The main goal of llama.cpp is to enable LLM inference with minimal setup and state-of-the-art performance on a wide
range of hardware - locally and in the cloud.
Plain C/C++ implementation without any dependencies
Apple silicon is a first-class citizen - optimized via ARM NEON, Accelerate and Metal frameworks
AVX, AVX2, AVX512 and AMX support for x86 architectures
1.5-bit, 2-bit, 3-bit, 4-bit, 5-bit, 6-bit, and 8-bit integer quantization for faster inference and reduced memory use
Custom CUDA kernels for running LLMs on NVIDIA GPUs (support for AMD GPUs via HIP and Moore Threads MTT GPUs via MUSA)
Vulkan and SYCL backend support
CPU+GPU hybrid inference to partially accelerate models larger than the total VRAM capacity
The llama.cpp project is the main playground for developing new features for the ggml library.
Models
Typically finetunes of the base models below are supported as well.
Styled Lines (proprietary licensed, async wrapper of inference part for game development in Unity3d with pre-built Mobile and Web platform wrappers and a model example)
Infrastructure
Paddler - Stateful load balancer custom-tailored for llama.cpp
The main product of this project is the llama library. Its C-style interface can be found in include/llama.h.
The project also includes many example programs and tools using the llama library. The examples range from simple, minimal code snippets to sophisticated sub-projects such as an OpenAI-compatible HTTP server. Possible methods for obtaining the binaries:
Clone this repository and build locally, see how to build
You can either manually download the GGUF file or directly use any llama.cpp-compatible models from Hugging Face by using this CLI argument: -hf <user>/<model>[:quant]
After downloading a model, use the CLI tools to run it locally - see below.
llama.cpp requires the model to be stored in the GGUF file format. Models in other data formats can be converted to GGUF using the convert_*.py Python scripts in this repo.
The Hugging Face platform provides a variety of online tools for converting, quantizing and hosting models with llama.cpp:
Use the GGUF-my-repo space to convert to GGUF format and quantize model weights to smaller sizes
A CLI tool for accessing and experimenting with most of llama.cpp‘s functionality.
Run in conversation mode
Models with a built-in chat template will automatically activate conversation mode. If this doesn’t occur, you can manually enable it by adding -cnv and specifying a suitable chat template with --chat-template NAME
llama-cli -m model.gguf
# > hi, who are you?
# Hi there! I'm your helpful assistant! I'm an AI-powered chatbot designed to assist and provide information to users like you. I'm here to help answer your questions, provide guidance, and offer support on a wide range of topics. I'm a friendly and knowledgeable AI, and I'm always happy to help with anything you need. What's on your mind, and how can I assist you today?
#
# > what is 1+1?
# Easy peasy! The answer to 1+1 is... 2!
Run in conversation mode with custom chat template
# use the "chatml" template (use -h to see the list of supported templates)
llama-cli -m model.gguf -cnv --chat-template chatml
# use a custom template
llama-cli -m model.gguf -cnv --in-prefix 'User: ' --reverse-prompt 'User:'
Run simple text completion
To disable conversation mode explicitly, use -no-cnv
llama-cli -m model.gguf -p "I believe the meaning of life is" -n 128 -no-cnv
# I believe the meaning of life is to find your own truth and to live in accordance with it. For me, this means being true to myself and following my passions, even if they don't align with societal expectations. I think that's what I love about yoga – it's not just a physical practice, but a spiritual one too. It's about connecting with yourself, listening to your inner voice, and honoring your own unique journey.
Constrain the output with a custom grammar
llama-cli -m model.gguf -n 256 --grammar-file grammars/json.gbnf -p 'Request: schedule a call at 8pm; Command:'
# {"appointmentTime": "8pm", "appointmentDetails": "schedule a a call"}
The grammars/ folder contains a handful of sample grammars. To write your own, check out the GBNF Guide.
A lightweight, OpenAI API compatible, HTTP server for serving LLMs.
Start a local HTTP server with default configuration on port 8080
llama-server -m model.gguf --port 8080
# Basic web UI can be accessed via browser: http://localhost:8080
# Chat completion endpoint: http://localhost:8080/v1/chat/completions
Support multiple-users and parallel decoding
# up to 4 concurrent requests, each with 4096 max context
llama-server -m model.gguf -c 16384 -np 4
Enable speculative decoding
# the draft.gguf model should be a small variant of the target model.gguf
llama-server -m model.gguf -md draft.gguf
Serve an embedding model
# use the /embedding endpoint
llama-server -m model.gguf --embedding --pooling cls -ub 8192
Serve a reranking model
# use the /reranking endpoint
llama-server -m model.gguf --reranking
A minimal example for implementing apps with llama.cpp. Useful for developers.
