargs
+    ):  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
+        # cosine decay temperature over the max steps
+
+        progress = state.global_step / state.max_steps
+        # Cosine decay factor: 0.5 * (1 + cos(pi * progress))
+        # This factor goes from 1 (at progress=0) to 0 (at progress=1)
+        decay_factor = 0.5 * (1.0 + math.cos(math.pi * progress))
+        self.temperature = self.temperature_start - (
+            (self.temperature_start - self.temperature_min) * (1.0 - decay_factor)
+        )
+
+        if hasattr(self.trainer.data_collator, "kd_temperature"):
+            self.trainer.data_collator.kd_temperature = self.temperature

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/chat_template.py

@@ -15,12 +15,15 @@
 """
 Chat template prompt strategy loader with KD support
 """
+import logging
 from typing import Any, Dict
 
 import torch
 
 from axolotl.prompt_strategies.chat_template import ChatTemplateStrategy, StrategyLoader
 
+LOG = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
 
 class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD(ChatTemplateStrategy):
     """
@@ -101,10 +104,8 @@ class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD(ChatTemplateStrategy):
         # fill with -inf for padding_len tokens for top_k tokens
         # extend target_logprobs with a padding_len x top_k 2D list filled with -inf
 
-        # for causal models, if we start the range at 1, then we don't need to shift in the trainer
-        # otherwise, we need to shift in the trainer
-        shift = 0
-        for _ in range(shift, input_padding_len):
+        # we shift for causal models in the trainer, so start the range from 0
+        for _ in range(0, input_padding_len):
             target_logprobs.append([-float("inf")] * top_k)
             target_token_ids.append(list(range(top_k)))
             target_mask.append([0] * top_k)
@@ -143,6 +144,10 @@ class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD(ChatTemplateStrategy):
             #
             # Convert from log to probability
             teacher_probs_t1 = position_logprobs_tensor.exp()
+            # normalize probabilities to sum to 1 in case they aren't already
+            teacher_probs_t1_sum = teacher_probs_t1.sum(dim=0, keepdim=True)
+            if teacher_probs_t1_sum > 1e-9:
+                teacher_probs_t1 = teacher_probs_t1 / teacher_probs_t1_sum
             if self.kd_temperature != self.gen_temperature:
                 # Exponentiate by factor (T1 / T2)
                 exponent = self.gen_temperature / self.kd_temperature
@@ -162,12 +167,6 @@ class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD(ChatTemplateStrategy):
             target_logprobs.append(position_logprobs_scaled)
             target_token_ids.append(position_token_ids)
 
-        if shift == 1:
-            # since we started at index 1 for causal, we need one more padding token
-            target_logprobs.append([-float("inf")] * top_k)
-            target_token_ids.append(list(range(top_k)))
-            target_mask.append([0] * top_k)
-
         # Update sample with transformed logprobs
         sample["target_logprobs"] = target_logprobs
         sample["target_token_ids"] = target_token_ids
@@ -184,13 +183,124 @@ class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD(ChatTemplateStrategy):
         return tokenized_prompt
 
 
+class ChatTemplateStrategyWithKDv2(ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD):
+    """
+    Strat for datasets with complete structured KD logprob data
+    """
+
+    def transform_logprobs(self, sample):
+        """
+        Transform logprobs to target format for KD training
+        """
+        # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+
+        logprobs = sample.pop(self.logprobs_field)
+        target_seq_len = len(logprobs)
+        input_seq_len = len(sample["input_ids"])
+        input_padding_len = input_seq_len - target_seq_len
+        # get non-zero top-k (prune None logprobs from vllm data step)
+        top_k_vals = [
+            len(logprobs[i])
+            for i in range(len(logprobs))
+            if logprobs[i] is not None and len(logprobs[i])
+        ]
+        max_top_k = max(set(top_k_vals), key=top_k_vals.count)
+        min_top_k = min(set(top_k_vals), key=top_k_vals.count)
+        top_k = min(max_top_k, min_top_k)
+        if top_k == 0:
+            raise ValueError("No non-zero top-k logprobs found.")
+
+        target_logprobs = []
+        target_token_ids = []
+        target_mask = []
+
+        if input_padding_len < 0:
+            # logprobs is longer than target_seq_len,
+            # so we need to slice from the left/beginning of logprobs
+            logprobs = logprobs[:-input_seq_len]
+            input_padding_len = 0
+            # target_seq_len = input_seq_len
+
+        # truncate the second dimension of the logprobs to top_k
+        logprobs = [row[:top_k] for row in logprobs]
+
+        # fill with -inf for padding_len tokens for top_k tokens
+        # extend target_logprobs with a padding_len x top_k 2D list filled with -inf
+
+        # we shift for causal models in the trainer, so start the range from 0
+        for _ in range(0, input_padding_len):
+            target_logprobs.append([-float("inf")] * top_k)
+            target_token_ids.append(list(range(top_k)))
+            target_mask.append([0] * top_k)
+
+        for position in range(input_padding_len, input_seq_len):
+            if sample["labels"][position] == -100:
+                target_mask.append([0] * top_k)
+            else:
+                target_mask.append([1] * top_k)
+
+        for token_pos_logprobs, pos_target_token_ids in zip(
+            logprobs, sample["target_token_ids"]
+        ):
+            # Convert to a tensor for easier manipulation
+            position_logprobs_tensor = torch.tensor(
+                token_pos_logprobs, dtype=torch.float
+            )
+
+            # Now we have distribution at T1 in log form, i.e. log p_{T1}(k).
+            # Next, re-scale to T2 = self.kd_temperature via exponent-based trick
+            # p_{T2}(k) = [p_{T1}(k)]^(T1 / T2) / Z
+            #
+            # Convert from log to probability
+            teacher_probs_t1 = position_logprobs_tensor.exp()
+            # normalize probabilities to sum to 1 in case they aren't already
+            teacher_probs_t1_sum = teacher_probs_t1.sum(dim=0, keepdim=True)
+            if teacher_probs_t1_sum > 1e-9:
+                teacher_probs_t1 = teacher_probs_t1 / teacher_probs_t1_sum
+            if self.kd_temperature != self.gen_temperature:
+                # Exponentiate by factor (T1 / T2)
+                exponent = self.gen_temperature / self.kd_temperature
+                teacher_probs_t2 = teacher_probs_t1**exponent
+            else:
+                teacher_probs_t2 = teacher_probs_t1
+            # Re-normalize
+            teacher_probs_t2 = teacher_probs_t2 / teacher_probs_t2.sum(
+                dim=0, keepdim=True
+            )
+            # Convert back to log
+            position_logprobs_tensor = torch.log(teacher_probs_t2)
+
+            # Now we have log p_{teacher, T2}(k) stored in position_logprobs_tensor
+            position_logprobs_scaled = position_logprobs_tensor.tolist()
+
+            target_logprobs.append(position_logprobs_scaled)
+            target_token_ids.append(pos_target_token_ids)
+
+        # Update sample with transformed logprobs
+        sample["target_logprobs"] = target_logprobs
+        sample["target_token_ids"] = target_token_ids
+        sample["target_mask"] = target_mask
+
+        return sample
+
+    def _tokenize_single_prompt(self, prompt):
+        logprobs = prompt.pop(self.logprobs_field)
+        target_token_ids = prompt.pop("target_token_ids")
+        tokenized_prompt = super()._tokenize_single_prompt(prompt)
+        tokenized_prompt[self.logprobs_field] = logprobs
+        tokenized_prompt["target_token_ids"] = target_token_ids
+        tokenized_prompt = self.transform_logprobs(tokenized_prompt)
+
+        return tokenized_prompt
+
+
 class KDStrategyLoader(StrategyLoader):
     """
     Load ChatTemplateStrategy with KD support using StrategyLoader.
     """
 
     def _get_strategy_cls(self):
-        return ChatTemplateStrategyWithKD
+        return ChatTemplateStrategyWithKDv2
 
     def _get_strategy_params(self, cfg, ds_cfg: Dict[str, Any]):
         strategy_params = super()._get_strategy_params(cfg, ds_cfg)

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/collator.py

@@ -47,11 +47,16 @@ class DataCollatorForKD(DataCollatorForSeq2Seq):
     position_pad_token_id: int = 0
     return_tensors: str = "pt"
 
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.tokenizer.deprecation_warnings["Asking-to-pad-a-fast-tokenizer"] = True
+
     def __call__(self, features, return_tensors=None):
         if return_tensors is None:
             return_tensors = self.return_tensors
 
         padding_side = self.tokenizer.padding_side
+        max_len = 0
 
         # Pad labels and position_ids first
         for feature_name, pad_token_id in [
@@ -102,7 +107,9 @@ class DataCollatorForKD(DataCollatorForSeq2Seq):
                 target_mask_list.append(f.pop("target_mask"))
 
             # Determine max lengths
-            max_teacher_seq_len = max(len(seq) for seq in target_logprobs_list)
+            max_teacher_seq_len = max_len or max(
+                len(seq) for seq in target_logprobs_list
+            )
             max_k = max(len(seq_k) for seq in target_logprobs_list for seq_k in seq)
 
             padded_target_logprobs = []
@@ -209,7 +216,9 @@ class KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq(DataCollatorForKD):
         #    We want to produce a single "merged" feature dict for each sub-batch.
         out_features = [{} for _ in features]
 
-        for i, sub_features in enumerate(features):
+        for i, sub_features in enumerate(  # pylint: disable=too-many-nested-blocks
+            features
+        ):
             # sub_features is a list of dicts, each dict = one sequence’s features
             # We'll merge them into out_features[i].
             #
@@ -243,10 +252,17 @@ class KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq(DataCollatorForKD):
                     # For example, input_ids or labels are often arrays.
                     arrays = []
                     for feat in sub_features:
-                        if field_name in feat:
+                        if field_name in feat and isinstance(
+                            feat[field_name], (list, torch.Tensor)
+                        ):
+                            if isinstance(
+                                feat[field_name][0], (dict, str)
+                            ):  # pylint: disable=too-many-nested-blocks
+                                continue
                             arr = np.array(feat[field_name])
                             arrays.append(arr)
-                    out_features[i][field_name] = np.concatenate(arrays)
+                    if arrays:
+                        out_features[i][field_name] = np.concatenate(arrays)
 
