Files
Model-Optimizer/README.md
T
realAsma e27f76fbfe Refine agent contribution guidance (#1488)
### What does this PR do?

Type of change: documentation.

This PR centralizes repository agent guidance around `AGENTS.md` as the
shared
entrypoint. `CLAUDE.md` now points to `AGENTS.md`, while detailed coding
principles and tool-specific setup notes live under `.agents/`.

Key changes:

- Add `AGENTS.md` as the shared repository agent instructions file.
- Point `CLAUDE.md` at `AGENTS.md` so Claude Code reads the same
entrypoint.
- Add `.agents/developer-guidelines.md` for production code and review
principles, including minimal changes, extension points, testing,
performance,
  and compatibility expectations.
- Add `.agents/TOOLING.md` for human-maintained notes about local agent
  overrides and shared instruction maintenance.
- Update the Claude review workflow to read `AGENTS.md` and
  `.agents/developer-guidelines.md`.
- Update contributor and README guidance with focused local validation
examples
  and an AI-agent pointer.
- Ignore local agent override files.

### Usage

N/A. Documentation-only change.

### Testing

- `git diff --check`
- Commit pre-commit hooks passed, including `markdownlint-cli2`.
- GitHub PR checks passed, including code quality, docs, unit Linux,
required
  gate checks, DCO, CodeRabbit, and Codecov.

### Before your PR is "*Ready for review*"

Make sure you read and follow [Contributor
guidelines](https://github.com/NVIDIA/Model-Optimizer/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md)
and your commits are signed (`git commit -s -S`).

Make sure you read and follow the [Security Best
Practices](https://github.com/NVIDIA/Model-Optimizer/blob/main/SECURITY.md#security-coding-practices-for-contributors)
(e.g. avoiding hardcoded `trust_remote_code=True`, `torch.load(...,
weights_only=False)`, `pickle`, etc.).

- Is this change backward compatible?: N/A
- If you copied code from any other sources or added a new PIP
dependency, did you follow guidance in `CONTRIBUTING.md`: N/A
- Did you write any new necessary tests?: N/A
- Did you update
[Changelog](https://github.com/NVIDIA/Model-Optimizer/blob/main/CHANGELOG.rst)?:
N/A
- Did you get Claude approval on this PR?: N/A

### Additional Information

Docs-only agent guidance update.

<!-- This is an auto-generated comment: release notes by coderabbit.ai
-->
## Summary by CodeRabbit

* **Documentation**
* Added comprehensive AI-agent instructions, developer guidelines, and
tooling notes for AI-assisted workflows.
* Updated contribution docs with clearer test-running guidance and
linked agent resources from the main README.
* Adjusted the code-review workflow to reference the new guidance
materials.
* **Chores**
  * Updated ignore rules to exclude local agent override files.
<!-- end of auto-generated comment: release notes by coderabbit.ai -->

---------

Signed-off-by: realAsma <akuriparambi@nvidia.com>
2026-05-14 11:55:15 -07:00

15 KiB

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NVIDIA Model Optimizer

Documentation version license

Documentation | Roadmap


NVIDIA Model Optimizer (referred to as Model Optimizer, or ModelOpt) is a library comprising state-of-the-art model optimization techniques including quantization, distillation, pruning, speculative decoding and sparsity to accelerate models.

[Input] Model Optimizer currently supports inputs of a Hugging Face, PyTorch or ONNX model.

[Optimize] Model Optimizer provides Python APIs for users to easily compose the above model optimization techniques and export an optimized quantized checkpoint. Model Optimizer is also integrated with NVIDIA Megatron-Bridge, Megatron-LM and Hugging Face Accelerate for training required inference optimization techniques.

[Export for deployment] Seamlessly integrated within the NVIDIA AI software ecosystem, the quantized checkpoint generated from Model Optimizer is ready for deployment in downstream inference frameworks like SGLang, TensorRT-LLM, TensorRT, or vLLM. The unified Hugging Face export API now supports both transformers and diffusers models.

Latest News

Previous News

Install

To install stable release packages for Model Optimizer with pip from PyPI:

pip install -U nvidia-modelopt[all]

Model Optimizer will download and install additional third-party open source software projects. Review the license terms of these open source projects before use.

To install from source in editable mode with all development dependencies or to use the latest features, run:

# Clone the Model Optimizer repository
git clone git@github.com:NVIDIA/Model-Optimizer.git
cd Model-Optimizer

pip install -e .[dev]

You can also directly use NVIDIA container images, which have Model Optimizer pre-installed:

  • nvcr.io/nvidia/pytorch:<version>-py3
  • nvcr.io/nvidia/nemo:<version>
  • nvcr.io/nvidia/tensorrt-llm/release:<version>
  • nvcr.io/nvidia/tensorrt:<version>-py3

Before pulling and using the container images, please review their respective license terms. Make sure to upgrade Model Optimizer to the latest version as described above. Visit our installation guide for more fine-grained control on installed dependencies or for alternative docker images and environment variables to setup.

Techniques

Technique Description Examples Docs
Post Training Quantization Compress model size by 2x-4x, speeding up inference while preserving model quality! [LLMs] [diffusers] [VLMs] [onnx] [windows] [docs]
Quantization Aware Training Refine accuracy even further with a few training steps! [Hugging Face] [docs]
Pruning Reduce your model size and accelerate inference by removing unnecessary weights! [General] [Megatron-Bridge]
Distillation Reduce deployment model size by teaching small models to behave like larger models! [Megatron-Bridge] [Megatron-LM] [Hugging Face] [docs]
Speculative Decoding Train draft modules to predict extra tokens during inference! [Megatron] [Hugging Face] [docs]
Sparsity Efficiently compress your model by storing only its non-zero parameter values and their locations [PyTorch] [docs]

Pre-Quantized Checkpoints

Resources

Model Support Matrix

Model Type Support Matrix
LLM Quantization View Support Matrix
Diffusers Quantization View Support Matrix
VLM Quantization View Support Matrix
ONNX Quantization View Support Matrix
Windows Quantization View Support Matrix
Quantization Aware Training View Support Matrix
Pruning View Support Matrix
Distillation View Support Matrix
Speculative Decoding View Support Matrix

Deprecation Policy

Model Optimizer follows a structured approach to managing deprecated features:

  • Communication: Deprecation notices are documented in the Changelog. Deprecated items include source code statements indicating deprecation timing, with runtime warnings issued upon use.
  • Migration Period: Since Model Optimizer is still pre-1.0, we provide a 1-release (~1-month) migration period after deprecation. During this window, deprecated features continue functioning while issuing warnings.
  • Scope: The policy addresses both complete deprecations (entire APIs removed) and partial ones (specific parameters removed while methods remain).
  • Removal: Following the migration period, deprecated elements are removed in alignment with semantic versioning standards, potentially including breaking changes in minor version updates while Model Optimizer remains in 0.x.

Contributing

Model Optimizer is now open source! We welcome any feedback, feature requests and PRs. Please read our Contributing guidelines for details on how to contribute to this project.

AI Agents

For AI-assisted development setup, see the agent tooling notes.

Top Contributors

Contributors

Happy optimizing!