tilelang/docs/tutorials/debug_tools_for_tilelang.md

Debugging Tile Language Programs

Author: Lei Wang

Overview

A Tile Language program (hereafter referred to as a program) is transformed into a hardware-executable file through several stages:

1. The user writes a Tile Language program.
2. The program undergoes multiple Passes for transformation and optimization (the lower stage, see tilelang/engine/lower.py), finally producing an intermediate representation (e.g., LLVM or C for CPU, CUDA for NVIDIA GPUs, etc.).
3. The generated code is compiled by the respective compiler (e.g., nvcc) into a hardware-executable file.

:width: 300
:alt: Overview of the compilation process
:align: center

During this process, users may encounter roughly three categories of issues:

• Generation issues: The Tile Language program fails to generate a valid hardware-executable file (i.e., errors during the lowering process).
• Correctness issues: The resulting executable runs, but produces incorrect results.
• Performance issues: The executable runs with performance significantly below the expected theoretical hardware limits.

This tutorial focuses on the first two issues—how to debug generation and correctness problems. Performance tuning often requires using vendor-provided profiling tools (e.g., Nsight Compute, rocProf, etc.) for further hardware-level analysis, which we will address in future materials.

Below, we take matrix multiplication (GEMM) as an example to demonstrate how to write and debug a Tile Language program.

Matrix Multiplication Example

In Tile Language, you can use the Tile Library to implement matrix multiplication. Here's a complete example:

import tilelang
import tilelang.language as T

def matmul(M, N, K, block_M, block_N, block_K, dtype="float16", accum_dtype="float"):
    # ...existing code...

# 1. Define the kernel (matmul) with the desired dimensions
func = matmul(1024, 1024, 1024, 128, 128, 32)

# 2. Compile the kernel into a torch function
# ...existing code...

Debugging Generation Issues

TileLang essentially performs progressive lowering. For example, a T.copy may first be expanded into T.Parallel (see the pass LowerTileOP), which is then expanded again, eventually resulting in lower-level statements that can be translated to CUDA C code.

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:alt: IR transformation diagram
:align: center

When the code fails to generate (for instance, a compilation error occurs), you do not necessarily need to jump directly into C++ passes to debug. Instead, you can first inspect the intermediate representations (IR) in Python by printing them.

For example, consider a case where a simple T.copy in 1D causes the lowering process to fail. The snippet below illustrates a simplified version of the problem (based on community Issue #35):

@T.prim_func
def main(Q: T.Tensor(shape_q, dtype)):
    # ...existing code...

The TileLang lower process might yield an error such as:

File "/root/TileLang/src/target/codegen_cuda.cc", line 1257
ValueError: Check failed: lanes <= 4 (8 vs. 4) : Ramp of more than 4 lanes is not allowed.

This indicates that somewhere during code generation, an unsupported vectorization pattern was introduced (a ramp of 8 lanes). Before diving into the underlying C++ code, it is helpful to print the IR right before code generation. For instance:

device_mod = tir.transform.Filter(is_device_call)(mod)
# ...existing code...

Debugging Correctness Issues

Sometimes, the kernel compiles and runs but produces incorrect results. In such cases, there are two main strategies to help debug:

1. Use post-processing callbacks to inspect or modify the generated CUDA code.
2. Use the built-in T.print debugging primitive to inspect values at runtime.

Post-Processing Callbacks for Generated Source

After code generation (in the codegen pass), TileLang calls a callback function (if registered) to allow post-processing of the generated source code. In src/target/rt_mod_cuda.cc:

std::string code = cg.Finish();
if (const auto *f = Registry::Get("tilelang_callback_cuda_postproc")) {
    code = (*f)(code, target).operator std::string();
}

Hence, by registering a Python function named tilelang_callback_cuda_postproc, you can intercept the final CUDA code string. For example:

import tilelang
import tilelang.language as T
from tilelang import tvm
from tilelang.engine.callback import register_cuda_postproc_callback

@register_cuda_postproc_callback
def tilelang_callback_cuda_postproc(code, _):
    print(code) # print the final CUDA code
    code = "// modified by tilelang_callback_cuda_postproc\n" + code
    return code

kernel = tilelang.compile(matmul, target="cuda")
kernel_source = kernel.get_kernel_source()
print(kernel_source)
'''
// modified by tilelang_callback_cuda_postproc
#include "cuda_runtime.h"
...
'''

Runtime Debug Prints with T.print

TileLang provides a built-in debugging primitive called T.print for printing within kernels. Be mindful of concurrency and thread synchronization when using it in GPU code. Below are some examples showing how to print buffers, variables, and other data inside TileLang programs.

1. Printing an Entire Buffer

def debug_print_buffer(M=16, N=16):
    # ...existing code...

2. Conditional Printing

def debug_print_buffer_conditional(M=16, N=16):
    # ...existing code...

3. Printing Thread Indices or Scalar Values

def debug_print_value_conditional(M=16, N=16):
    # ...existing code...

4. Printing Fragment (Register File) Contents

def debug_print_register_files(M=16, N=16):
    # ...existing code...

5. Adding a Message Prefix

def debug_print_msg(M=16, N=16):
    # ...existing code...

The output messages will include something like:

msg='hello world' BlockIdx=(0, 0, 0), ThreadIdx=(0, 0, 0): 0

Conclusion

By carefully examining intermediate representations (IR) before final code generation—and by leveraging runtime printing through T.print—one can quickly diagnose where index calculations, copy logic, or other kernel operations deviate from the intended behavior. This two-pronged approach (inspecting IR transformations and using runtime prints) is often sufficient for resolving generation and correctness issues in TileLang programs.

For advanced performance tuning (e.g., analyzing memory bandwidth or occupancy), more specialized profiling tools such as Nsight Compute, rocProf, or vendor-specific profilers may be required. Those aspects will be covered in future documents.