         # 3) Now call the parent collator, which will do:
         #    - padding of labels/position_ids

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/collator_online_teacher.py

@@ -0,0 +1,561 @@
+"""
+Packed data loader for online teacher training supporting vllm and sglang.
+"""
+
+import hashlib
+import hmac
+import logging
+from typing import Any, Dict, List, Optional
+
+import requests
+import torch
+from orjson import orjson
+
+from axolotl.integrations.kd.collator import KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq
+from axolotl.integrations.kd.utils import normalize_logprobs
+from axolotl.utils.data.utils import retry_on_request_exceptions
+
+LOG = logging.getLogger(__name__)
+
+
+def hmac_sha_from_int_list(int_list, key, hash_func=hashlib.sha256):
+    """
+    Create HMAC-SHA hash from a list of integers
+
+    Args:
+        int_list: List of integers
+        key: Secret key (string or bytes)
+        hash_func: Hash function (default: sha256)
+
+    Returns:
+        HMAC digest as hex string
+    """
+    # Convert key to bytes if it's a string
+    if isinstance(key, str):
+        key = key.encode("utf-8")
+
+    # Convert list of ints to bytes
+    # Method 1: Convert each int to bytes and concatenate
+    data = b"".join(i.to_bytes(4, byteorder="big") for i in int_list)
+
+    # Create HMAC
+    h = hmac.new(key, data, hash_func)
+    return h.hexdigest()
+
+
+class OnlineTeacherCollator(KDBatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq):
+    """
+    Collator for online teacher training.
+    """
+
+    DEFAULT_LABEL_PAD_TOKEN_ID: int = -100
+
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        *args: Any,
+        kd_online_server_base_url: Optional[str] = None,
+        kd_online_topk: Optional[int] = None,
+        kd_temperature: Optional[float] = 1.0,
+        kd_online_server: Optional[str] = "vllm",
+        kd_online_timeout: Optional[int] = 120,
+        kd_cache_dir: Optional[str] = None,
+        kd_normalize_topk: Optional[bool] = True,
+        **kwargs: Any,
+    ):
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+
+        if kd_online_server_base_url is None:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "kd_online_server_base_url must be provided for OnlineTeacherDataloader"
+            )
+        if kd_online_topk is None or kd_online_topk <= 0:
+            raise ValueError(
+                "kd_online_topk must be a positive integer for OnlineTeacherDataloader"
+            )
+
+        self.kd_online_server_base_url = kd_online_server_base_url.rstrip("/")
+        self.kd_online_topk = kd_online_topk
+        self.kd_temperature = kd_temperature
+        self.kd_online_server = kd_online_server
+        self.http_session = requests.Session()
+        self.kd_online_timeout = kd_online_timeout
+        self.kd_cache_dir = kd_cache_dir
+        self.kd_normalize_topk = kd_normalize_topk
+
+    def _normalize_logprobs(self, raw_logprobs: List[float]) -> List[float]:
+        """
+        Re-normalizes top-k raw logprobs as probabilities, and converts back to logprobs.
+        """
+        if not raw_logprobs or self.kd_online_topk == 0:
+            return (
+                [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk if self.kd_online_topk > 0 else []
+            )
+
+        raw_logprobs_tensor = torch.tensor(raw_logprobs, dtype=torch.float32)
+        return normalize_logprobs(raw_logprobs_tensor, self.kd_online_topk).tolist()
+
+    @retry_on_request_exceptions(max_retries=10, delay=5)
+    def fetch_online_logprobs_sglang(
+        self, batch_input_ids: List[List[int]], labels: List[List[int]]
+    ):
+        """
+        Fetches logprobs from an online teacher served by sglang for a batch of input_ids.
+        Assumes API returns token IDs as strings in logprob dictionary keys.
+        """
+        api_endpoint = f"{self.kd_online_server_base_url}/generate"
+
+        payload = {
+            "input_ids": batch_input_ids,
+            "return_logprob": True,
+            "top_logprobs_num": self.kd_online_topk,
+            "logprob_start_len": 0,
+            "return_text_in_logprobs": True,
+            "echo": True,
+            "sampling_params": {
+                "max_new_tokens": 0,
+                "temperature": self.kd_temperature,
+                "skip_special_tokens": False,
+            },
+        }
+
+        # Initialize with empty lists, so if API call fails, these are returned.
+        ret_data_target_token_ids: List[List[List[int]]] = []
+        ret_data_target_logprobs: List[List[List[float]]] = []
+        ret_data_target_mask: List[List[List[int]]] = []
+
+        try:
+            response = self.http_session.post(
+                api_endpoint, json=payload, timeout=self.kd_online_timeout
+            )
+            response.raise_for_status()
+            api_data: list[dict] = response.json()
+
+            # Ensure api_data is a list, and its length matches batch_input_ids
+            if not isinstance(api_data, list) or len(api_data) != len(batch_input_ids):
+                LOG.error(
+                    f"API response format error. Expected a list of {len(batch_input_ids)} "
+                    f"items, got {type(api_data)} with length {len(api_data) if isinstance(api_data, list) else 'N/A'}."
+                )
+                # Return empty data; items processed later will get default empty KD fields
+                return {
+                    "target_token_ids": ret_data_target_token_ids,
+                    "target_logprobs": ret_data_target_logprobs,
+                    "target_mask": ret_data_target_mask,
+                }
+
+            for sequence_data, seq_input_ids, seq_labels in zip(
+                api_data, batch_input_ids, labels
+            ):
+                current_target_logprobs = []
+                current_target_token_ids = []
+                current_target_mask = []
+
+                meta_info = sequence_data.pop("meta_info", {})
+                # Ensure input_top_logprobs is a list
+                input_top_logprobs: Optional[list[None | list[tuple]]] = meta_info.pop(
+                    "input_top_logprobs", []
+                )
+                if not isinstance(input_top_logprobs, list):
+                    LOG.warning(
+                        f"Received non-list input_top_logprobs: {input_top_logprobs}. Skipping sequence."
+                    )
+                    input_top_logprobs = []  # Treat as empty
+
+                # basic check that the logprob data len matches the input len, so no need to handle padding
+                assert len(seq_input_ids) == len(input_top_logprobs)
+
+                for i, _, label in zip(
+                    range(len(seq_input_ids)), seq_input_ids, seq_labels
+                ):
+                    if i < len(input_top_logprobs) and input_top_logprobs[i] is None:
+                        # this is always the case for the first token.
+                        # there is never logprob data for the first token since that's a true input
+                        # so we replace the None value with padding data
+                        current_target_logprobs.append(
+                            [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                        )
+                        current_target_token_ids.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                        current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                    elif (
+                        i < len(input_top_logprobs)
+                        and input_top_logprobs[i] is not None
+                    ):
+                        pos_top_logprobs_data = input_top_logprobs[i]
+                        # Ensure pos_top_logprobs_data is a list of lists as expected
+                        if not (
+                            isinstance(pos_top_logprobs_data, list)
+                            and all(
+                                isinstance(item, list) for item in pos_top_logprobs_data
+                            )
+                            and len(pos_top_logprobs_data) > 0
+                            and len(pos_top_logprobs_data[0]) == 3
+                        ):  # [logprob, token_id, token_str]
+                            LOG.warning(
+                                f"Malformed pos_top_logprobs_data: {pos_top_logprobs_data}. Padding this position."
+                            )
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                            )
+                            current_target_token_ids.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                            current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                            continue
+
+                        # pos_top_logprobs: list of logprobs, pos_token_ids: list of token_ids
+                        pos_logprobs_raw, pos_token_ids, _ = [
+                            list(row) for row in zip(*pos_top_logprobs_data)
+                        ]
+
+                        # Ensure correct length (top_k)
+                        if len(pos_logprobs_raw) < self.kd_online_topk:
+                            pad_len = self.kd_online_topk - len(pos_logprobs_raw)
+                            pos_logprobs_raw.extend([-float("inf")] * pad_len)
+                            pos_token_ids.extend([0] * pad_len)  # Pad with 0 token_id
+
+                        # truncate to top_k in case the response was longer
+                        current_target_token_ids.append(
+                            pos_token_ids[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                        )
+
+                        if self.kd_normalize_topk:
+                            normalized_logprobs_for_position = self._normalize_logprobs(
+                                pos_logprobs_raw[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                            )
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                normalized_logprobs_for_position
+                            )
+                        else:
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                pos_logprobs_raw[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                            )
+
+                        # Mask depends on the corresponding label for the student
+                        if label == self.DEFAULT_LABEL_PAD_TOKEN_ID:
+                            current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                        else:
+                            current_target_mask.append([1] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                    else:
+                        # Pad if no logprobs for this position (either due to length mismatch or None entry)
+                        current_target_logprobs.append(
+                            [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                        )
+                        current_target_token_ids.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                        current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+
+                ret_data_target_token_ids.append(current_target_token_ids)
+                ret_data_target_logprobs.append(current_target_logprobs)
+                ret_data_target_mask.append(current_target_mask)
+
+        except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
+            LOG.error(f"Error fetching logprobs from online teacher: {e}")
+            raise e
+            # ret_logprobs_data will be returned with empty lists, handled by the caller.
+        except Exception as e:  # Catch other potential errors during processing
+            LOG.error(
+                f"Unexpected error processing API response in fetch_online_logprobs: {e}",
+                exc_info=True,
+            )
+            raise e
+
+        return {
+            "target_token_ids": ret_data_target_token_ids,
+            "target_logprobs": ret_data_target_logprobs,
+            "target_mask": ret_data_target_mask,
+        }
+
+    @retry_on_request_exceptions(max_retries=10, delay=5)
+    def fetch_online_logprobs_vllm(
+        self, batch_input_ids: List[List[int]], labels: List[List[int]]
+    ):
+        """
+        Fetches logprobs from an online teacher served by vllm for a batch of input_ids.
+        Assumes API returns token IDs as strings in logprob dictionary keys.
+        """
+        api_endpoint = f"{self.kd_online_server_base_url}/v1/completions"
+
+        payload = {
+            "prompt": batch_input_ids,
+            "echo": True,
+            "logprobs": True,
+            "prompt_logprobs": self.kd_online_topk,
+            "top_logprobs": self.kd_online_topk,
+            "max_new_tokens": 0,
+            "skip_special_tokens": False,
+            "temperature": self.kd_temperature,
+            "sampling_params": {
+                "max_tokens": 0,
+            },
+        }
+
+        # Initialize with empty lists, so if API call fails, these are returned.
+        ret_data_target_token_ids: List[List[List[int]]] = []
+        ret_data_target_logprobs: List[List[List[float]]] = []
+        ret_data_target_mask: List[List[List[int]]] = []
+
+        try:
+            headers = {"Accept-Encoding": "deflate, gzip, br, zstd"}
+            response = self.http_session.post(
+                api_endpoint,
+                json=payload,
+                headers=headers,
+                timeout=self.kd_online_timeout,
+            )
+            response.raise_for_status()
+            api_data: dict = orjson.loads(response.content)
+            choices: list[dict] = api_data["choices"]
+
+            # Ensure api_data is a list, and its length matches batch_input_ids
+            if not isinstance(choices, list) or len(choices) != len(batch_input_ids):
+                LOG.error(
+                    f"API response format error. Expected a list of {len(batch_input_ids)} "
+                    f"items, got {type(api_data)} with length {len(api_data) if isinstance(api_data, list) else 'N/A'}."
+                )
+                # Return empty data; items processed later will get default empty KD fields
+                return {
+                    "target_token_ids": ret_data_target_token_ids,
+                    "target_logprobs": ret_data_target_logprobs,
+                    "target_mask": ret_data_target_mask,
+                }
+
+            for sequence_data, seq_input_ids, seq_labels in zip(
+                choices, batch_input_ids, labels
+            ):
+                # seq_input_ids: List[int]
+                # seq_labels: List[int]
+
+                current_target_logprobs = []
+                current_target_token_ids = []
+                current_target_mask = []
+
+                # Ensure input_top_logprobs is a list
+                input_top_logprobs: Optional[list[None | dict[str, dict]]] = (
+                    sequence_data.pop("prompt_logprobs", [])
+                )
+
+                if not isinstance(input_top_logprobs, list):
+                    LOG.warning(
+                        f"Received non-list input_top_logprobs: {input_top_logprobs}. Skipping sequence."
+                    )
+                    input_top_logprobs = []  # Treat as empty
+
+                # basic check that the logprob data len matches the input len, so no need to handle padding
+                assert len(seq_input_ids) == len(input_top_logprobs)
+
+                seq_len = len(seq_input_ids)
+
+                for i, _, label in zip(range(seq_len), seq_input_ids, seq_labels):
+                    if i < len(input_top_logprobs) and input_top_logprobs[i] is None:
+                        # this is always the case for the first token.
+                        # there is never logprob data for the first token since that's a true input
+                        continue
+                    if (
+                        i < len(input_top_logprobs)
+                        and input_top_logprobs[i] is not None
+                    ):
+                        pos_top_logprobs_data: dict[str, dict] = input_top_logprobs[i]  # type: ignore[assignment]
+                        # Ensure pos_top_logprobs_data is a list of lists as expected
+                        if not (
+                            isinstance(pos_top_logprobs_data, dict)
+                            and all(
+                                isinstance(item, dict)
+                                for item in pos_top_logprobs_data.values()
+                            )
+                            and len(pos_top_logprobs_data.keys()) > 0
+                        ):  # [logprob, token_id, token_str]
+                            LOG.warning(
+                                f"Malformed pos_top_logprobs_data: {pos_top_logprobs_data}. Padding this position."
+                            )
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                            )
+                            current_target_token_ids.append(
+                                list(range(self.kd_online_topk))
+                            )
+                            current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                            continue
+
+                        # pos_top_logprobs: list of logprobs, pos_token_ids: list of token_ids
+                        pos_token_ids_str = list(pos_top_logprobs_data.keys())
+                        pos_logprobs_dict = pos_top_logprobs_data.values()
+                        pos_token_ids = [
+                            int(token_id) for token_id in pos_token_ids_str
+                        ]
+                        pos_logprobs_raw = [
+                            float(logprob.get("logprob", -float("inf")))
+                            for logprob in pos_logprobs_dict
+                        ]
+
+                        # Ensure correct length (top_k)
+                        if len(pos_logprobs_raw) < self.kd_online_topk:
+                            pad_len = self.kd_online_topk - len(pos_logprobs_raw)
+                            LOG.warning(
+                                f"Padding position {i} with {pad_len} top-k tokens and logprobs."
+                            )
+                            pos_logprobs_raw.extend([-float("inf")] * pad_len)
+                            pos_token_ids.extend([0] * pad_len)  # Pad with 0 token_id
+
+                        # truncate to top_k in case the response was longer
+                        current_target_token_ids.append(
+                            pos_token_ids[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                        )
+
+                        if self.kd_normalize_topk:
+                            normalized_logprobs_for_position = self._normalize_logprobs(
+                                pos_logprobs_raw[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                            )
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                normalized_logprobs_for_position
+                            )
+                        else:
+                            current_target_logprobs.append(
+                                pos_logprobs_raw[: self.kd_online_topk]
+                            )
+
+                        # Mask depends on the corresponding label for the student
+                        if label == self.DEFAULT_LABEL_PAD_TOKEN_ID:
+                            current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                        else:
+                            current_target_mask.append([1] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                    else:
+                        # Pad if no logprobs for this position (either due to length mismatch or None entry)
+                        current_target_logprobs.append(
+                            [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                        )
+                        current_target_token_ids.append(
+                            list(range(self.kd_online_topk))
+                        )
+                        current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+                for i in range(max(0, seq_len - len(current_target_logprobs))):
+                    current_target_logprobs.append(
+                        [-float("inf")] * self.kd_online_topk
+                    )
+                    current_target_token_ids.append(list(range(self.kd_online_topk)))
+                    current_target_mask.append([0] * self.kd_online_topk)
+
+                ret_data_target_token_ids.append(current_target_token_ids)
+                ret_data_target_logprobs.append(current_target_logprobs)
+                ret_data_target_mask.append(current_target_mask)
+
+                # TODO save and load targets to disk for caching for next epoch
+                # generate a hmac SHA256 hash over the list seq_input_ids and convert it to an int
+                # if self.kd_cache_dir:
+                #     hash_input_ids = hmac_sha_from_int_list(
+                #         seq_input_ids, f"{self.kd_online_server_base_url}:{self.kd_online_topk}"
+                #     )
+                #     with open(f"{self.kd_cache_dir}/{hash_input_ids}.parquet", "wb") as f:
+                #         pd.DataFrame(ret_logprobs_data).to_parquet(f, index=False)
+
+        except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
+            LOG.error(f"Error fetching logprobs from online teacher: {e}")
+            raise e
+            # ret_logprobs_data will be returned with empty lists, handled by the caller.
+        except Exception as e:  # Catch other potential errors during processing
+            LOG.error(
+                f"Unexpected error processing API response in fetch_online_logprobs: {e}",
+                exc_info=True,
+            )
+            raise e
+
+        return {
+            "target_token_ids": ret_data_target_token_ids,
+            "target_logprobs": ret_data_target_logprobs,
+            "target_mask": ret_data_target_mask,
+        }
+
+    def __call__(
+        self, features: List[List[Dict[str, Any]]], return_tensors: Optional[str] = None
+    ) -> Dict[str, Any]:
+        if not features:
+            return super().__call__(features, return_tensors=return_tensors)
+
+        for (
+            sub_batch_features
+        ) in features:  # sub_batch_features is List[Dict[str, Any]]
+            if not sub_batch_features:
+                continue
+
+            input_ids_for_api_call: List[List[int]] = []
+            labels_for_api_call: List[List[int]] = []
+            # Store references to the original item dictionaries to update them in-place
+            items_for_api_call: List[Dict[str, Any]] = []
+
+            for item_dict in sub_batch_features:
+                if not isinstance(item_dict, dict):
+                    LOG.warning(
+                        f"Skipping non-dict item in sub_batch_features: {item_dict}"
+                    )
+                    continue
+
+                current_input_ids = item_dict.get("input_ids")
+                current_labels = item_dict.get("labels")
+
+                if current_input_ids is not None and current_labels is not None:
+                    # Ensure input_ids and labels are lists of ints for JSON serialization
+                    input_ids_list = (
+                        current_input_ids.tolist()
+                        if hasattr(current_input_ids, "tolist")
+                        else list(current_input_ids)
+                    )
+                    labels_list = (
+                        current_labels.tolist()
+                        if hasattr(current_labels, "tolist")
+                        else list(current_labels)
+                    )
+
+                    input_ids_for_api_call.append(input_ids_list)
+                    labels_for_api_call.append(labels_list)
+                    items_for_api_call.append(item_dict)
+                else:
+                    # This item will not get teacher logprobs from the API.
+                    # Initialize KD fields to empty lists so downstream collators handle them uniformly.
+                    item_dict.setdefault("target_token_ids", [])
+                    item_dict.setdefault("target_logprobs", [])
+                    item_dict.setdefault("target_mask", [])
+
+            # print(items_for_api_call)
+            if items_for_api_call:  # Only call API if there's something to process
+                if self.kd_online_server == "sglang":
+                    api_responses_for_sub_batch = self.fetch_online_logprobs_sglang(
+                        input_ids_for_api_call, labels_for_api_call
+                    )
+                else:
+                    api_responses_for_sub_batch = self.fetch_online_logprobs_vllm(
+                        input_ids_for_api_call, labels_for_api_call
+                    )
+
+                # api_responses_for_sub_batch has keys: "target_token_ids", "target_logprobs", "target_mask"
+                # Each value is a list, corresponding to items_for_api_call
+                for i, item_to_update in enumerate(items_for_api_call):
+                    # TODO make sure to figure out which input in sub_batch_features to update the batch in the original `features` object so the super class can handle it properly.
+                    if api_responses_for_sub_batch and i < len(
+                        api_responses_for_sub_batch["target_token_ids"]
+                    ):  # Check bounds
+                        assert len(
+                            api_responses_for_sub_batch["target_token_ids"][i]
+                        ) == len(item_to_update["input_ids"])
+                        assert len(
+                            api_responses_for_sub_batch["target_logprobs"][i]
+                        ) == len(item_to_update["input_ids"])
+                        assert len(
+                            api_responses_for_sub_batch["target_mask"][i]
+                        ) == len(item_to_update["labels"])
+                        item_to_update["target_token_ids"] = (
+                            api_responses_for_sub_batch["target_token_ids"][i]
+                        )
+                        item_to_update["target_logprobs"] = api_responses_for_sub_batch[
+                            "target_logprobs"
+                        ][i]
+                        item_to_update["target_mask"] = api_responses_for_sub_batch[
+                            "target_mask"
+                        ][i]
+                    else:
+                        # API call failed for this item, or response was shorter than expected.
+                        # Ensure KD fields are initialized as empty lists.
+                        LOG.warning(
+                            f" (index {i}), or API response was too short. "
+                            f"API response keys: {list(api_responses_for_sub_batch.keys()) if api_responses_for_sub_batch else 'None'}"
+                        )
+                        item_to_update.setdefault("target_token_ids", [])
+                        item_to_update.setdefault("target_logprobs", [])
+                        item_to_update.setdefault("target_mask", [])
+
+        return super().__call__(features, return_tensors=return_tensors)

