frank-default-small: disable speculative decoding to keep 3 slots

ik_llama limits speculative decoding to a single server slot (-np 1) and
hard-exits at load if a spec stage is configured with --parallel > 1:
"Speculative decoding is currently limited to a single server slot
(-np 1)." This service keeps PARALLEL=3 (one slot per user), so set
SPEC_TYPE=none to disable speculation. It is a low-parameter MoE (3B
active of 35B), so throughput is fine without it. MTP stays disabled.
KB and tests updated.

docs/LLM/ikllama-ornith-dankserver.md

@@ -1,7 +1,7 @@
 ---
 type: reference
 title: ik_llama.cpp on Dankserver (Ornith Q6_K)
-description: ikawrakow/ik_llama.cpp replaces upstream llama.cpp for frank-default-small on the RTX 3090. q8_0 KV cache with Hadamard (the fast q8_KV type crashes on this arch at this commit), split-mode none (graph requires >=2 GPUs), ngram-mod canonical args, and explicit CPU-expert offload. Includes the mandatory CUDA/IQK FA_ALL_QUANTS build flags.
+description: ikawrakow/ik_llama.cpp replaces upstream llama.cpp for frank-default-small on the RTX 3090. q8_0 KV cache with Hadamard (the fast q8_KV type crashes on this arch at this commit), split-mode none (graph requires >=2 GPUs), speculative decoding disabled (3 parallel slots), and explicit CPU-expert offload. Includes the mandatory CUDA/IQK FA_ALL_QUANTS build flags.
 tags:
   - ikllama
   - llamacpp
@@ -23,8 +23,9 @@ timestamp: 2026-08-26
 
 The model is unchanged: `dealignai/Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-UNCENSORED` (CRACK
 Q6_K), 35B-total / 3B-active MoE-dense hybrid with an MTP head in the GGUF.
-Speculation stays ngram-only (MTP intentionally disabled). See
-[[dealign-ornith-crack]] for the model runbook.
+Speculative decoding is **disabled** (ik_llama limits spec to a single slot;
+this service keeps 3 parallel slots). The low-parameter MoE does not need
+it. See [[dealign-ornith-crack]] for the model runbook.
 
 ## Why ik_llama.cpp
 
@@ -155,20 +156,25 @@ the CPU buft, leaving every full-attention block plus blocks 35-40 on CUDA.
   integer (the literal `all` is rejected). 999 means "load as many tensor
   layers as possible", while the expert override still pins the exps to CPU.
 
-### Speculative decoding: canonical ngram-mod
+### Speculative decoding: disabled (3 parallel slots)
 
-ik_llama `main` **rejects** the legacy `--spec-ngram-mod-n-min/max/match`
-flags. The canonical form is a repeated `--spec-type ngram-mod:<k=v>`:
-- `SPEC_TYPE=ngram-mod:n_min=48,n_max=64,ngram_size_n=24`
+`SPEC_TYPE=none` (passed as `--spec-type none`). Speculative decoding is
+intentionally disabled because ik_llama **limits any speculative stage to a
+a single server slot**: with `--parallel 3` a configured spec stage
+hard-exits at load with
 
-Mapping from the old upstream config:
-| legacy flag | old value | new canonical key |
-|-------------|----------|-------------------|
-| `--spec-ngram-mod-n-min` | 48 | `n_min=48` |
-| `--spec-ngram-mod-n-max` | 64 | `n_max=64` |
-| `--spec-ngram-mod-n-match` | 24 | `ngram_size_n=24` |
+> `ERR [load_model] Speculative decoding is currently limited to a single
+> server slot (-np 1).` / `n_parallel=3`
 
-MTP remains intentionally disabled.
+This service keeps **3 parallel slots** (one per user family via
+`PARALLEL=3`), so speculative decoding cannot be used here. MTP stays
+disabled. The model is a low-parameter MoE (3B active of 35B) and does not
+need the speculation it would cost a slot for.
+
+> **Lesson.** Do not combine speculative decoding with `--parallel > 1` in
+> ik_llama. Either drop to `-np 1` (one slot) and keep a spec stage, or keep
+> multiple slots and set `SPEC_TYPE=none`. For a multi-user service the
+> extra slots win.
 
 ### Flash-attention + sampling
 
@@ -201,8 +207,8 @@ The previous runtime `upstream llama.cpp b10121` and its binary
 (`/home/dank/llama.cpp/build/bin/llama-server`) are **left untouched**. To
 rollback to the old stack, change `LLAMA_SERVER=` in
 `scripts/frank-default-small.env` back to that path and
-`CACHE_TYPE_K/V` back to `f16` with Hadamard off, and re-append the
-`--spec-ngram-mod-*` flags. The model file is not changed either way.
+`CACHE_TYPE_K/V` back to `f16` with Hadamard off, and re-enable the ngram
+spec / `--spec-type` flags. The model file is not changed either way.
 
 ## See Also
 

docs/LLM/index.md

@@ -20,7 +20,7 @@ graph LR
         B2[ik_llama.cpp build b166e269
 frank-default-small, port 7770]
         C[Ornith-1.5-35B-A3B-CRACK Q6_K
-ngram-mod, q8_0 + Hadamard cache, 491520 ctx]
+no speculation, q8_0 + Hadamard cache, 491520 ctx]
         A --> B2 --> C
     end