upgrade flash-attn to 2.8.3 for gpt-oss attn sink support (#3082)

* refactor: improve output_dir handling in generate_config_files

* fix typo

* cli: harden sweep output_dir handling with base fallback

- Ensure sweep permutations always resolve a valid output_dir
- Default to ./model-out if neither permutation nor base config sets output_dir
- Append sweepXXXX suffix consistently for each permutation
- Prevent Path(None) TypeError and improve robustness of sweep config generation

* fix typo

* chore: lint

---------

Co-authored-by: Wing Lian <wing@axolotl.ai>

.coderabbit.yaml

@@ -12,5 +12,6 @@ reviews:
   auto_review:
     enabled: true
     drafts: false
+    auto_incremental_review: true
 chat:
   auto_reply: true

examples/gpt-oss/README.md

@@ -41,6 +41,12 @@ model, and final model output, you may need at least 3TB of free disk space to k
 axolotl train examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-120b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml
 ```
 
+To simplify fine-tuning across 2 nodes × 8x H100 (80GB) GPUs, we've partnered with [Baseten](https://baseten.co) to showcase multi-node
+training of the 120B model using Baseten Truss. You can read more about this recipe on
+[Baseten's blog](https://www.baseten.co/blog/how-to-fine-tune-gpt-oss-120b-with-baseten-and-axolotl/). The recipe can
+be found on their
+[GitHub](https://github.com/basetenlabs/ml-cookbook/tree/main/examples/oss-gpt-120b-axolotl/training).
+
 ERRATA: Transformers saves the model Architecture prefixed with `FSDP` which needs to be manually renamed in `config.json`.
 See https://github.com/huggingface/transformers/pull/40207 for the status of this issue.
 
@@ -61,9 +67,23 @@ mv ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/merged/* ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
 ### Inferencing your fine-tuned model
 
+#### vLLM
+
 GPT-OSS support in vLLM does not exist in a stable release yet. See https://x.com/MaziyarPanahi/status/1955741905515323425
 for more information about using a special vllm-openai docker image for inferencing with vLLM.
 
+Optionally, vLLM can be installed from nightly:
+
+```bash
+pip install --no-build-isolation --pre -U vllm --extra-index-url https://wheels.vllm.ai/nightly
+```
+and the vLLM server can be started with the following command (modify `--tensor-parallel-size 8` to match your environment):
+```bash
+vllm serve ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/ --served-model-name axolotl/gpt-oss-20b --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8888  --tensor-parallel-size 8
+```
+
+#### SGLang
+
 SGLang has 0-day support in main, see https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang/issues/8833 for infomation on installing
 SGLang from source. Once you've installed SGLang, run the following command to launch a SGLang server:
 

examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-120b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml

@@ -44,7 +44,7 @@ bf16: true
 tf32: true
 
 flash_attention: true
-attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3
+attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3  # this is not needed if using flash_attn >= 2.8.3
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 activation_offloading: true

examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-deepspeed-zero3.yaml

@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ bf16: true
 tf32: true
 
 flash_attention: true
-attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3
+attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3  # this is not needed if using flash_attn >= 2.8.3
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 activation_offloading: true

examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ datasets:
     field_thinking: thinking
     template_thinking_key: thinking
 
-dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
+dataset_prepared_path: ./outputs/last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0
 output_dir: ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
@@ -41,7 +41,7 @@ bf16: true
 tf32: true
 
 flash_attention: true
-attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3
+attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3  # this is not needed if using flash_attn >= 2.8.3
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 activation_offloading: true

examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2.yaml

@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ datasets:
     field_thinking: thinking
     template_thinking_key: thinking
 
-dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
+dataset_prepared_path: ./outputs/last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0
 output_dir: ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
@@ -40,7 +40,7 @@ bf16: true
 tf32: true
 
 flash_attention: true
-attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3
+attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3  # this is not needed if using flash_attn >= 2.8.3
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 activation_offloading: true

examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-sft-lora-singlegpu.yaml

@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ bf16: true
 tf32: true
 
 flash_attention: true
-attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3
+attn_implementation: kernels-community/vllm-flash-attn3  # this is not needed if using flash_attn >= 2.8.3
 
 gradient_checkpointing: true
 activation_offloading: true

setup.py

@@ -118,9 +118,9 @@ def get_package_version():
 
 
 extras_require = {
-    "flash-attn": ["flash-attn==2.8.2"],
+    "flash-attn": ["flash-attn==2.8.3"],
     "ring-flash-attn": [
-        "flash-attn==2.8.2",
+        "flash-attn==2.8.3",
         "ring-flash-attn>=0.1.7",
         "yunchang==0.6.0",
     ],

src/axolotl/cli/args.py

@@ -40,6 +40,12 @@ class VllmServeCliArgs:
         default=None,
         metadata={"help": "Number of tensor parallel workers to use."},
     )
+    data_parallel_size: Optional[int] = field(
+        default=None,
+        metadata={
+            "help": "Number of data parallel workers to use for vLLM serving. This controls how many model replicas are used for parallel inference."
+        },
+    )
     host: Optional[str] = field(
         default=None,  # nosec B104
         metadata={"help": "Host address to run the server on."},

src/axolotl/cli/cloud/modal_.py

@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ class ModalCloud(Cloud):
         return res
 
     def get_image(self):
-        docker_tag = "main-py3.11-cu124-2.6.0"
+        docker_tag = "main-py3.11-cu126-2.7.1"
         if self.config.docker_tag:
             docker_tag = self.config.docker_tag
         docker_image = f"axolotlai/axolotl:{docker_tag}"
@@ -200,7 +200,7 @@ class ModalCloud(Cloud):
         if family in ["a10", "a10g"]:
             return modal.gpu.A10G(count=count)
         if family == "h100":
-            return modal.gpu.H100(count=count)
+            return f"H100:{count}"
         if family == "t4":
             return modal.gpu.T4(count=count)
         if family == "l4":

src/axolotl/cli/inference.py

@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ def do_inference(
             importlib.import_module("axolotl.prompters"), prompter
         )
     elif cfg.chat_template:
-        chat_template_str = get_chat_template(cfg.chat_template)
+        chat_template_str = get_chat_template(cfg.chat_template, tokenizer=tokenizer)
     elif cfg.datasets[0].type == "chat_template":
         chat_template_str = get_chat_template_from_config(
             cfg=cfg, ds_cfg=cfg.datasets[0], tokenizer=tokenizer

src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py

@@ -97,7 +97,8 @@ def do_cli(
     """
     # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
     os.environ["AXOLOTL_IS_PREPROCESS"] = "1"
-    parsed_cfg = load_cfg(config, **kwargs)
+    is_preprocess = kwargs.pop("is_preprocess", True)
+    parsed_cfg = load_cfg(config, is_preprocess=is_preprocess, **kwargs)
     parsed_cfg.is_preprocess = True
     parser = transformers.HfArgumentParser(PreprocessCliArgs)
     parsed_cli_args, _ = parser.parse_args_into_dataclasses(

src/axolotl/cli/utils/sweeps.py

@@ -3,11 +3,12 @@
 import random
 from copy import deepcopy
 from itertools import product
+from typing import Any
 
 
 def generate_sweep_configs(
     base_config: dict[str, list], sweeps_config: dict[str, list]
-) -> list[dict[str, list]]:
+) -> list[dict[str, Any]]:
     """
     Recursively generates all possible configurations by applying sweeps to the base config.
 

src/axolotl/cli/utils/train.py

@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@ import os
 import subprocess  # nosec
 import sys
 import tempfile
+from pathlib import Path
 from typing import Any, Iterator, Literal
 
 import yaml
@@ -88,7 +89,12 @@ def generate_config_files(config: str, sweep: str | None) -> Iterator[tuple[str,
     # Generate all possible configurations
     permutations = generate_sweep_configs(base_config, sweep_config)
     is_group = len(permutations) > 1