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

@@ -0,0 +1,485 @@
+"""
+Liger Kernels for Chunked Top-K Log-Prob Distillation
+"""
+
+import torch
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+from liger_kernel.chunked_loss.fused_linear_distillation import (
+    LigerFusedLinearDistillationBase,
+)
+
+from axolotl.integrations.kd.utils import normalize_logprobs
+
+
+class LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobFunction(LigerFusedLinearDistillationBase):
+    """
+    Chunked kl-div loss for top-k logprobs
+    """
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def distillation_loss_fn(
+        student_logits_temp_scaled: torch.Tensor,  # [chunk_size, vocab_size], already temp-scaled
+        target_token_ids_chunk: torch.Tensor,  # [chunk_size, top_k]
+        target_logprobs_chunk: torch.Tensor,  # [chunk_size, top_k], already temp-scaled and normalized logprobs
+        target_mask_chunk: torch.Tensor,  # [chunk_size, top_k]
+        beta: float = 0.0,
+        normalize_topk: bool = True,
+    ) -> torch.Tensor:
+        """
+        Compute Top-K KL divergence loss for a chunk.
+        Args:
+            student_logits_temp_scaled: Student logits, scaled by temperature. Shape: (N, V).
+            target_token_ids_chunk: Top-k teacher token IDs. Shape: (N, K).
+            target_logprobs_chunk: Top-k teacher log probabilities (temp-scaled, normalized). Shape: (N, K).
+            target_mask_chunk: Mask for valid top-k tokens. Shape: (N, K).
+            beta: Controls the type of KL divergence.
+                  0.0 for Forward KL (P_teacher || P_student).
+                  1.0 for Reverse KL (P_student || P_teacher).
+                  0.5 for Symmetric KL (average of Forward and Reverse).
+            normalize_topk: Whether to normalize the log probabilities
+        Returns:
+            Sum of KL divergence losses for the chunk.
+        """
+        topk = target_token_ids_chunk.shape[-1]
+        student_logits_temp_scaled = (  # [chunk_size, vocab_size]
+            student_logits_temp_scaled.float()
+        )
+        target_logprobs_chunk = target_logprobs_chunk.float()
+
+        # Gather student logits for the top-k teacher token IDs
+        # target_token_ids_chunk: [chunk_size, top_k]
+        # student_logits_topk_temp_scaled: [chunk_size, top_k]
+        student_logits_topk_temp_scaled = torch.gather(
+            student_logits_temp_scaled, dim=-1, index=target_token_ids_chunk
+        )
+
+        # Student log-probabilities for the gathered top-k tokens
+        student_lse = torch.logsumexp(
+            student_logits_temp_scaled, dim=-1, keepdim=True
+        )  # [chunk_size, 1]
+        student_logprobs_topk_temp_scaled = (
+            student_logits_topk_temp_scaled - student_lse
+        )
+
+        # we have the top-k student logprobs, normalize them
+        if normalize_topk:
+            student_logprobs_topk_temp_scaled = normalize_logprobs(
+                student_logprobs_topk_temp_scaled, topk
+            )
+
+        valid_mask = target_mask_chunk.to(torch.bool)  # [chunk_size, top_k]
+
+        student_logprobs_topk_valid = student_logprobs_topk_temp_scaled[valid_mask]
+        teacher_logprobs_valid = target_logprobs_chunk[valid_mask]
+
+        # Teacher probabilities P(y|x_teacher) from logprobs
+        # target_logprobs_valid are already normalized (log(softmax(teacher_logits/T)))
+        teacher_probs_valid = teacher_logprobs_valid.exp()
+        # Student probabilities P_student from log P_student
+        student_probs_topk_valid = student_logprobs_topk_valid.exp()
+
+        # kd_loss_per_token = torch.zeros_like(target_logprobs_valid)
+
+        # KL divergence: sum(P_teacher * (log P_teacher - log P_student))
+        # = sum(P_teacher * log P_teacher) - sum(P_teacher * log P_student)
+        # The distillation loss is often formulated as -sum(P_teacher * log P_student)
+        # or as sum(P_teacher * (log_softmax_teacher - log_softmax_student))
+        # Here, target_logprobs_valid are log_softmax_teacher.
+        # student_logprobs_topk_valid are log_softmax_student (for the selected K indices).
+        if beta == 0.0:  # Contribution from Forward KL
+            fwd_kl_per_token = teacher_probs_valid * (
+                teacher_logprobs_valid - student_logprobs_topk_valid
+            )
+            kd_loss = fwd_kl_per_token.sum()
+        elif beta == 1.0:  # Contribution from Reverse KL
+            rev_kl_per_token = student_probs_topk_valid * (
+                student_logprobs_topk_valid - teacher_logprobs_valid
+            )
+            kd_loss = rev_kl_per_token.sum()
+        else:
+            # JSD - Jensen-Shannon Divergence / Symmetric
+            mean_probs = (
+                1 - beta
+            ) * student_probs_topk_valid + beta * teacher_probs_valid
+            log_mean_probs = mean_probs.log()
+            student_kl = F.kl_div(
+                log_mean_probs,
+                student_logprobs_topk_valid,
+                reduction="sum",
+                log_target=True,
+            )
+            teacher_kl = F.kl_div(
+                log_mean_probs, teacher_logprobs_valid, reduction="sum", log_target=True
+            )
+            jsd_loss = beta * teacher_kl + (1 - beta) * student_kl
+            kd_loss = jsd_loss
+
+        return kd_loss
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def _compute_loss_kl_topk(
+        student_input_chunk: torch.Tensor,
+        student_weight: torch.Tensor,
+        # Args for student_bias, target_token_ids_chunk etc. are passed to the lambda wrapped by grad_and_value
+        # or through `partial`. Let's make them explicit here for clarity.
+        target_token_ids_chunk: torch.Tensor,
+        target_logprobs_chunk: torch.Tensor,
+        target_mask_chunk: torch.Tensor,
+        target_chunk: torch.Tensor,  # For hard loss (true labels)
+        student_bias: torch.Tensor = None,  # This will be one of the grad targets
+        # Other params passed via `partial` from `forward`
+        distillation_loss_fn=None,
+        ignore_index: int = -100,
+        weight_hard_loss: float = 0.5,
+        weight_soft_loss: float = 0.5,
+        compute_ce_loss: bool = True,
+        temperature: float = 1.0,
+        beta: float = 0.0,
+        normalize_topk: bool = True,
+    ):
+        # Compute student logits for the chunk from hidden states and LM head
+        # student_input_chunk: [chunk_size, hidden_dim]
+        # student_lm_head_weight: [vocab_size, hidden_dim]
+        # student_logits_chunk: [chunk_size, vocab_size]
+        student_logits_chunk = F.linear(
+            student_input_chunk, student_weight, student_bias
+        )
+
+        ce_loss = torch.tensor(
+            0.0, device=student_logits_chunk.device, dtype=student_logits_chunk.dtype
+        )
+        if compute_ce_loss and weight_hard_loss > 0.0:
+            ce_loss = F.cross_entropy(
+                student_logits_chunk.view(-1, student_logits_chunk.shape[-1]),
+                target_chunk.view(-1),
+                reduction="sum",
+                ignore_index=ignore_index,
+            )
+
+        soft_loss = torch.tensor(
+            0.0, device=student_logits_chunk.device, dtype=student_logits_chunk.dtype
+        )
+        if weight_soft_loss > 0.0:
+            student_logits_chunk_temp_scaled = student_logits_chunk / temperature
+
+            # Assuming student_weight.shape[0] (vocab_size) is adequate for target_token_ids_chunk.max()
+            # No explicit padding here; user must ensure vocab alignment or pre-pad student_weight.
+
+            soft_loss = distillation_loss_fn(
+                student_logits_chunk_temp_scaled,
+                target_token_ids_chunk,
+                target_logprobs_chunk,
+                target_mask_chunk,
+                beta=beta,
+                normalize_topk=normalize_topk,
+            )
+
+        return soft_loss, ce_loss
+
+    @classmethod
+    def forward(
+        cls,
+        ctx,
+        student_input: torch.Tensor,  # [batch_size, seq_len, dim]
+        student_lm_head_weight: torch.Tensor,  # [dim, vocab_size]
+        target_token_ids: torch.Tensor,  # [batch_size, seq_len, top_k]
+        target_logprobs: torch.Tensor,  # [batch_size, seq_len, top_k]
+        target_mask: torch.Tensor,  # [batch_size, seq_len, top_k]
+        true_labels: torch.Tensor,  # [batch_size, seq_len]
+        student_lm_head_bias: torch.Tensor = None,
+        weight_hard_loss: float = 0.5,
+        weight_soft_loss: float = 0.5,
+        ignore_index: int = -100,
+        temperature: float = 1.0,
+        beta: float = 0.0,
+        compiled: bool = False,
+        chunk_size: int = 1024,
+        compute_ce_loss: bool = True,
+        normalize_topk: bool = True,
+    ):
+        CHUNK_SIZE = chunk_size  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+        grad_weight_acc = torch.zeros_like(student_lm_head_weight)
+        grad_inputs_list = []
+        grad_bias_acc = (
+            torch.zeros_like(student_lm_head_bias)
+            if student_lm_head_bias is not None
+            else None
+        )
+        kd_loss_acc = torch.zeros(
+            (), device=student_input.device, dtype=student_input.dtype
+        )
+        ce_loss_acc = torch.zeros(
+            (), device=student_input.device, dtype=student_input.dtype
+        )
+
+        # This function will be what torch.func.grad_and_value differentiates.
+        # It takes student_input_chunk, student_weight (full), student_bias (full) as primals.
+        # Other necessary data (target_*, etc.) are passed as non-differentiable arguments.
+        def loss_fn_for_grad(
+            _student_input_chunk,
+            _student_lm_head_weight,  # full weight
+            _student_lm_head_bias,  # full bias
+            # Fixed arguments for a given chunk, not differentiated:
+            _target_token_ids_chunk,
+            _target_logprobs_chunk,
+            _target_mask_chunk,
+            _true_labels_chunk,
+        ):
+            return cls._compute_loss_kl_topk(
+                student_input_chunk=_student_input_chunk,
+                student_weight=_student_lm_head_weight,
+                target_token_ids_chunk=_target_token_ids_chunk,
+                target_logprobs_chunk=_target_logprobs_chunk,
+                target_mask_chunk=_target_mask_chunk,
+                target_chunk=_true_labels_chunk,
+                student_bias=_student_lm_head_bias,
+                distillation_loss_fn=cls.distillation_loss_fn,
+                ignore_index=ignore_index,
+                weight_hard_loss=weight_hard_loss,
+                weight_soft_loss=weight_soft_loss,
+                compute_ce_loss=compute_ce_loss,
+                temperature=temperature,
+                beta=beta,
+                normalize_topk=normalize_topk,
+            )
+
+        def accumulate_chunk_grads(
+            student_input_chunk_ac,
+            target_token_ids_chunk_ac,
+            target_logprobs_chunk_ac,
+            target_mask_chunk_ac,
+            true_labels_chunk_ac,
+        ):
+            # student_weight and student_bias are closed over from the outer scope (full tensors)
+            if student_lm_head_bias is not None:
+                (
+                    (chunk_grad_input, chunk_grad_weight, chunk_grad_bias),
+                    (chunk_kd_loss, chunk_ce_loss),
+                ) = torch.func.grad_and_value(
+                    loss_fn_for_grad, argnums=(0, 1, 2), has_aux=True
+                )(
+                    student_input_chunk_ac,
+                    student_lm_head_weight,
+                    student_lm_head_bias,  # primals
+                    target_token_ids_chunk_ac,
+                    target_logprobs_chunk_ac,
+                    target_mask_chunk_ac,
+                    true_labels_chunk_ac,
+                )  # non-primals
+                grad_bias_acc.add_(chunk_grad_bias)
+            else:
+                argnums_for_grad = (0, 1)  # Differentiate wrt input_chunk, weight
+                (
+                    (chunk_grad_input, chunk_grad_weight),  # No grad for bias
+                    (chunk_kd_loss, chunk_ce_loss),
+                ) = torch.func.grad_and_value(
+                    loss_fn_for_grad, argnums=argnums_for_grad, has_aux=True
+                )(
+                    student_input_chunk_ac,
+                    student_lm_head_weight,
+                    None,  # Pass None for student_bias primal
+                    target_token_ids_chunk_ac,
+                    target_logprobs_chunk_ac,
+                    target_mask_chunk_ac,
+                    true_labels_chunk_ac,
+                )
+
+            grad_weight_acc.add_(chunk_grad_weight)
+            kd_loss_acc.add_(chunk_kd_loss)
+            ce_loss_acc.add_(chunk_ce_loss)
+
+            return chunk_grad_input
+
+        if compiled:
+            accumulate_chunk_grads_compiled = torch.compile(
+                accumulate_chunk_grads, dynamic=True, backend="inductor"
+            )  # dynamic=True often helpful
+        else:
+            accumulate_chunk_grads_compiled = accumulate_chunk_grads
+
+        # Use the same chunking logic as LigerFusedLinearDistillationBase.forward
+        B, N, D = student_input.shape  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+        K = target_token_ids.shape[-1]  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
+
+        student_input_flat = student_input.reshape(-1, student_input.shape[-1])
+        target_token_ids_flat = target_token_ids.reshape(-1, target_token_ids.shape[-1])
+        target_logprobs_flat = target_logprobs.reshape(-1, target_logprobs.shape[-1])
+        target_mask_flat = target_mask.reshape(-1, target_mask.shape[-1])
+        # pad and shift for cross entropy loss
+        true_labels = torch.nn.functional.pad(true_labels, (0, 1), value=ignore_index)
+        true_labels_flat = true_labels[:, 1:].contiguous().view(-1)
+
+        num_chunks = max(1, student_input_flat.shape[0] // CHUNK_SIZE)
+
+        _student_input_chunks = torch.chunk(
+            student_input_flat, chunks=num_chunks, dim=0
+        )
+        _target_token_ids_chunks = torch.chunk(
+            target_token_ids_flat, chunks=num_chunks, dim=0
+        )
+        _target_logprobs_chunks = torch.chunk(
+            target_logprobs_flat, chunks=num_chunks, dim=0
+        )
+        _target_mask_chunks = torch.chunk(target_mask_flat, chunks=num_chunks, dim=0)
+        _true_labels_chunks = torch.chunk(true_labels_flat, chunks=num_chunks, dim=0)
+
+        for i in range(num_chunks):
+            grad_input_chunk = accumulate_chunk_grads_compiled(
+                _student_input_chunks[i],
+                _target_token_ids_chunks[i],
+                _target_logprobs_chunks[i],
+                _target_mask_chunks[i],
+                _true_labels_chunks[i],
+            )
+            grad_inputs_list.append(grad_input_chunk)
+
+        grad_inputs_combined = torch.cat(grad_inputs_list, dim=0)
+        ctx.save_for_backward(grad_inputs_combined, grad_weight_acc, grad_bias_acc)
+
+        # For matching None returns in backward for non-tensor/non-grad_requiring inputs
+        ctx.hyperparams_count = 9  # Corresponds to number of hyperparams after main tensors in fwd signature
+        ctx.bias_was_none = student_lm_head_bias is None
+        ctx.orig_dims = (B, N, D, K)
+
+        # since this is packed, there is simply a single batch, so batchmean reduction of kl-div is simply the accumulated sum
+        # we still need to scale the kd_loss by the temp^2
+        kd_loss_acc = kd_loss_acc * (temperature**2)
+        final_loss = weight_soft_loss * kd_loss_acc + weight_hard_loss * ce_loss_acc
+
+        return final_loss
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def backward(ctx, grad_output):
+        grad_input_flat, grad_weight, grad_bias_maybe = (
+            ctx.saved_tensors
+        )  # grad_input_flat is (B*N, D)
+
+        # Scale gradients by grad_output if it's not 1.0
+        if not torch.equal(
+            grad_output,
+            torch.tensor(1.0, device=grad_output.device, dtype=grad_output.dtype),
+        ):
+            grad_input_flat = grad_input_flat * grad_output
+            grad_weight = grad_weight * grad_output
+            if grad_bias_maybe is not None:
+                grad_bias_maybe = grad_bias_maybe * grad_output
+
+        # Reshape grad_input_flat to match original student_input shape (B, N, D)
+        # ctx.orig_dims stores (B, N, D, K)
+        # We need the first three dimensions for student_input's shape.
+        # Ensure that orig_dims are not (0,0,0,K) for empty inputs leading to view errors
+        if (
+            ctx.orig_dims[0] * ctx.orig_dims[1] * ctx.orig_dims[2] == 0
+            and grad_input_flat.numel() == 0
+        ):
+            # If original input was empty, gradient should also be empty with correct shape
+            grad_input_reshaped = torch.zeros(
+                ctx.orig_dims[0],
+                ctx.orig_dims[1],
+                ctx.orig_dims[2],
+                dtype=grad_input_flat.dtype,
+                device=grad_input_flat.device,
+            )
+        elif grad_input_flat.numel() == 0 and not (
+            ctx.orig_dims[0] * ctx.orig_dims[1] * ctx.orig_dims[2] == 0
+        ):
+            # This case should ideally not happen if forward path is correct (non-empty input -> non-empty flat grad)
+            # but as a safeguard:
+            grad_input_reshaped = torch.zeros(
+                ctx.orig_dims[0],
+                ctx.orig_dims[1],
+                ctx.orig_dims[2],
+                dtype=grad_input_flat.dtype,
+                device=grad_input_flat.device,
+            )
+        else:
+            grad_input_reshaped = grad_input_flat.view(
+                ctx.orig_dims[0], ctx.orig_dims[1], ctx.orig_dims[2]
+            )
+
+        nones_for_hyperparams = [None] * ctx.hyperparams_count
+        grad_bias_return = grad_bias_maybe if not ctx.bias_was_none else None
+
+        return (
+            grad_input_reshaped,  # Gradient for student_input (reshaped)
+            grad_weight,  # Gradient for student_lm_head_weight
+            None,  # Gradient for target_token_ids
+            None,  # Gradient for target_logprobs
+            None,  # Gradient for target_mask
+            None,  # Gradient for true_labels
+            grad_bias_return,  # Gradient for student_lm_head_bias
+            *nones_for_hyperparams,  # Grads for weight_hard_loss, ..., compute_ce_loss
+        )
+
+
+class LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobLoss(torch.nn.Module):
+    """
+    wrapper for chunked top-k logprob kl-d
+    """
+
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        weight_hard_loss: float = 0.5,
+        weight_soft_loss: float = 0.5,
+        temperature: float = 1.0,  # This is the kd_temperature
+        beta: float = 1.0,
+        ignore_index: int = -100,
+        compiled: bool = True,
+        chunk_size: int = 1024,
+        compute_ce_loss: bool = True,
+        normalize_topk: bool = True,
+    ):
+        super().__init__()
+        if not (0.0 <= weight_hard_loss <= 1.0 and 0.0 <= weight_soft_loss <= 1.0):
+            raise ValueError("Loss weights must be between 0.0 and 1.0.")
+        if temperature <= 0:
+            raise ValueError("Temperature must be positive.")
+
+        self.weight_hard_loss = weight_hard_loss
+        self.weight_soft_loss = weight_soft_loss
+        self.temperature = temperature
+        self.beta = beta
+        self.ignore_index = ignore_index
+        self.compiled = compiled
+        self.chunk_size = chunk_size
+        self.compute_ce_loss = compute_ce_loss
+        self.normalize_topk = normalize_topk
+
+        if not self.compute_ce_loss and self.weight_hard_loss > 0.0:
+            print(
+                f"Warning: compute_ce_loss is False, but weight_hard_loss ({self.weight_hard_loss}) > 0. Hard loss will effectively be zero."
+            )
+            # self.weight_hard_loss = 0.0 # Or let user manage this
+        if self.weight_soft_loss == 0.0:
+            print(
+                "Warning: weight_soft_loss is 0.0. Soft (KD) loss will not be computed."
+            )
+
+    def forward(
+        self,
+        lm_head_weight: torch.Tensor,  # Weights of the linear layer in the LM head
+        student_hidden_states: torch.Tensor,  # student_hidden_states before the lm_head
+        target_token_ids: torch.Tensor,
+        target_logprobs: torch.Tensor,
+        target_mask: torch.Tensor,
+        true_labels: torch.Tensor,
+        student_bias: torch.Tensor = None,
+    ) -> torch.Tensor:
+        return LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobFunction.apply(
+            student_hidden_states,
+            lm_head_weight,
+            target_token_ids,
+            target_logprobs,
+            target_mask,
+            true_labels,
+            student_bias,
+            self.weight_hard_loss,
+            self.weight_soft_loss,
+            self.ignore_index,
+            self.temperature,
+            self.beta,
+            self.compiled,
+            self.chunk_size,
+            self.compute_ce_loss,
+            self.normalize_topk,
+        )