Basic text completion
llama-simple -m model.gguf
# Hello my name is Kaitlyn and I am a 16 year old girl. I am a junior in high school and I am currently taking a class called "The Art of
Contributing
Contributors can open PRs
Collaborators can push to branches in the llama.cpp repo and merge PRs into the master branch
Collaborators will be invited based on contributions
Any help with managing issues, PRs and projects is very appreciated!
If your issue is with model generation quality, then please at least scan the following links and papers to understand the limitations of LLaMA models. This is especially important when choosing an appropriate model size and appreciating both the significant and subtle differences between LLaMA models and ChatGPT:
llama.cpp
Roadmap / Project status / Manifesto / ggml
Inference of Meta’s LLaMA model (and others) in pure C/C++
Recent API changes
libllama
APIllama-server
REST APIHot topics
llama-server
: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/pull/9639Description
The main goal of
llama.cpp
is to enable LLM inference with minimal setup and state-of-the-art performance on a wide range of hardware - locally and in the cloud.The
llama.cpp
project is the main playground for developing new features for the ggml library.Models
Typically finetunes of the base models below are supported as well.
Instructions for adding support for new models: HOWTO-add-model.md
Text-only
Multimodal
Bindings
UIs
(to have a project listed here, it should clearly state that it depends on
llama.cpp
)Tools
Infrastructure
Games
Supported backends
Building the project
The main product of this project is the
llama
library. Its C-style interface can be found in include/llama.h. The project also includes many example programs and tools using thellama
library. The examples range from simple, minimal code snippets to sophisticated sub-projects such as an OpenAI-compatible HTTP server. Possible methods for obtaining the binaries:llama.cpp
via brew, flox or nixObtaining and quantizing models
The Hugging Face platform hosts a number of LLMs compatible with
llama.cpp
:You can either manually download the GGUF file or directly use any
llama.cpp
-compatible models from Hugging Face by using this CLI argument:-hf <user>/<model>[:quant]
After downloading a model, use the CLI tools to run it locally - see below.
llama.cpp
requires the model to be stored in the GGUF file format. Models in other data formats can be converted to GGUF using theconvert_*.py
Python scripts in this repo.The Hugging Face platform provides a variety of online tools for converting, quantizing and hosting models with
llama.cpp
:llama.cpp
in the cloud (more info: https://github.com/ggml-org/llama.cpp/discussions/9669)To learn more about model quantization, read this documentation
llama-cli
A CLI tool for accessing and experimenting with most of
llama.cpp
‘s functionality.Run in conversation mode
Models with a built-in chat template will automatically activate conversation mode. If this doesn’t occur, you can manually enable it by adding
-cnv
and specifying a suitable chat template with--chat-template NAME
Run in conversation mode with custom chat template
Run simple text completion
To disable conversation mode explicitly, use
-no-cnv
Constrain the output with a custom grammar
The grammars/ folder contains a handful of sample grammars. To write your own, check out the GBNF Guide.
For authoring more complex JSON grammars, check out https://grammar.intrinsiclabs.ai/
llama-server
A lightweight, OpenAI API compatible, HTTP server for serving LLMs.
Start a local HTTP server with default configuration on port 8080
Support multiple-users and parallel decoding
Enable speculative decoding
Serve an embedding model
Serve a reranking model
Constrain all outputs with a grammar
llama-perplexity
A tool for measuring the perplexity ^1 (and other quality metrics) of a model over a given text.
Measure the perplexity over a text file
Measure KL divergence
llama-bench
Benchmark the performance of the inference for various parameters.
Run default benchmark
llama-run
A comprehensive example for running
llama.cpp
models. Useful for inferencing. Used with RamaLama ^3.Run a model with a specific prompt (by default it's pulled from Ollama registry)
llama-simple
A minimal example for implementing apps with
llama.cpp
. Useful for developers.Basic text completion
Contributing
llama.cpp
repo and merge PRs into themaster
branchOther documentation
Development documentation
Seminal papers and background on the models
If your issue is with model generation quality, then please at least scan the following links and papers to understand the limitations of LLaMA models. This is especially important when choosing an appropriate model size and appreciating both the significant and subtle differences between LLaMA models and ChatGPT:
Completions
Command-line completion is available for some environments.
Bash Completion
Optionally this can be added to your
.bashrc
or.bash_profile
to load it automatically. For example:References