-    for permutation in permutations:
+    base_output_dir = base_config.get("output_dir", "./model-out")
+    for idx, permutation in enumerate(permutations, start=1):
+        permutation_dir = Path(permutation.get("output_dir", base_output_dir))
+        permutation_id = f"sweep{idx:04d}"
+        permutation["output_dir"] = str(permutation_dir / permutation_id)
+
         # pylint: disable=consider-using-with
         temp_file = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile(
             mode="w",

src/axolotl/core/builders/causal.py

@@ -424,7 +424,7 @@ class HFCausalTrainerBuilder(TrainerBuilderBase):
     ):
         if training_args.pretraining:
             if (
-                not self.cfg.pretraining_sample_concatenation
+                self.cfg.pretraining_sample_concatenation is False
                 or self.cfg.micro_batch_size > 1
             ):
                 return DataCollatorForSeq2Seq(self.tokenizer, **kwargs)

src/axolotl/core/trainers/base.py

@@ -272,20 +272,6 @@ class AxolotlTrainer(
                     num_workers=self.args.dataloader_num_workers,
                     rank=self.args.process_index,
                 )
-
-        if (
-            self.args.accelerator_config is not None
-            and self.args.accelerator_config.split_batches
-            and self.args.accelerator_config.dispatch_batches
-        ):
-            if self.args.sample_packing and self.args.pretraining:
-                if not self.args.eval_sample_packing and not is_training:
-                    dataloader_params["batch_size"] *= self.accelerator.num_processes
-                else:
-                    dataloader_params["batch_size"] = self.accelerator.num_processes
-            elif not self.args.sample_packing and self.args.pretraining:
-                dataloader_params["batch_size"] *= self.accelerator.num_processes
-
         if self.args.sample_packing and (
             (is_training and not self.args.pretraining)
             or (not is_training and self.args.eval_sample_packing is not False)

src/axolotl/monkeypatch/accelerate/fsdp2.py

@@ -187,7 +187,7 @@ def _process_lora_module_for_fsdp(module, fsdp2_kwargs):
 
     # Linear4Bit will keep it's bias term in fp32. If the weight dtype is in bf16 we are not able to
     # wrap this. Therefore we must ensure the bias has the same dtype as the weight
-    if module.base_layer.bias is not None:
+    if hasattr(module.base_layer, "bias") and module.base_layer.bias is not None:
         if module.base_layer.weight.dtype != module.base_layer.bias.dtype:
             log_bias_dtype_mismatch = True
             module.base_layer.bias.data = module.base_layer.bias.data.to(

src/axolotl/train.py

@@ -253,7 +253,9 @@ def save_trained_model(
             # final model weights have already been saved by `ReLoRACallback.on_train_end`
             return
 
-    if trainer.is_fsdp_enabled or cfg.fsdp_config:
+    if (  # pylint: disable=too-many-nested-blocks
+        trainer.is_fsdp_enabled or cfg.fsdp_config
+    ):
         if cfg.fsdp_config or cfg.fsdp:
             if cfg.fsdp_config.final_state_dict_type:
                 state_dict_type = cfg.fsdp_config.final_state_dict_type
@@ -285,6 +287,8 @@ def save_trained_model(
                 if trainer.accelerator.is_main_process:
                     # move all files in merged_path to cfg.output_dir
                     for merged_file in Path(merged_path).iterdir():
+                        if (Path(cfg.output_dir) / merged_file.name).exists():
+                            (Path(cfg.output_dir) / merged_file.name).unlink()
                         shutil.move(str(merged_file), cfg.output_dir)
                     shutil.rmtree(merged_path)  # remove what should be an empty dir
         # TODO(wing):see https://github.com/huggingface/transformers/pull/40207

src/axolotl/utils/data/sft.py

@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ from axolotl.utils.data.shared import (
 )
 from axolotl.utils.data.utils import (
     deduplicate_and_log_datasets,
-    drop_long_seq_in_dataset,
+    handle_long_seq_in_dataset,
     retry_on_request_exceptions,
 )
 from axolotl.utils.data.wrappers import get_dataset_wrapper
@@ -339,9 +339,9 @@ def _load_raw_datasets(
 
     if not cfg.skip_prepare_dataset:
         if split == "test" and cfg.eval_sequence_len:
-            dataset = drop_long_seq_in_dataset(dataset, cfg.eval_sequence_len, cfg)
+            dataset = handle_long_seq_in_dataset(dataset, cfg.eval_sequence_len, cfg)
         else:
-            dataset = drop_long_seq_in_dataset(dataset, cfg.sequence_len, cfg)
+            dataset = handle_long_seq_in_dataset(dataset, cfg.sequence_len, cfg)
         if cfg.sample_packing:
             dataset, _ = process_datasets_for_packing(cfg, dataset, None)
 

src/axolotl/utils/data/utils.py

@@ -148,7 +148,36 @@ def deduplicate_and_log_datasets(
     return dataset, other_dataset
 
 
-def drop_long_seq_in_dataset(
+def truncate_long_seq(sample, sequence_len=2048, min_sequence_len=2):
+    """
+    Truncate samples whose sequence length is too long (> sequence_len)
+    or drop those too short (< min_sequence_len).
+    """
+    min_sequence_len = min_sequence_len or 2
+
+    input_ids = sample["input_ids"]
+    results = []
+
+    # Batched (input_ids is a list of lists)
+    for i, seq in enumerate(input_ids):
+        length = len(seq)
+        if length < min_sequence_len:
+            results.append(False)
+        elif length > sequence_len:
+            sample["input_ids"][i] = seq[:sequence_len]
+            if "attention_mask" in sample:
+                sample["attention_mask"][i] = sample["attention_mask"][i][:sequence_len]
+            if "labels" in sample:
+                sample["labels"][i] = sample["labels"][i][:sequence_len]
+            if "position_ids" in sample:
+                sample["position_ids"][i] = sample["position_ids"][i][:sequence_len]
+            results.append(True)
+        else:
+            results.append(True)
+    return results
+
+
+def handle_long_seq_in_dataset(
     dataset: Dataset, sequence_len: int, cfg: DictDefault
 ) -> Dataset:
     """Remove sequences longer than configured maximum from dataset.
@@ -192,8 +221,21 @@ def drop_long_seq_in_dataset(
     if filter_map_kwargs:
         drop_long_kwargs["desc"] = f"Dropping Long Sequences (>{sequence_len})"
 
+    excess_length_strategy = (cfg.excess_length_strategy or "drop").lower()
+    if excess_length_strategy == "truncate":
+        process_fn = functools.partial(
+            truncate_long_seq,
+            sequence_len=sequence_len,
+            min_sequence_len=cfg.min_sample_len,
+        )
+        drop_long_kwargs["desc"] = (
+            f"Truncating/Filtering Sequences (target_len={sequence_len})"
+        )
+    else:
+        process_fn = drop_long
+
     dataset = dataset.filter(
-        drop_long,
+        process_fn,
         batched=True,
         **filter_map_kwargs,
         **drop_long_kwargs,
@@ -201,6 +243,11 @@ def drop_long_seq_in_dataset(
     if prior_len:
         dropped = prior_len - len(dataset)
         if dropped:
-            LOG.warning(f"Dropped {dropped} long samples from dataset")
+            action = (
+                "truncated/filtered"
+                if excess_length_strategy == "truncate"
+                else "dropped"
+            )
+            LOG.warning(f"{action.title()} {dropped} samples from dataset")
 
     return dataset

src/axolotl/utils/schemas/config.py

@@ -414,6 +414,12 @@ class AxolotlInputConfig(
             "description": "The maximum length of an input to train with, this should typically be less than 2048 as most models have a token/context limit of 2048"
         },
     )
+    excess_length_strategy: Literal["drop", "truncate"] | None = Field(
+        default=None,
+        json_schema_extra={
+            "description": "What to do when a tokenized row exceeds sequence_len. 'drop' removes the row; 'truncate' slices tensors to sequence_len. Defaults to 'drop' for backward compatibility."
+        },
+    )
     eval_sequence_len: int | None = Field(
         default=None,
         json_schema_extra={

tests/test_packed_batch_sampler.py

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ from transformers import AutoTokenizer
 from axolotl.datasets import TokenizedPromptDataset
 from axolotl.prompt_strategies.completion import load
 from axolotl.utils.collators import V2BatchSamplerDataCollatorForSeq2Seq
-from axolotl.utils.data.utils import drop_long_seq_in_dataset
+from axolotl.utils.data.utils import handle_long_seq_in_dataset
 from axolotl.utils.dict import DictDefault
 from axolotl.utils.samplers import MultipackBatchSampler, get_dataset_lengths
 
@@ -70,7 +70,7 @@ class TestBatchedSamplerPacking:
         )
         train_dataset = concatenate_datasets([dataset_wrapper])
 
-        train_dataset = drop_long_seq_in_dataset(train_dataset, cfg.sequence_len, cfg)
+        train_dataset = handle_long_seq_in_dataset(train_dataset, cfg.sequence_len, cfg)
 
         lengths = get_dataset_lengths(train_dataset)
         batch_sampler = MultipackBatchSampler(