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

@@ -0,0 +1,97 @@
+"""
+model patcher for chunked top-k kl-div
+"""
+
+from typing import Optional, Union, Unpack
+
+import torch
+from transformers import Cache
+from transformers.modeling_flash_attention_utils import FlashAttentionKwargs
+from transformers.modeling_outputs import CausalLMOutputWithPast
+from transformers.utils import LossKwargs
+
+
+class KwargsForCausalLM(FlashAttentionKwargs, LossKwargs):
+    """
+    placeholder kwargs for hf model classes
+    """
+
+
+def kldiv_forward_llama_like(
+    self,
+    input_ids: Optional[torch.LongTensor] = None,
+    target_logprobs: Optional[torch.Tensor] = None,
+    target_token_ids: Optional[torch.LongTensor] = None,
+    target_mask: Optional[torch.Tensor] = None,
+    attention_mask: Optional[torch.Tensor] = None,
+    position_ids: Optional[torch.LongTensor] = None,
+    past_key_values: Optional[Cache] = None,
+    inputs_embeds: Optional[torch.FloatTensor] = None,
+    labels: Optional[torch.LongTensor] = None,
+    use_cache: Optional[bool] = None,
+    output_attentions: Optional[bool] = None,
+    output_hidden_states: Optional[bool] = None,
+    cache_position: Optional[torch.LongTensor] = None,
+    logits_to_keep: Union[int, torch.Tensor] = 0,  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
+    **kwargs: Unpack[KwargsForCausalLM],  # type: ignore[misc]
+) -> CausalLMOutputWithPast:
+    # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
+    output_attentions = (
+        output_attentions
+        if output_attentions is not None
+        else self.config.output_attentions
+    )
+    output_hidden_states = (
+        output_hidden_states
+        if output_hidden_states is not None
+        else self.config.output_hidden_states
+    )
+
+    # decoder outputs consists of (dec_features, layer_state, dec_hidden, dec_attn)
+    outputs = self.model(
+        input_ids=input_ids,
+        attention_mask=attention_mask,
+        position_ids=position_ids,
+        past_key_values=past_key_values,
+        inputs_embeds=inputs_embeds,
+        use_cache=use_cache,
+        output_attentions=output_attentions,
+        output_hidden_states=output_hidden_states,
+        cache_position=cache_position,
+        **kwargs,
+    )
+
+    hidden_states = outputs.last_hidden_state
+
+    # Only compute necessary logits, and do not upcast them to float if we are not computing the loss
+    # TODO, we can optimize this further by filtering hidden_states on sequence dimension using labels != -100
+    # self.loss_function should be LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobLoss
+
+    loss = self.loss_function(
+        self.lm_head.weight,
+        hidden_states,
+        target_token_ids,
+        target_logprobs,
+        target_mask,
+        true_labels=labels,
+    )
+    num_items_in_batch = kwargs.pop("num_items_in_batch", -1)
+    if num_items_in_batch is not None and num_items_in_batch > 0:
+        loss = loss / num_items_in_batch
+
+    return CausalLMOutputWithPast(
+        loss=loss,
+        logits=None,
+        past_key_values=outputs.past_key_values,
+        hidden_states=outputs.hidden_states,
+        attentions=outputs.attentions,
+    )
+
+
+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("_")])
+    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/kd/topk_logprob/forward_kl.py

@@ -16,40 +16,7 @@
 loss for top_k KL divergence
 """
 import torch
-
-
-def zscore_standardize(
-    logits: torch.Tensor,
-    mask: torch.Tensor = None,
-    base_temperature: float = 1.0,
-    eps: float = 1e-9,
-):
-    """
-    Z-score standardize along the last dimension of `logits`.
-    i.e., for each [B, seq_len] row, across K entries:
-        z = (logits - mean) / std,
-    then scale by 1 / base_temperature if desired.
-
-    mask can be broadcastable or None. If None, we standardize all elements.
-    """
-    if mask is None:
-        # shape: [B, seq_len, K]
-        # Mean and std over dim=-1
-        mean = logits.mean(dim=-1, keepdim=True)
-        var = logits.var(dim=-1, unbiased=False, keepdim=True)
-    else:
-        # If you have to exclude some tokens, multiply by mask, etc.
-        float_mask = mask.to(logits.dtype)
-        count = float_mask.sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True).clamp_min(1.0)
-        mean = (logits * float_mask).sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True) / count
-        var = (float_mask * (logits - mean) ** 2).sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True) / count
-
-    std = torch.sqrt(var.clamp_min(eps))
-    z = (logits - mean) / std
-
-    # Scale by 1 / base_temperature
-    z = z / base_temperature
-    return z
+from torch import nn
 
 
 @torch.jit.script
@@ -60,7 +27,6 @@ def loss(
     target_mask: torch.Tensor,
     num_items_in_batch: int = -1,  # Use -1 to indicate "None"
     kd_temperature: float = 1.0,
-    top_k_before_softmax: int = 0,
 ) -> torch.Tensor:
     """
     A KD loss function that is TorchScript-friendly.
@@ -77,8 +43,6 @@ def loss(
         num_items_in_batch (int, optional): The number of items in the batch.
         kd_temperature (float, optional): The temperature for KD.
             Default: 1.0
-        top_k_before_softmax (int, optional): Flag of whether to apply softmax before gathering student top-k logits
-            Default: 0
     """
 
     target_logprobs = target_logprobs.float()
@@ -88,46 +52,24 @@ def loss(
     # student_logits shape:   [B, student_seq_len, vocab_size]
     teacher_seq_len = target_token_ids.shape[1]
 
-    if top_k_before_softmax:
-        # Slice student logits to match teacher-provided sequence length
-        student_logits_for_kd = student_logits[
-            :, :teacher_seq_len, :
-        ]  # [B, teacher_seq_len, vocab_size]
+    # Slice student logits to match teacher-provided sequence length
+    student_logits_for_kd = (
+        student_logits[:, :teacher_seq_len, :] / kd_temperature
+    )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, vocab_size]
 
-        # Gather student logits for teacher's top-K tokens
-        student_logits_topk = torch.gather(
-            student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, index=target_token_ids
-        )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, K]
+    # keep in full precision for numerical stability of loss
+    student_logits_for_kd = student_logits_for_kd.float()
 
-        student_logits_topk = student_logits_topk.float()
+    # Gather student logits for teacher's top-K tokens
+    student_logits_topk = torch.gather(
+        student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, index=target_token_ids
+    )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, K]
 
-        # Apply KD temperature to student’s logits
-        if kd_temperature != 1.0:
-            student_logits_topk = student_logits_topk / kd_temperature
+    # Compute logsumexp across full vocabulary
+    student_lse = torch.logsumexp(student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
 
-        # Convert student top-k logits to logprobs
-        student_logprobs_topk = student_logits_topk - torch.logsumexp(
-            student_logits_topk, dim=-1, keepdim=True
-        )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, K]
-    else:
-        # Slice student logits to match teacher-provided sequence length
-        student_logits_for_kd = (
-            student_logits[:, :teacher_seq_len, :] / kd_temperature
-        )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, vocab_size]
-
-        # keep in full precision for numerical stability of loss
-        student_logits_for_kd = student_logits_for_kd.float()
-
-        # Gather student logits for teacher's top-K tokens
-        student_logits_topk = torch.gather(
-            student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, index=target_token_ids
-        )  # [B, teacher_seq_len, K]
-
-        # Compute logsumexp across full vocabulary
-        student_lse = torch.logsumexp(student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
-
-        #  Convert just the top-k logits to logprobs
-        student_logprobs_topk = student_logits_topk - student_lse
+    #  Convert just the top-k logits to logprobs
+    student_logprobs_topk = student_logits_topk - student_lse
 
     # Convert teacher_mask to boolean for indexing
     # In TorchScript, .bool() is sometimes unsupported, so we do:
@@ -144,10 +86,6 @@ def loss(
     kd_loss_per_token = teacher_probs * (target_logprobs - student_logprobs_topk)
     kd_loss = kd_loss_per_token.sum()
 
-    # Multiply by T^2 (classical KD scaling)
-    if kd_temperature != 1.0:
-        kd_loss = kd_loss * (kd_temperature**2)
-
     # Normalize by number of items (if provided) or by valid tokens
     if num_items_in_batch > 0:
         kd_loss = kd_loss / float(num_items_in_batch)
@@ -158,80 +96,74 @@ def loss(
     return kd_loss
 
 
-def topk_kd_loss_with_zscore(
-    student_logits: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, vocab_size]
-    target_token_ids: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K]
-    target_logprobs: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K], sums to 1.0 in prob space
-    target_mask: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K] or [B, seq_len]
-    kd_temperature: float = 1.0,  # classic KD temperature
-    zscore_base_temp: float = 1.0,  # from the paper
-    num_items_in_batch: int = -1,
-):
+class ChunkedTopKKDLoss(nn.Module):
     """
-    A variant of top_k KL divergence with Z-score scaling
-    from "Logit Standardization in Knowledge Distillation".
+    A wrapper that chunks (splits) the student and teacher outputs along the time dimension
+    to reduce peak memory usage when upcasting from bf16 to fp32, especially for large vocabularies.
+
+    Usage is analogous to ForwardKLWithChunkedOutputLoss but adapted to top-K teacher logprobs.
     """
 
-    target_logprobs = target_logprobs.float()
+    def __init__(self, num_output_chunks: int = 8, kd_temperature: float = 1.0):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.num_output_chunks = num_output_chunks
+        self.kd_temperature = kd_temperature
 
-    B, teacher_seq_len, K = target_logprobs.shape  # pylint: disable=invalid-name
-    # 1) Gather the student's top-k logits to match teacher
-    student_logits_for_kd = student_logits[
-        :, :teacher_seq_len, :
-    ]  # [B, seq_len, vocab]
-    student_topk_logits = torch.gather(
-        student_logits_for_kd, dim=-1, index=target_token_ids
-    )  # [B, seq_len, K]
+    def forward(
+        self,
+        student_logits: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, vocab_size]
+        target_token_ids: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K]
+        target_logprobs: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K]
+        target_mask: torch.Tensor,  # [B, seq_len, K]
+        num_items_in_batch: int = -1,  # optional batch size for normalization
+    ) -> torch.Tensor:
 
-    student_topk_logits = student_topk_logits.float()
+        # 1. Split along the "token" dimension (dim=1).
+        student_logits_chunks = student_logits.chunk(self.num_output_chunks, dim=1)
+        token_ids_chunks = target_token_ids.chunk(self.num_output_chunks, dim=1)
+        logprobs_chunks = target_logprobs.chunk(self.num_output_chunks, dim=1)
+        mask_chunks = target_mask.chunk(self.num_output_chunks, dim=1)
 
-    # 2) If you want to keep the "classical" T scaling, apply it first
-    if kd_temperature != 1.0:
-        student_topk_logits = student_topk_logits / kd_temperature
+        # We'll accumulate a global "sum of losses" and "sum of valid tokens"
+        # so that our final average is consistent with the entire sequence/batch.
+        total_loss = 0.0
+        total_valid_tokens = 0
 
-    # 3) Convert teacher logprobs -> treat them as “logits” for z-score
-    #    (They differ by +some_constant from real logits, but in z-score
-    #     that constant is subtracted out anyway.)
-    teacher_logits_for_zscore = target_logprobs  # rename variable for clarity
+        # 2. Loop over each chunk and compute a chunk-specific loss.
+        for st_chunk, tid_chunk, lp_chunk, msk_chunk in zip(
+            student_logits_chunks, token_ids_chunks, logprobs_chunks, mask_chunks
+        ):
+            # We pass num_items_in_batch=-1 so that the kd_loss
+            # will average over *this chunk's* valid tokens only.
+            chunk_loss = loss(
+                student_logits=st_chunk,
+                target_token_ids=tid_chunk,
+                target_logprobs=lp_chunk,
+                target_mask=msk_chunk,
+                num_items_in_batch=-1,  # ensure per-chunk averaging by valid tokens
+                kd_temperature=self.kd_temperature,
+            )
 
-    # 4) Z-score teacher and student
-    #    If target_mask is 2D, expand to 3D for the K dimension
-    if target_mask.dim() == 2 and target_mask.shape[:2] == (B, teacher_seq_len):
-        target_mask = target_mask.unsqueeze(-1).expand(-1, -1, K)
+            # kd_loss returns an average over the chunk's valid tokens.
+            # We want a global average in the end, so we need to re‐weight
+            # by the number of valid tokens in this chunk and keep track of the total.
+            chunk_valid_mask = msk_chunk.to(torch.bool)
+            chunk_valid_count = chunk_valid_mask.sum()  # scalar tensor
 
-    teacher_z = zscore_standardize(
-        teacher_logits_for_zscore, mask=target_mask, base_temperature=zscore_base_temp
-    )
-    student_z = zscore_standardize(
-        student_topk_logits, mask=target_mask, base_temperature=zscore_base_temp
-    )
+            # Re-scale "chunk average" back to "chunk sum"
+            chunk_loss_sum = chunk_loss * chunk_valid_count
 
-    # 5) Convert to log-probs for KL
-    teacher_logprobs_z = teacher_z - torch.logsumexp(teacher_z, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
-    student_logprobs_z = student_z - torch.logsumexp(student_z, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
+            total_loss += chunk_loss_sum
+            total_valid_tokens += chunk_valid_count
 
-    # 6) Restrict to valid tokens if needed
-    valid_mask = target_mask.bool()  # shape [B, seq_len, K]
-    teacher_probs_z = teacher_logprobs_z.exp()
-    teacher_probs_z = teacher_probs_z[valid_mask]
-    teacher_logprobs_z = teacher_logprobs_z[valid_mask]
-    student_logprobs_z = student_logprobs_z[valid_mask]
+        # 3. Normalize *once* at the end.
+        if num_items_in_batch > 0:
+            # If the user gave us a manual denominator (e.g. total items in batch),
+            # we divide by it. Typically used if each item is of different length.
+            final_loss = total_loss / float(num_items_in_batch)
+        else:
+            # Otherwise, divide by total valid tokens across all chunks.
+            # to get the same result as a non-chunked approach.
+            final_loss = total_loss / float(total_valid_tokens)
 
-    # 7) forward KL:  sum( p_teacher * [log(p_teacher) - log(p_student)] )
-    kd_loss_per_token = teacher_probs_z * (teacher_logprobs_z - student_logprobs_z)
-    kd_loss = kd_loss_per_token.sum()
-
-    # 8) If using classical KD scaling by T^2
-    if kd_temperature != 1.0:
-        kd_loss = kd_loss * (kd_temperature**2)
-
-    # Optionally scale by zscore_base_temp**2 if you want (paper might differ).
-    # kd_loss = kd_loss * (zscore_base_temp**2)
-
-    # 9) Normalize
-    if num_items_in_batch is not None and num_items_in_batch > 0:
-        kd_loss = kd_loss / float(num_items_in_batch)
-    else:
-        kd_loss = kd_loss / float(kd_loss_per_token.size(0))
-
-    return kd_loss
+        return final_loss

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/trainer.py

@@ -18,8 +18,7 @@ KD trainer
 
 from axolotl.core.trainers.base import AxolotlTrainer
 
-from .topk_logprob.forward_kl import loss as topk_kd_loss
-from .topk_logprob.forward_kl import topk_kd_loss_with_zscore
+from .kernels.liger import LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobLoss
 
 
 class AxolotlKDTrainer(AxolotlTrainer):
@@ -27,6 +26,18 @@ class AxolotlKDTrainer(AxolotlTrainer):
     Custom trainer subclass for Knowledge Distillation (KD)
     """
 
+    def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
+        self.model_accepts_loss_kwargs = True
+        self.model._loss_function = LigerFusedLinearKLTopKLogprobLoss(
+            self.args.kd_ce_alpha,  # hard label loss
+            self.args.kd_alpha,  # kd loss
+            self.args.kd_temperature,
+            self.args.kd_beta,
+            compute_ce_loss=bool(self.args.kd_ce_alpha),
+            normalize_topk=self.args.kd_normalize_topk,
+        )
+
     def _set_signature_columns_if_needed(self):
         super()._set_signature_columns_if_needed()
         columns_to_add = []
@@ -52,12 +63,12 @@ class AxolotlKDTrainer(AxolotlTrainer):
 
         Subclass and override for custom behavior.
         """
-
-        target_logprobs = inputs.pop("target_logprobs")
-        target_token_ids = inputs.pop("target_token_ids")
-        target_mask = inputs.pop("target_mask")
-
-        seq_len = target_token_ids.shape[1]
+        if (
+            self.args.sample_packing
+            and hasattr(inputs, "attention_mask")
+            and hasattr(inputs, "position_ids")
+        ):
+            del inputs["attention_mask"]
 
         if self.model_accepts_loss_kwargs:
             loss_kwargs = {}
@@ -65,49 +76,4 @@ class AxolotlKDTrainer(AxolotlTrainer):
                 loss_kwargs["num_items_in_batch"] = num_items_in_batch
             inputs = {**inputs, **loss_kwargs}
         outputs = model(**inputs)
-
-        # FIXME: account for tokenizer.padding_side
-        student_logits = outputs["logits"][:, : seq_len - 1, :].contiguous()
-
-        shift_logits = student_logits.contiguous()
-        target_logprobs_for_loss = target_logprobs[..., 1:, :].contiguous()
-        target_token_ids_for_loss = target_token_ids[..., 1:, :].contiguous()
-        target_mask_for_loss = target_mask[..., 1:, :].contiguous()
-
-        if self.args.kd_zscore_base_temp:
-            loss_kd = topk_kd_loss_with_zscore(
-                shift_logits,
-                target_token_ids_for_loss,
-                target_logprobs_for_loss,
-                target_mask_for_loss,
-                kd_temperature=self.args.kd_temperature,
-                zscore_base_temp=self.args.kd_zscore_base_temp,
-                num_items_in_batch=num_items_in_batch,
-            )
-        else:
-            loss_kd = topk_kd_loss(
-                shift_logits,
-                target_token_ids_for_loss,
-                target_logprobs_for_loss,
-                target_mask_for_loss,
-                num_items_in_batch=num_items_in_batch,
-                kd_temperature=self.args.kd_temperature,
-                top_k_before_softmax=1 if self.args.kd_top_k_before_softmax else 0,
-            )
-
-        if self.args.kd_ce_alpha > 0:
-            kd_alpha = self.args.kd_alpha
-            loss = self.args.kd_ce_alpha * outputs["loss"] + kd_alpha * loss_kd
-        else:
-            loss = loss_kd
-        # Save past state if it exists
-        # TODO: this needs to be fixed and made cleaner later.
-        if self.args.past_index >= 0:
-            self._past = outputs[  # pylint: disable=attribute-defined-outside-init
-                self.args.past_index
-            ]
-
-        if self.args.average_tokens_across_devices and self.model_accepts_loss_kwargs:
-            loss *= self.accelerator.num_processes
-
-        return (loss, outputs) if return_outputs else loss
+        return outputs[0]

src/axolotl/integrations/kd/utils.py

@@ -0,0 +1,100 @@
+"""Helper KD utils"""
+
+import math
+from typing import List, Union
+
+import numpy as np
+import torch
+from torch import FloatTensor, Tensor
+
+
+def normalize_logprobs(logprobs: FloatTensor, topk: int) -> FloatTensor:
+    """
+    Re-normalizes top-k raw logprobs as probabilities, and converts back to logprobs.
+    """
+    # Ensure raw_logprobs matches kd_online_topk length for tensor operations
+    # This should ideally be handled by the caller ensuring correct padding/truncation first
+    if logprobs.shape[-1] != topk:
+        # pad last dimension of logprobs to match topk length with -inf
+        padding_len = topk - logprobs.shape[-1]
+        padding_tensor = torch.full(
+            (
+                *logprobs.shape[:-1],
+                padding_len,
+            ),  # Takes all dimensions of logprobs except the last, then appends padding_needed
+            float("-inf"),
+            dtype=logprobs.dtype,
+            device=logprobs.device,
+        )
+        logprobs = torch.cat((logprobs, padding_tensor), dim=-1)
+
+    # Convert logprobs at T_online to probabilities
+    # use log sum exp trick to avoid underflow
+    position_logprobs_lse = torch.logsumexp(logprobs, dim=-1, keepdim=True)
+    teacher_probs_t_online = torch.exp(logprobs - position_logprobs_lse)
+
+    # Normalize probabilities (sum to 1)
+    # This is important if the top-k from server aren't a full distribution
+    teacher_probs_t_online_sum = teacher_probs_t_online.sum(dim=-1, keepdim=True)
+    teacher_probs_t_online = teacher_probs_t_online / teacher_probs_t_online_sum
+
+    final_logprobs_tensor = torch.log(teacher_probs_t_online)
+
+    return final_logprobs_tensor
+
+
+def strided_chunk_views(
+    tensor: Union[np.ndarray, torch.Tensor],
+    chunks: int,
+    dim: int = 0,
+    stride: int = 1,
+    chunk_size: int | None = None,
+) -> List[Union[np.ndarray, torch.Tensor]]:
+    """
+    Split a tensor into chunks along a dimension with striding, prioritizing views over copies.
+
+    Args:
+        tensor: Input tensor (numpy array or torch tensor)
+        chunks: Number of chunks to create
+        dim: Dimension along which to chunk (default: 0)
+        stride: Stride between chunk starting positions (default: 1)
+        chunk_size: Size of each chunk. If None, calculated automatically (default: None)
+
+    Returns:
+        List of tensor chunks (views when possible, copies when necessary)
+    """
+
+    # Get the size of the specified dimension
+    dim_size = tensor.shape[dim]
+
+    # Calculate chunk size if not provided
+    if chunk_size is None:
+        chunk_size = (dim_size + chunks - 1) // chunks  # Ceiling division
+
+    chunks_list = []
+
+    for i in range(chunks):
+        start_idx = i * stride
+        end_idx = min(start_idx + chunk_size, dim_size)
+
+        # Break if we've gone beyond the tensor
+        if start_idx >= dim_size:
+            break
+
+        # Create slice objects for all dimensions
+        slices = [slice(None)] * tensor.ndim
+        slices[dim] = slice(start_idx, end_idx)
+
+        chunk = tensor[tuple(slices)]
+        chunks_list.append(chunk)
+
+    return chunks_list
+
+
+def chunk_overlap(input_tensor: Tensor, chunks: int, dim: int = 0, overlap: int = 1):
+    dim_size = input_tensor.shape[dim]
+    stride = math.ceil(dim_size / chunks)
+
+    return strided_chunk_views(
+        input_tensor, chunks, dim, stride=stride, chunk_size=stride + overlap
+    )

src/axolotl/monkeypatch/ring_attn/patch.py

@@ -2,10 +2,10 @@
 
 Make use of the `ring-flash-attn` (https://github.com/zhuzilin/ring-flash-attention)
 package, specifically the `hf_adapter.substitute_hf_flash_attn` function to patch in
-their context parallel version of Flash Attention 2.
+their sequence parallel version of Flash Attention 2.
 
 We also provide some patches for accelerate functions to prepare the dataloader for
-context parallelism training.
+sequence parallelism training.
 """
 
 import inspect
@@ -13,9 +13,9 @@ import inspect
 import accelerate
 import torch
 import torch.distributed as dist
+from accelerate.logging import get_logger
 
 from axolotl.monkeypatch.utils import get_cu_seqlens_from_pos_ids
-from axolotl.utils.logging import get_logger
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import RingAttnFunc
 
 LOG = get_logger(__name__)
@@ -63,15 +63,15 @@ def set_ring_attn_group(ring_attn_group: dist.ProcessGroup | None):
 
 
 def register_ring_attn(
-    context_parallel_degree: int,
+    sequence_parallel_degree: int,
     heads_k_stride: int | None,
     ring_attn_func: RingAttnFunc | None,
 ):
     """Create ring attention group and substitute flash attn with ring flash attn.
 
     Args:
-        context_parallel_degree: Context parallelism factor.
-        heads_k_stride: Context parallelism K head stride size. Passed through to
+        sequence_parallel_degree: Sequence parallelism factor.
+        heads_k_stride: Sequence parallelism K head stride size. Passed through to
             `varlen_llama3` `ring_flash_attn` implementation.
         ring_attn_func: `ring_flash_attn` ring attention implemention. If sample
             packing is enabled, it must be a `varlen` function; otherwise, it must be a
@@ -80,18 +80,28 @@ def register_ring_attn(
     rank = dist.get_rank()
     world_size = dist.get_world_size()
 
-    LOG.info(
-        "Enabling ring attention context parallelism: "
-        f"each sequence will be processed across {context_parallel_degree} GPUs"
+    if rank == 0:
+        LOG.info(
+            "Enabling ring attention sequence parallelism: "
+            f"each sequence will be processed across {sequence_parallel_degree} GPUs"
+        )
+
+    assert sequence_parallel_degree <= world_size, (
+        f"sequence_parallel_degree ({sequence_parallel_degree}) "
+        f"must be less than or equal to world_size ({world_size})"
+    )
+    assert world_size % sequence_parallel_degree == 0, (
+        f"sequence_parallel_degree ({sequence_parallel_degree}) "
+        f"must evenly divide world_size ({world_size})"
     )
 
-    # Assign ranks to context parallel groups
+    # Assign ranks to sequence parallel groups
     group_assignments = {}
-    for i in range(world_size // context_parallel_degree):
+    for i in range(world_size // sequence_parallel_degree):
         ring_attn_ranks = list(
             range(
-                i * context_parallel_degree,
-                (i + 1) * context_parallel_degree,
+                i * sequence_parallel_degree,
+                (i + 1) * sequence_parallel_degree,
             )
         )
         group = dist.new_group(ranks=ring_attn_ranks, backend="nccl")
@@ -103,7 +113,9 @@ def register_ring_attn(
         if rank in ring_attn_ranks:
             set_ring_attn_group(group)
 
-    LOG.info(f"Context parallel group assignments: {group_assignments}")
+    # Log the GPU group assignments
+    if rank == 0:
+        LOG.info(f"Sequence parallel group assignments: {group_assignments}")
 
     if ring_attn_func is RingAttnFunc.VARLEN_LLAMA3:
         from ring_flash_attn import substitute_hf_flash_attn
@@ -138,7 +150,7 @@ def update_ring_attn_params(position_ids: torch.Tensor | None):
 
 
 def patch_prepare_data_loader():
-    """Patch `accelerate.data_loader.prepare_data_loader` to respect the CP degree.
+    """Patch `accelerate.data_loader.prepare_data_loader` to respect the SP degree.
 
     Raies:
         RuntimeError: If source code to patch does not exist.
@@ -164,15 +176,15 @@ def patch_prepare_data_loader():
     patched_function = namespace["prepare_data_loader"]
 
     accelerate.data_loader.prepare_data_loader = patched_function
-    LOG.info("Patched accelerate.data_loader.prepare_data_loader for CP support")
+    LOG.info("Patched accelerate.data_loader.prepare_data_loader for SP support")
 
 
-def patch_prepare_device_mesh(context_parallel_degree: int):
+def patch_prepare_device_mesh(sequence_parallel_degree: int):
     """Patches the `Accelerator._prepare_device_mesh` method to create a device mesh
-    that includes context parallelism with the specified degree.
+    that includes sequence parallelism with the specified degree.
 
     Args:
-        context_parallel_degree (int): The degree of context parallelism to use.
+        sequence_parallel_degree (int): The degree of sequence parallelism to use.
     """
 
     def _prepare_device_mesh(self):
@@ -187,11 +199,11 @@ def patch_prepare_device_mesh(context_parallel_degree: int):
         ):
             return self.state.ds_device_mesh
 
-        # Create device mesh with context parallelism
+        # Create device mesh with sequence parallelism
         world_size = dist.get_world_size()
         mesh_shape = (
-            world_size // context_parallel_degree,
-            context_parallel_degree,
+            world_size // sequence_parallel_degree,
+            sequence_parallel_degree,
         )
         device_ids = list(range(world_size))
 
@@ -209,5 +221,5 @@ def patch_prepare_device_mesh(context_parallel_degree: int):
 
     LOG.info(
         "Successfully patched Accelerator._prepare_device_mesh "
-        f"with context_parallel_degree={context_parallel_degree}"
+        f"with sequence_parallel_degree={sequence_parallel_degree}"
     )

src/axolotl/train.py

@@ -1,10 +1,13 @@
 """Prepare and train a model on a dataset. Can also infer from a model or merge lora"""
 
+from __future__ import annotations
+
 import importlib
 import inspect
 import os
 import signal
 import sys
+import typing
 import weakref
 from contextlib import ExitStack
 from pathlib import Path
@@ -31,7 +34,7 @@ from axolotl.loaders import (
     load_processor,
     load_tokenizer,
 )
-from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers import ContextParallelContextManager
+from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.sequence_parallel import SequenceParallelContextManager
 from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 from axolotl.utils.distributed import cleanup_distributed
 from axolotl.utils.freeze import freeze_layers_except
@@ -44,6 +47,9 @@ try:
 except ImportError:
     BetterTransformer = None
 
+if typing.TYPE_CHECKING:
+    from axolotl.core.trainer_builder import HFCausalTrainerBuilder, HFRLTrainerBuilder
+
 LOG = get_logger(__name__)
 
 
@@ -147,7 +153,7 @@ def determine_resume_checkpoint(cfg: DictDefault) -> str | None:
 
 
 def setup_signal_handler(
-    cfg: DictDefault, model: PeftModel | PreTrainedModel, safe_serialization: bool
+    cfg: DictDefault, model: PreTrainedModel, safe_serialization: bool
 ):
     """
     Set up signal handler for graceful termination.
@@ -201,20 +207,15 @@ def execute_training(
                 )
             )
 
-        if cfg.context_parallel_degree > 1 and not cfg.sdp_attention:
-            # Models to enter context parallel manager for
+        if cfg.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
             models = [trainer.model]
             if hasattr(trainer, "ref_model") and trainer.ref_model:
                 models.append(trainer.ref_model)
 
-            # Attention backend
-            backend = "sdp_attention" if cfg.sdp_attention else "flash_attention"
-
             stack.enter_context(
-                ContextParallelContextManager(
+                SequenceParallelContextManager(
                     models=models,
-                    backend=backend,
-                    context_parallel_degree=cfg.context_parallel_degree,
+                    sequence_parallel_degree=cfg.sequence_parallel_degree,
                     gradient_accumulation_steps=cfg.gradient_accumulation_steps,
                     ring_attn_func=cfg.ring_attn_func,
                     heads_k_stride=cfg.heads_k_stride,
@@ -228,7 +229,7 @@ def execute_training(
 def save_trained_model(
     cfg: DictDefault,
     trainer: Any,
-    model: PeftModel | PreTrainedModel,
+    model: PreTrainedModel,
     safe_serialization: bool,
 ):
     """
@@ -379,7 +380,7 @@ def create_model_card(cfg: DictDefault, trainer: Trainer):
 def save_initial_configs(
     cfg: DictDefault,
     tokenizer: PreTrainedTokenizer,
-    model: PeftModel | PreTrainedModel,
+    model: PreTrainedModel,
     peft_config: PeftConfig | None,
     processor: ProcessorMixin | None,
 ):
@@ -433,7 +434,7 @@ def setup_model_card(cfg: DictDefault):
 
 def handle_untrained_tokens_fix(
     cfg: DictDefault,
-    model: PeftModel | PreTrainedModel,
+    model: PreTrainedModel,
     tokenizer: PreTrainedTokenizer,
     train_dataset: Dataset,
     safe_serialization: bool,
@@ -476,7 +477,7 @@ def handle_untrained_tokens_fix(
 
 
 def setup_model_and_trainer(cfg: DictDefault, dataset_meta: TrainDatasetMeta) -> tuple[
-    Trainer,
+    "HFRLTrainerBuilder" | "HFCausalTrainerBuilder",
     PeftModel | PreTrainedModel,
     PreTrainedTokenizer,
     PeftConfig | None,

src/axolotl/utils/__init__.py

@@ -52,3 +52,10 @@ def patch_optimized_env():
     if os.getenv("HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER") is None:
         os.environ["HF_HUB_ENABLE_HF_TRANSFER"] = "1"
     set_pytorch_cuda_alloc_conf()
+
+
+def get_not_null(value, default=None):
+    """
+    return the value if it's not None, otherwise return the default value
+    """
+    return value if value is not None else default

src/axolotl/utils/collators/batching.py

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 """Data collators for axolotl to pad labels and position_ids for packed sequences"""
 
 from dataclasses import dataclass
-from typing import Any
+from typing import Any, List
 
 import numpy as np
 from transformers import PreTrainedTokenizerBase
@@ -161,7 +161,7 @@ class V2BatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq(DataCollatorForSeq2Seq):
 
     def __call__(self, features, return_tensors=None):
         if not isinstance(features[0], list):
-            features = [features]
+            features: List[List[dict]] = [features]
         out_features = [{} for _ in features]
         for i, features_ in enumerate(features):
             for feature in features_[0].keys():

src/axolotl/utils/ctx_managers/__init__.py

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-"""Init for context manager submodule."""
+"""Init for context manager submodule"""
 
-from .context_parallel.manager import ContextParallelContextManager
+# pylint: disable=unused-import
+# flake8: noqa
 
-__all__ = ["ContextParallelContextManager"]
+from .sequence_parallel import SequenceParallelContextManager

src/axolotl/utils/ctx_managers/context_parallel/distributed.py

@@ -1,146 +0,0 @@
-# BSD 3-Clause License
-
-# Copyright 2024 Meta
-
-# Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification,
-# are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:
-
-# 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice,this list
-# of conditions and the following disclaimer.
-
-# 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this
-# list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation
-# and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
-
-# 3. Neither the name of the copyright holder nor the names of its contributors may
-# be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific
-# prior written permission.
-
-# THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS “AS IS” AND ANY
-# EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES
-# OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT
-# SHALL THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
-# INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED
-# TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR
-# BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
-# CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
-# ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
-# DAMAGE.
-
-"""
-Distributed utils for SDPA context parallel implementation. Slightly modified from
-https://github.com/pytorch/torchtune/blob/2344509cf83bd886538fe3e8263e5145d1afb5c2/torchtune/training/_distributed.py.
-"""
-
-import contextlib
-from typing import Callable, Generator, Optional, Union
-
-import torch
-from torch import nn
-from torch.distributed.tensor.experimental import context_parallel
-from torch.distributed.tensor.experimental._attention import set_rotate_method
-from torch.nn.attention import SDPBackend, sdpa_kernel
-from torch.nn.attention.flex_attention import BlockMask
-
-
-def _get_sdpa_context() -> (
-    Callable[[Optional[Generator[None, None, None]]], Generator[None, None, None]]
-):
-    """
-    Creates a context manager to confine to flash/efficient/cuDNN attention backends.
-
-    Returns:
-        A context manager function that takes an optional context parallel context.
-    """
-
-    @contextlib.contextmanager
-    def context(cp_context: Union[Generator[None, None, None], None] = None):
-        with contextlib.ExitStack() as stack:
-            if cp_context is not None:
-                stack.enter_context(
-                    sdpa_kernel(
-                        [
-                            SDPBackend.FLASH_ATTENTION,
-                            SDPBackend.EFFICIENT_ATTENTION,
-                            SDPBackend.CUDNN_ATTENTION,
-                        ]
-                    )
-                )
-                stack.enter_context(cp_context)
-
-            yield
-
-    return context
-
-
-def get_context_parallel_manager(
-    *,
-    world_mesh: torch.distributed.DeviceMesh,
-    model: nn.Module,
-) -> Callable[[list[torch.Tensor]], Generator[None, None, None]]:
-    """
-    Context manager for applying context parallelism to a model. In addition to applying the
-    standard context manager to patch SDPA and shard model inputs and buffers along the sequence
-    dimension, this context manager also calls into _get_sdpa_context to filter to acceptable SDPA backends.
-
-    Args:
-        world_mesh: Global device mesh.
-        model: Model to apply context parallelism to.
-
-    Returns:
-        A context manager applying context parallelism if enabled is True. Otherwise a context manager
-        disabling the math SDPA backend.
-
-    Raises:
-        ValueError: if enabled is True but world_mesh does not contain a "cp" dimension
-    """
-
-    if "cp" not in world_mesh.mesh_dim_names:
-        raise ValueError(
-            "Context parallel is enabled but no context parallel device mesh is provided."
-        )
-    # TODO: context parallel for multimodal models requires extra work
-    # if not isinstance(model, TransformerDecoder):
-    #     raise ValueError("Context parallel is only supported for text models")
-    # model_buffers = list(model.buffers())
-    
-    # def get_all_buffers(module, prefix=""):
-    #     buffers = {}
-    #     for name, buffer in module.named_buffers(recurse=False):
-    #         full_name = f"{prefix}.{name}" if prefix else name
-    #         buffers[full_name] = buffer
-
-    #     for name, child in module.named_children():
-    #         child_prefix = f"{prefix}.{name}" if prefix else name
-    #         buffers.update(get_all_buffers(child, child_prefix))
-
-    #     return buffers
-
-    # model_buffers = get_all_buffers(model)
-
-    @contextlib.contextmanager
-    def context(model_inputs: list[torch.Tensor]):
-        # Create context parallel context if enabled
-        cp_context = None
-        if any([isinstance(input, BlockMask) for input in model_inputs]):
-            raise ValueError(
-                "Context parallel with flex attention is not yet supported"
-            )
-        set_rotate_method("allgather")
-
-        cp_context = context_parallel(
-            world_mesh["cp"],
-            # buffers=model_inputs + model_buffers,
-            buffers=model_inputs,
-            # buffer_seq_dims=[1] * len(model_inputs) + [0] * len(model_buffers),
-            buffer_seq_dims=[1] * len(model_inputs),
-            no_restore_buffers=set(model_inputs),
-        )
-
-        # Create and enter the train context with the optional cp_context
-        sdpa_context = _get_sdpa_context()
-
-        with sdpa_context(cp_context):
-            yield
-
-    return context

src/axolotl/utils/ctx_managers/context_parallel/manager.py

@@ -1,216 +0,0 @@
-"""Module for Axolotl trainer context parallelism manager and utilities."""
-
-import functools
-import inspect
-from typing import Callable, Literal
-
-import torch
-import torch.distributed as dist
-from torch.utils.hooks import RemovableHandle
-from transformers import PreTrainedModel
-from transformers.modeling_outputs import CausalLMOutputWithPast
-from transformers.utils import ModelOutput
-
-from axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn import (
-    get_ring_attn_group,
-    patch_prepare_data_loader,
-    patch_prepare_device_mesh,
-    register_ring_attn,
-)
-from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.context_parallel.distributed import (
-    get_context_parallel_manager,
-)
-from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.context_parallel.utils import (
-    AllGatherWithGrad,
-    apply_context_parallelism,
-)
-from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import RingAttnFunc
-
-
-class ContextParallelContextManager:
-    """Context manager for context parallelism operations.
-
-    This class provides a context that will automatically apply context parallelism
-    during model forward passes using a pre-forward hook, and gather outputs from
-    across the context parallelism group using a post-forward hook.
-
-    Args:
-        models: List of models to apply context parallelism to pre- and post- forward
-            hooks.
-        backend: Which attention backend to use.
-        context_parallel_degree: Number of processes to split sequences over.
-        gradient_accumulation_steps: Number of steps to accumulate gradients over.
-        ring_attn_func: Which ring attention function to use. Currently unused.
-        heads_k_stride: Context parallelism K head stride size. Passed through to
-            `varlen_llama3` `ring_flash_attn` implementation.
-    """
-
-    def __init__(
-        self,
-        models: list[PreTrainedModel],
-        backend: Literal["sdp_attention", "flash_attention"],
-        context_parallel_degree: int,
-        gradient_accumulation_steps: int,
-        ring_attn_func: RingAttnFunc,
-        heads_k_stride: int | None,
-    ):
-        self.models = models
-        self.backend = backend
-        self.context_parallel_degree = context_parallel_degree
-        self.gradient_accumulation_steps = gradient_accumulation_steps
-        self.ring_attn_func = ring_attn_func
-        self.heads_k_stride = heads_k_stride
-        self._register_ring_attn()
-
-        # Store hook handles for removal
-        self.hook_handles: list[RemovableHandle] = []
-
-        if self.backend == "flash_attention":
-            # Set distributed info for local rank
-            self.process_group = get_ring_attn_group()
-            self.local_rank = dist.get_rank(self.process_group)
-            self.local_world_size = dist.get_world_size(self.process_group)
-
-             # Create a partially applied version of the apply_context_parallelism function
-            self.apply_context_parallelism = functools.partial(
-                apply_context_parallelism,
-                local_rank=self.local_rank,
-                local_world_size=self.local_world_size,
-                gradient_accumulation_steps=self.gradient_accumulation_steps,
-                ring_attn_func=self.ring_attn_func,
-            )
-
-            # Store original sequence length and padding information
-            self.original_seq_len = 0
-            self.pad_len = 0
-        else:
-            # SPDA device mesh init
-            world_size = dist.get_world_size()
-            mesh_shape = (
-                world_size // self.context_parallel_degree,
-                self.context_parallel_degree,
-            )
-            world_mesh = dist.DeviceMesh(
-                "cuda",
-                torch.tensor(list(range(world_size))).reshape(mesh_shape),
-                mesh_dim_names=("dp", "cp"),
-            )
-
-            # SDPA context parallel managers 
-            self.context_parallel_managers = []
-            for model in models:
-                ctx_manager = get_context_parallel_manager(
-                    world_mesh=world_mesh,
-                    model=model,
-                )
-                self.context_parallel_managers.append(ctx_manager)
-
-    def __enter__(self):
-        self._register_model_hooks()
-
-        return self
-
-    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
-        # Remove all hooks
-        for handle in self.hook_handles:
-            handle.remove()
-        self.hook_handles = []
-
-        # TODO(djsaunde): Un-patch attention and accelerate functions (low priority)
-
-    def _register_ring_attn(self):
-        if self.backend == "flash_attention":
-            # Initialize ring attn for context parallelism
-            register_ring_attn(
-                context_parallel_degree=self.context_parallel_degree,
-                heads_k_stride=self.heads_k_stride,
-                ring_attn_func=self.ring_attn_func,
-            )
-
-        # Patches for accelerate functionality
-        patch_prepare_data_loader()
-        patch_prepare_device_mesh(context_parallel_degree=self.context_parallel_degree)
-
-    def _register_model_hooks(self):
-        # Forward pre-hook to apply context parallelism
-        def cp_flash_pre_hook(_, args, kwargs):
-            # Get parameter names from the model's forward function
-            forward_params = list(
-                inspect.signature(self.models[0].forward).parameters.keys()
-            )
-
-            updated_kwargs = kwargs.copy()
-            for i, arg in enumerate(args):
-                if i < len(forward_params):
-                    updated_kwargs[forward_params[i]] = arg
-
-            # Any excess positional arguments are kept as-is
-            remaining_args = args[len(forward_params) :]
-
-            # Apply context parallelism to updated kwargs
-            updated_kwargs, self.original_seq_len, self.pad_len = (
-                self.apply_context_parallelism(updated_kwargs)
-            )
-
-            return remaining_args, updated_kwargs
-
-        # Forward post-hook to gather outputs
-        def cp_flash_post_hook(_, __, output: ModelOutput) -> ModelOutput:
-            # Gather the sharded outputs
-            output = self._gather_outputs(output)
-
-            # Remove padding if it was added
-            if self.pad_len > 0:
-                for key, value in output.items():
-                    if isinstance(value, torch.Tensor) and value.dim() > 1:
-                        if value.size(1) == self.original_seq_len + self.pad_len:
-                            # Slice to remove padding
-                            output[key] = value[:, : self.original_seq_len].contiguous()
-
-            return output
-
-        def make_sdpa_pre_hook(model_idx: int) -> Callable:
-            def cp_sdpa_pre_hook(_, args, kwargs):
-                # Get parameter names from the model's forward function
-                forward_params = list(
-                    inspect.signature(self.models[0].forward).parameters.keys()
-                )
-
-                updated_kwargs = kwargs.copy()
-                for i, arg in enumerate(args):
-                    if i < len(forward_params):
-                        updated_kwargs[forward_params[i]] = arg
-
-                # Any excess positional arguments are kept as-is
-                remaining_args = args[len(forward_params) :]
-
-                to_shard = {k: v for k, v in updated_kwargs.items() if v.ndim > 1}
-
-                with self.context_parallel_managers[model_idx](list(to_shard.values())):
-                    return remaining_args, updated_kwargs
-
-            return cp_sdpa_pre_hook
-
-        # Register both hooks
-        for i, model in enumerate(self.models):
-            if self.backend == "flash_attention":
-                self.hook_handles.append(
-                    model.register_forward_pre_hook(cp_flash_pre_hook, with_kwargs=True)
-                )
-                self.hook_handles.append(
-                    model.register_forward_hook(cp_flash_post_hook)
-                )
-            else:
-                self.hook_handles.append(
-                    model.register_forward_pre_hook(
-                        make_sdpa_pre_hook(i), with_kwargs=True
-                    )
-                )
-
-    def _gather_outputs(self, output: CausalLMOutputWithPast) -> CausalLMOutputWithPast:
-        """Gather sharded outputs from all ranks and reconstruct the full tensor."""
-        for key, value in output.items():
-            if isinstance(value, torch.Tensor) and value.dim() > 1:
-                output[key] = AllGatherWithGrad.apply(value, self.process_group)
-
-        return output

src/axolotl/utils/ctx_managers/sequence_parallel.py

@@ -1,15 +1,28 @@
-"""Utils for context parallel context manager."""
+"""Module for Axolotl trainer sequence parallelism manager and utilities"""
+
+import functools
+import inspect
 
 import torch
 import torch.distributed as dist
+from torch import nn
+from torch.utils.hooks import RemovableHandle
+from transformers.modeling_outputs import CausalLMOutputWithPast
+from transformers.utils import ModelOutput
 
-from axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn.patch import update_ring_attn_params
+from axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn import (
+    get_ring_attn_group,
+    patch_prepare_data_loader,
+    patch_prepare_device_mesh,
+    register_ring_attn,
+    update_ring_attn_params,
+)
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import RingAttnFunc
 
 
 # TODO(djsaunde): implement zigzag, stripe patterns here (and elsewhere) in this
 # module. Currently, we just focus on batch ring and varlen llama3 for simplicity.
-def apply_context_parallelism(
+def apply_sequence_parallelism(
     batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor],
     local_rank: int,
     local_world_size: int,
@@ -17,15 +30,15 @@ def apply_context_parallelism(
     ring_attn_func: RingAttnFunc,  # pylint: disable=unused-argument
 ) -> tuple[dict[str, torch.Tensor], int, int]:
     """
-    Apply context parallelism slicing to a batch.
+    Apply sequence parallelism slicing to a batch.
 
     Special handling is implemented for integer logits_to_keep, which indicates
-    to only keep the last N tokens in the input sequence during generation.
+    to only keep the last N tokens in the sequence during generation.
 
     Args:
         batch: Batch dictionary (e.g., input_ids, attention_mask, etc.).
-        local_rank: Local rank in the context parallel group.
-        local_world_size: World size of the context parallel group.
+        local_rank: Local rank in the sequence parallel group.
+        local_world_size: World size of the sequence parallel group.
         gradient_accumulation_steps: Number of steps to accumulate gradients over.
         ring_attn_func: Which ring attention function to use. Currently unused, but
             related to above TODO.
@@ -120,7 +133,7 @@ def apply_context_parallelism(
         # Update the total sequence length after padding
         total_seq_len = batch["input_ids"].size(1)
 
-    # Slice batch for context parallel
+    # Slice batch for sequence parallel
     for key in batch:
         if not isinstance(batch[key], torch.Tensor) or batch[key].dim() <= 1:
             continue
@@ -146,6 +159,144 @@ def apply_context_parallelism(
     return batch, original_seq_len, pad_len
 
 
+class SequenceParallelContextManager:
+    """Context manager for sequence parallelism operations.
+
+    This class provides a context that will automatically apply sequence parallelism
+    during model forward passes using a pre-forward hook, and gather outputs from
+    across the sequence parallelism group using a post-forward hook.
+
+    Args:
+        models: List of models to apply sequence parallelism to pre- and post- forward
+            hooks.
+        sequence_parallel_degree: Number of processes to split sequences over.
+        gradient_accumulation_steps: Number of steps to accumulate gradients over.
+        ring_attn_func: Which ring attention function to use. Currently unused.
+        heads_k_stride: Sequence parallelism K head stride size. Passed through to
+            `varlen_llama3` `ring_flash_attn` implementation.
+    """
+
+    def __init__(
+        self,
+        models: list[nn.Module],
+        sequence_parallel_degree: int,
+        gradient_accumulation_steps: int,
+        ring_attn_func: RingAttnFunc,
+        heads_k_stride: int | None,
+    ):
+        self.models = models
+        self.sequence_parallel_degree = sequence_parallel_degree
+        self.gradient_accumulation_steps = gradient_accumulation_steps
+        self.ring_attn_func = ring_attn_func
+        self.heads_k_stride = heads_k_stride
+        self._register_ring_attn()
+
+        # Set distributed info for local rank
+        self.process_group = get_ring_attn_group()
+        self.local_rank = dist.get_rank(self.process_group)
+        self.local_world_size = dist.get_world_size(self.process_group)
+
+        # Will store hook handles for removal
+        self.hook_handles: list[RemovableHandle] = []
+
+        # Store original sequence length and padding information
+        self.original_seq_len = 0
+        self.pad_len = 0
+
+        # Create a partially applied version of the apply_sequence_parallelism function
+        self.apply_sequence_parallelism = functools.partial(
+            apply_sequence_parallelism,
+            local_rank=self.local_rank,
+            local_world_size=self.local_world_size,
+            gradient_accumulation_steps=self.gradient_accumulation_steps,
+            ring_attn_func=self.ring_attn_func,
+        )
+
+    def __enter__(self):
+        self._register_model_hooks()
+
+        return self
+
+    def __exit__(self, exc_type, exc_val, exc_tb):
+        # Remove all hooks
+        for handle in self.hook_handles:
+            handle.remove()
+        self.hook_handles = []
+
+        # TODO(djsaunde): Un-patch attention and accelerate functions (low priority)
+
+    def _register_ring_attn(self):
+        # Initialize ring attn for sequence parallelism
+        register_ring_attn(
+            sequence_parallel_degree=self.sequence_parallel_degree,
+            heads_k_stride=self.heads_k_stride,
+            ring_attn_func=self.ring_attn_func,
+        )
+
+        # Patches for accelerate functionality
+        patch_prepare_data_loader()
+        patch_prepare_device_mesh(
+            sequence_parallel_degree=self.sequence_parallel_degree
+        )
+
+    def _register_model_hooks(self):
+        # Forward pre-hook to apply sequence parallelism
+        def sequence_parallel_pre_hook(_, args, kwargs):
+            # Get parameter names from the model's forward function
+            forward_params = list(
+                inspect.signature(self.models[0].forward).parameters.keys()
+            )
+
+            updated_kwargs = kwargs.copy()
+            for i, arg in enumerate(args):
+                if i < len(forward_params):
+                    updated_kwargs[forward_params[i]] = arg
+
+            # Any excess positional arguments are kept as-is
+            remaining_args = args[len(forward_params) :]
+
+            # Apply sequence parallelism to updated kwargs
+            updated_kwargs, self.original_seq_len, self.pad_len = (
+                self.apply_sequence_parallelism(updated_kwargs)
+            )
+
+            return remaining_args, updated_kwargs
+
+        # Forward post-hook to gather outputs
+        def sequence_parallel_post_hook(_, __, output: ModelOutput) -> ModelOutput:
+            # Gather the sharded outputs
+            output = self._gather_outputs(output)
+
+            # Remove padding if it was added
+            if self.pad_len > 0:
+                for key, value in output.items():
+                    if isinstance(value, torch.Tensor) and value.dim() > 1:
+                        if value.size(1) == self.original_seq_len + self.pad_len:
+                            # Slice to remove padding
+                            output[key] = value[:, : self.original_seq_len].contiguous()
+
+            return output
+
+        # Register both hooks
+        for model in self.models:
+            self.hook_handles.append(
+                model.register_forward_pre_hook(
+                    sequence_parallel_pre_hook, with_kwargs=True
+                )
+            )
+            self.hook_handles.append(
+                model.register_forward_hook(sequence_parallel_post_hook)
+            )
+
+    def _gather_outputs(self, output: CausalLMOutputWithPast) -> CausalLMOutputWithPast:
+        """Gather sharded outputs from all ranks and reconstruct the full tensor."""
+        for key, value in output.items():
+            if isinstance(value, torch.Tensor) and value.dim() > 1:
+                output[key] = AllGatherWithGrad.apply(value, self.process_group)
+
+        return output
+
+
 class AllGatherWithGrad(torch.autograd.Function):
     """Custom autograd function for all-gather to preserve gradients."""
 

src/axolotl/utils/data/utils.py

@@ -40,6 +40,7 @@ def retry_on_request_exceptions(
                 except (
                     requests.exceptions.ReadTimeout,
                     requests.exceptions.ConnectionError,
+                    requests.exceptions.HTTPError,
                     huggingface_hub.errors.HfHubHTTPError,
                 ) as exc:
                     if attempt < max_retries - 1:

src/axolotl/utils/samplers/multipack.py

@@ -258,7 +258,7 @@ class MultipackBatchSampler(BatchSampler):
         batch_max_len: int,  # Maximum sequence length (bin capacity)
         lengths: np.ndarray,  # Sequence lengths
         packing_efficiency_estimate: float = 1.0,  # Initial efficiency estimate
-        drop_last: bool = False,  # Whether to drop final batches (might be incomplete)
+        drop_last: bool = True,  # Whether to drop final batches (might be incomplete)
         num_count_samples: int = 16,  # Number of times to estimate batch count
         sequential: bool = False,  # Whether to use sequential packing
         group_size: int = 100_000,  # Size of groups for parallel packing
@@ -443,10 +443,18 @@ class MultipackBatchSampler(BatchSampler):
 
         if self._len_across_ranks is None:
             # Sample multiple times to get stable estimate
-            len_batches = min(  # pylint: disable=consider-using-generator
-                [len(self._batches) for _ in range(self.num_count_samples)]
-            )
+            _sampled_lens = []
+            for _ in range(self.num_count_samples):
+                self._batches = None  # Reset cached batches
+                _sampled_lens.append(len(self.generate_batches(set_stats=False)))
+            len_batches = min(_sampled_lens)
+
             # Gather minimum across all ranks
-            self._len_across_ranks = self.gather_len_batches(len_batches)
+            if self._len_across_ranks is None:
+                self._len_across_ranks = self.gather_len_batches(len_batches)
+            else:
+                self._len_across_ranks = min(
+                    self._len_across_ranks, self.gather_len_batches(len_batches)
+                )
 
         return self._len_across_ranks

src/axolotl/utils/schemas/config.py

@@ -262,7 +262,7 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
 
     val_set_size: float | None = Field(default=0.0)
 
-    context_parallel_degree: int | None = None
+    sequence_parallel_degree: int | None = None
     heads_k_stride: int | None = None
     ring_attn_func: RingAttnFunc | None = None
 
@@ -1179,39 +1179,24 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
 
     @model_validator(mode="before")
     @classmethod
-    def check_grpo_liger_context_parallel(cls, data):
+    def check_grpo_liger_sequence_parallel(cls, data):
         if (
             data.get("rl") == "grpo"
             and data.get("trl", {})
             and data.get("trl").get("use_liger_loss")
-            and data.get("context_parallel_degree", 1) > 1
+            and data.get("sequence_parallel_degree", 1) > 1
         ):
-            raise ValueError("GRPO + CP + Liger not currently supported")
+            raise ValueError("GRPO + SP + Liger not currently supported")
         return data
 
     @model_validator(mode="after")
-    def check_context_parallel_degree(self):
-        if not self.context_parallel_degree:
-            self.context_parallel_degree = 1
-        elif self.context_parallel_degree > 1:
-            import torch
-
-            world_size = torch.cuda.device_count()
-            if not world_size >= self.context_parallel_degree:
+    def check_sequence_parallel_degree(self):
+        if not self.sequence_parallel_degree:
+            self.sequence_parallel_degree = 1
+        elif self.sequence_parallel_degree > 1:
+            if not self.flash_attention:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    f"World size ({world_size}) must be greater "
-                    f"than or equal to CP degree ({self.context_parallel_degree})"
-                )
-            if not world_size % self.context_parallel_degree == 0:
-                raise ValueError(
-                    f"SP degree ({self.context_parallel_degree}) "
-                    f"must evenly divide world size ({world_size})"
-                )
-
-            if not (self.flash_attention or self.sdp_attention):
-                raise ValueError(
-                    "flash_attention: true or sdp_attention: true "
-                    "must be set with context_parallel_degree > 1"
+                    "flash_attention: true must be set with sequence_parallel_degree > 1"
                 )
 
             if self.sample_packing and self.micro_batch_size > 1:
@@ -1220,22 +1205,21 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
                     "due to a `ring-flash-attn` requirement"
                 )
 
-            if self.flash_attention:
-                try:
-                    import ring_flash_attn  # noqa: F401 # pylint:disable=unused-import
-                except ImportError as exception:
-                    raise ImportError(
-                        "context_parallel_degree > 1 but ring_flash_attn is not installed. "
-                        "Please install it with `pip install axolotl[ring-flash-attn] "
-                        "or `pip install ring-flash-attn>=0.1.4`."
-                    ) from exception
+            try:
+                import ring_flash_attn  # noqa: F401 # pylint:disable=unused-import
+            except ImportError as exception:
+                raise ImportError(
+                    "sequence_parallel_degree > 1 but ring_flash_attn is not installed. "
+                    "Please install it with `pip install axolotl[ring-flash-attn] "
+                    "or `pip install ring-flash-attn>=0.1.4`."
+                ) from exception
 
-            # TODO: monkeypatch / callback to average losses correctly across CP ranks
-            # / fix gradient scaling across CP ranks. Losses, grads should be scaled
+            # TODO: monkeypatch / callback to average losses correctly across SP ranks
+            # / fix gradient scaling across SP ranks. Losses, grads should be scaled
             # according to the proportion of non-padding tokens per rank.
             LOG.warning(
-                "Context parallelism (SP) is enabled with "
-                f"context_parallel_degree={self.context_parallel_degree}. "
+                "Sequence parallelism (SP) is enabled with "
+                f"sequence_parallel_degree={self.sequence_parallel_degree}. "
                 "Please note that logged losses may differ slightly to the non-SP "
                 "losses due to transformers Trainer implementation details. "
                 "Please see https://github.com/axolotl-ai-cloud/axolotl/pull/2495#issuecomment-2784022042 "
@@ -1246,7 +1230,7 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
 
     @model_validator(mode="after")
     def validate_ring_attn_func(self):
-        if getattr(self, "context_parallel_degree", 1) == 1:
+        if getattr(self, "sequence_parallel_degree", 1) == 1:
             return self
 
         if self.ring_attn_func is not None:

src/axolotl/utils/trainer.py

@@ -16,7 +16,6 @@ from datasets import IterableDataset, disable_caching, enable_caching
 from torch.utils.data import DataLoader, RandomSampler, SequentialSampler
 from transformers.utils import is_torch_bf16_gpu_available
 
-from axolotl.core.builders import HFCausalTrainerBuilder, HFRLTrainerBuilder
 from axolotl.monkeypatch.trainer_eval_guard import patch_evaluation_loop_for_fsdp2
 from axolotl.utils.distributed import reduce_and_broadcast
 from axolotl.utils.environment import check_cuda_p2p_ib_support
@@ -442,7 +441,7 @@ def calculate_total_num_steps(cfg, train_dataset, update=True):
                     - 1
                 )
                 * cfg.num_epochs
-                * cfg.context_parallel_degree
+                * cfg.sequence_parallel_degree
             )
             LOG.debug(
                 f"total_num_tokens: {cfg.total_num_tokens:_}, total_num_steps: {total_num_steps:_}"
@@ -479,9 +478,12 @@ def calculate_total_num_steps(cfg, train_dataset, update=True):
             # on the agreed on value for sample_packing_eff_est
             total_num_steps = int(
                 math.floor(
-                    data_loader_len * cfg.num_epochs * cfg.context_parallel_degree
+                    data_loader_len * cfg.num_epochs * cfg.sequence_parallel_degree
                 )
             )
+            if cfg.dataloader_drop_last:
+                # drop the last batch for each epoch
+                total_num_steps -= int(math.ceil(cfg.num_epochs))
 
             def calc_sample_packing_eff_est(estimates: List[float]):
                 LOG.info(f"sample_packing_eff_est across ranks: {repr(estimates)}")
@@ -502,7 +504,7 @@ def calculate_total_num_steps(cfg, train_dataset, update=True):
             math.ceil(
                 len(train_dataset)
                 * cfg.num_epochs
-                * cfg.context_parallel_degree
+                * cfg.sequence_parallel_degree
                 / cfg.batch_size
             )
         )
@@ -629,6 +631,8 @@ def setup_trainer(
         A trainer instance (either `HFRLTrainer` or `HFCausalTrainer`) configured based
             on the provided parameters.
     """
+    from axolotl.core.builders import HFCausalTrainerBuilder, HFRLTrainerBuilder
+
     if (
         cfg.torch_compile
         and cfg.fsdp_config

tests/core/test_builders.py

@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ def fixture_base_cfg():
             "dataloader_num_workers": 1,
             "dataloader_pin_memory": True,
             "dataloader_prefetch_factor": 2,
-            "context_parallel_degree": 1,
+            "sequence_parallel_degree": 1,
             # Dtype
             "fp16": False,
             "bf16": False,

tests/e2e/multigpu/patched/test_sp.py

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-"""E2E tests for context parallelism"""
+"""E2E tests for sequence parallelism"""
 
 from pathlib import Path
 
@@ -12,10 +12,10 @@ from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 from ...utils import check_tensorboard
 
 
-class TestContextParallelism:
-    """Test case for training with context parallelism enabled"""
+class TestSequenceParallelism:
+    """Test case for training with sequence parallelism enabled"""
 
-    def _run_context_parallel_test(
+    def _run_sequence_parallel_test(
         self,
         temp_dir,
         sample_packing=True,
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ class TestContextParallelism:
         ring_attn_func=None,
         threshold=2.0,
     ):
-        """Helper method to run context parallel tests with different configurations"""
+        """Helper method to run sequence parallel tests with different configurations"""
         cfg = DictDefault(
             {
                 "base_model": "HuggingFaceTB/SmolLM2-135M",
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ class TestContextParallelism:
                 "logging_steps": 1,
                 "weight_decay": 0.0,
                 "use_tensorboard": True,
-                "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                 "ring_attn_func": ring_attn_func,
             }
         )
@@ -109,7 +109,7 @@ class TestContextParallelism:
             "no sample_packing, no pad_to_sequence_len, batch_ring ring_attn_func",
         ],
     )
-    def test_context_parallel_training(
+    def test_sequence_parallel_training(
         self,
         temp_dir,
         sample_packing,
@@ -118,8 +118,8 @@ class TestContextParallelism:
         ring_attn_func,
         threshold,
     ):
-        """Test context parallel training with different configurations"""
-        self._run_context_parallel_test(
+        """Test sequence parallel training with different configurations"""
+        self._run_sequence_parallel_test(
             temp_dir,
             sample_packing=sample_packing,
             micro_batch_size=micro_batch_size,

tests/e2e/multigpu/solo/test_grpo.py

@@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ def oai_gsm8k_transform(cfg, *args, **kwargs):
                 "lora_alpha": 16,
                 "lora_dropout": 0.05,
                 "lora_target_linear": True,
-                "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                 "flash_attention": True,
                 "sequence_len": 1024,
                 "special_tokens": {

tests/e2e/patched/test_sp.py

@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-"""Tests for context parallelism functionality."""
+"""Tests for sequence parallelism functionality."""
 
 # pylint: disable=redefined-outer-name,unused-argument
 
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ from axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn import (
     register_ring_attn,
     set_ring_attn_group,
 )
-from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.context_parallel import apply_context_parallelism
+from axolotl.utils.ctx_managers.sequence_parallel import apply_sequence_parallelism
 from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.enums import RingAttnFunc
 from axolotl.utils.schemas.trl import TRLConfig
@@ -54,8 +54,8 @@ def fixture_cfg():
 
 
 @pytest.fixture
-def context_parallel_batch():
-    """Create a test batch for context parallelism tests."""
+def sequence_parallel_batch():
+    """Create a test batch for sequence parallelism tests."""
     batch_size = 1
     seq_len = 8
 
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ class TestRingAttention:
 
         # Call register_ring_attn with size 4
         register_ring_attn(
-            context_parallel_degree=4,
+            sequence_parallel_degree=4,
             heads_k_stride=1,
             ring_attn_func=RingAttnFunc.VARLEN_LLAMA3,
         )
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ class TestRingAttention:
 
 
 class TestConfigValidation:
-    """Tests for validating context parallelism configurations."""
+    """Tests for validating sequence parallelism configurations."""
 
     @pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
     def setup_mocks(self, monkeypatch):
@@ -155,24 +155,24 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
         [
             # Valid configuration
             (
-                {"context_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": True},
-                {"context_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": True},
+                {"sequence_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": True},
+                {"sequence_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": True},
                 True,
                 None,
             ),
-            # Default context_parallel_degree
-            ({}, {"context_parallel_degree": 1}, True, None),
-            # Invalid: context_parallel_degree > 1 without flash_attention
+            # Default sequence_parallel_degree
+            ({}, {"sequence_parallel_degree": 1}, True, None),
+            # Invalid: sequence_parallel_degree > 1 without flash_attention
             (
-                {"context_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": False},
+                {"sequence_parallel_degree": 2, "flash_attention": False},
                 None,
                 False,
                 "flash_attention: true must be set",
             ),
-            # Invalid: context_parallel_degree > 1 with sample_packing and micro_batch_size > 1
+            # Invalid: sequence_parallel_degree > 1 with sample_packing and micro_batch_size > 1
             (
                 {
-                    "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                    "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                     "flash_attention": True,
                     "sample_packing": True,
                     "micro_batch_size": 2,
@@ -185,32 +185,32 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
             # Valid: Basic GRPO config
             (
                 {
-                    "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                    "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                     "flash_attention": True,
                     "micro_batch_size": 2,
                     "trl": {"use_liger_loss": True},
                 },
                 {
-                    "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                    "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                     "flash_attention": True,
                     "micro_batch_size": 2,
                     "trl": TRLConfig(use_liger_loss=True),
                 },
                 True,
-                "GRPO + CP + Liger not currently supported",
+                "GRPO + SP + Liger not currently supported",
             ),
             # Invalid: GRPO config with Liger loss
             (
                 {
                     "rl": "grpo",
-                    "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+                    "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
                     "flash_attention": True,
                     "micro_batch_size": 2,
                     "trl": {"use_liger_loss": True},
                 },
                 None,
                 False,
-                "GRPO + CP + Liger not currently supported",
+                "GRPO + SP + Liger not currently supported",
             ),
         ],
         ids=[
@@ -222,10 +222,10 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
             "grpo_with_liger_loss",
         ],
     )
-    def test_context_parallel_config_validation(
+    def test_sequence_parallel_config_validation(
         self, base_cfg, config_updates, expected_values, should_pass, error_msg
     ):
-        """Test various context parallelism configuration scenarios."""
+        """Test various sequence parallelism configuration scenarios."""
         from axolotl.utils.schemas.config import AxolotlInputConfig
 
         # Apply updates to base config
@@ -261,7 +261,7 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
 
         # Apply updates to base config
         cfg = base_cfg | {
-            "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+            "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
             "flash_attention": True,
             "sample_packing": sample_packing,
         }
@@ -281,7 +281,7 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
 
         # Invalid configuration with invalid ring_attn_func
         cfg = base_cfg | {
-            "context_parallel_degree": 2,
+            "sequence_parallel_degree": 2,
             "flash_attention": True,
             "ring_attn_func": "INVALID_FUNC",
         }
@@ -294,8 +294,8 @@ class TestConfigValidation:
         assert "Input should be 'varlen_llama3' or 'batch_ring'" in str(excinfo.value)
 
 
-class TestApplyContextParallelism:
-    """Tests for the apply_context_parallelism function."""
+class TestApplySequenceParallelism:
+    """Tests for the apply_sequence_parallelism function."""
 
     @pytest.fixture(autouse=True)
     def mock_distributed(self, monkeypatch):
@@ -324,12 +324,12 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
         )
 
     @patch("axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn.patch.get_ring_attn_group")
-    def test_world_size_one(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, context_parallel_batch):
+    def test_world_size_one(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, sequence_parallel_batch):
         """Test that function returns original batch when world size is 1."""
         mock_get_ring_attn_group.return_value = 0
 
-        result, _, _ = apply_context_parallelism(
-            batch=context_parallel_batch,
+        result, _, _ = apply_sequence_parallelism(
+            batch=sequence_parallel_batch,
             local_rank=0,
             local_world_size=1,
             gradient_accumulation_steps=1,
@@ -337,17 +337,17 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
         )
 
         # Should return the original batch unchanged
-        assert result == context_parallel_batch
+        assert result == sequence_parallel_batch
 
     @patch("axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn.patch.get_ring_attn_group")
-    def test_batch_ring_rank0(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, context_parallel_batch):
+    def test_batch_ring_rank0(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, sequence_parallel_batch):
         """Test BATCH_RING sharding for rank 0 in a 2-process group."""
         mock_get_ring_attn_group.return_value = 0
 
-        batch = context_parallel_batch
+        batch = sequence_parallel_batch
         seq_len = batch["input_ids"].size(1)
 
-        result, _, _ = apply_context_parallelism(
+        result, _, _ = apply_sequence_parallelism(
             batch=batch,
             local_rank=0,
             local_world_size=2,
@@ -366,15 +366,15 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
         )
 
     @patch("axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn.patch.get_ring_attn_group")
-    def test_batch_ring_rank1(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, context_parallel_batch):
+    def test_batch_ring_rank1(self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, sequence_parallel_batch):
         """Test BATCH_RING sharding for rank 1 in a 2-process group."""
         mock_get_ring_attn_group.return_value = 0
 
-        batch = context_parallel_batch
+        batch = sequence_parallel_batch
         seq_len = batch["input_ids"].size(1)
         original_input_ids = batch["input_ids"].clone()
 
-        result, _, _ = apply_context_parallelism(
+        result, _, _ = apply_sequence_parallelism(
             batch=batch,
             local_rank=1,
             local_world_size=2,
@@ -386,14 +386,14 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
         assert torch.equal(result["input_ids"], original_input_ids[:, seq_len // 2 :])
 
     # TODO(djsaunde): add back once implemented.
-    # def test_batch_zigzag(self, context_parallel_batch):
+    # def test_batch_zigzag(self, sequence_parallel_batch):
     #     """Test BATCH_ZIGZAG sharding pattern."""
-    #     batch = context_parallel_batch
+    #     batch = sequence_parallel_batch
     #     original_input_ids = batch["input_ids"].clone()
     #     seq_len = batch["input_ids"].size(1)
 
     #     # Test rank 0
-    #     result_rank0 = apply_context_parallelism(
+    #     result_rank0 = apply_sequence_parallelism(
     #         batch={k: v.clone() for k, v in batch.items()},
     #         local_rank=0,
     #         local_world_size=2,
@@ -401,7 +401,7 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
     #     )
 
     #     # Test rank 1
-    #     result_rank1 = apply_context_parallelism(
+    #     result_rank1 = apply_sequence_parallelism(
     #         batch={k: v.clone() for k, v in batch.items()},
     #         local_rank=1,
     #         local_world_size=2,
@@ -430,17 +430,17 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
 
     @patch("axolotl.monkeypatch.ring_attn.patch.get_ring_attn_group")
     def test_partial_application(
-        self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, context_parallel_batch
+        self, mock_get_ring_attn_group, sequence_parallel_batch
     ):
         """Test that we can create a partially applied version of the function."""
         mock_get_ring_attn_group.return_value = 0
 
-        batch = context_parallel_batch
+        batch = sequence_parallel_batch
         original_input_ids = batch["input_ids"].clone()
 
         # Create a partially applied function
         rank0_ring_parallel = functools.partial(
-            apply_context_parallelism,
+            apply_sequence_parallelism,
             local_rank=0,
             local_world_size=2,
             gradient_accumulation_steps=1,
@@ -457,14 +457,16 @@ class TestApplyContextParallelism:
             original_input_ids[:, : original_input_ids.shape[1] // 2],
         )
 
-    def test_missing_position_ids(self, context_parallel_batch):
+    def test_missing_position_ids(self, sequence_parallel_batch):
         """Test handling of batch without position_ids."""
         # Create a batch without position_ids
-        batch = {k: v for k, v in context_parallel_batch.items() if k != "position_ids"}
+        batch = {
+            k: v for k, v in sequence_parallel_batch.items() if k != "position_ids"
+        }
         original_input_ids = batch["input_ids"].clone()
 
         # This should run without error even though position_ids is missing
-        result, _, _ = apply_context_parallelism(
+        result, _, _ = apply_sequence_parallelism(
             batch=batch,
             local_rank=0,
             local_world_size=2,