FreeToken has no /metrics endpoint — the job scraped 404s forever, a
structural never-green, not an outage (the Lucebox DS4.1 precedent). The
LlmEndpointDown alert regex self-adjusts (frank-.* matches existing series
only). Comments updated; seam now asserts frank-primary's absence. If
FreeToken grows /metrics, re-add the job.
The 2026-09-26 same-day cutover that ended the Lucebox DS4.1 detour:
Dankserver's :7770 endpoint is now unsloth llama.cpp (the b11030-mix
prebuilt, ROCm gfx120X, bundled runtime) serving
unsloth/Qwen3.8-Flash-Next-GGUF at Q8_0 — 175.30 GiB across six sha256-
verified split parts — on both Radeon AI PRO R9700s, as a ROOT unit (the
frank-large shape: no container, no generated unit).
The deployed contract:
- Placement law: layer split -ts 1,1 with -ngl 999; the routed experts
and the 51B-param n-gram (PLE) table are COMPUTED in host RAM via
-ot exps=CPU,ngram_embeddings=CPU (the x4-pair measurement: streaming
over PCIe loses at 3.7 t/s, computing in RAM does not care).
per_layer_token_embd.weight=CPU is required by the shared MTP head's
borrow path (a GPU-resident borrow crashes the draft load).
mmap stays on; --cache-ram 16384.
- Spec chain draft-mtp,ngram-mod: the shared Q8_0 MTP head
(mtp-...-shared-Q8_0.gguf, 2,786,568,256 B) at depth 2, with the
draftless ngram-mod matcher chained behind it — the only legal way to
layer two spec implementations in one process.
- Vision explicit: --mmproj names the BF16 projector (this build never
autoloads; a server without it comes up healthy and text-only).
- Reasoning: --reasoning-format deepseek → reasoning_content; the
Qwen3.8 template's {xhigh, medium, low} reasoning_effort gate folded
by reasoningEffortMap in models.yml.
- One stream, the model's full 262,144 context; greedy server default
with Qwen-recommended sampling riding compat.extraBody.
The deployer's deploy_llm_primary is rewritten for the root unit: it
gates every artifact at its declared byte count (stat -c %s, never wc -c
— which read the whole 377 GiB lucebox file for minutes on 2026-09-26),
retires the lucebox user quadlet to dated home trash, waits out port
7770, relinks/enables/restarts the root unit and waits up to 1800 s for
/health. The quadlet-era tree under dankserver/frank-primary/ is
archived (dankserver/.AGENTTRASH/20260926-llamacpp-cutover/ on this
box; git history everywhere else) and its planner mapping replaced by
the scripts/ trio.
Observability flips back to the llamacpp namespace: a frank-primary
Prometheus job at 192.168.0.235:7770 (cross-host LAN — the netavark
published-port quirk that forces host.containers.internal for the two
Dankclaw endpoints is same-host only), the LlmEndpointDown runbook
text, and the dashboard description for three llama.cpp endpoints.
Docs: the new runbook (frank-primary-llamacpp-qwen38-flash-next-q8.md),
RETIRED banners on the lucebox and radiance runbooks and their index
entries, the AGENTS.md fleet section rewritten for the root-unit shape,
and the homepage frank-medium card renamed to frank-primary with the
Q8_0 Flash-Next spec (docs.html #models and the modality note updated:
images on frank-primary and frank-small, audio on frank-small only).
models.yml: the dankserver provider is "llamacpp (dankserver)" serving
frank-primary, contextWindow 262144, maxTokens 65536 (compaction-gap
law: 183,501 + 65,536 <= 262,144), input [text, image].
Suite: 346 green (frank_primary_unit.bats rewritten for the root unit —
16 tests pinning the placement law, the shared-head requirement, the
explicit projector, HIP env hygiene (BIND_HOST, never bare HOST), and
the deployer's byte-count gates; the quadlet-era planner and
changed-tests mappings rewritten for the trio; the observability scrape
test asserts three llamacpp jobs again).
Rollback: the lucebox image (localhost/lucebox-rocm:gfx1201) and the
378 GiB payload stay on the host; the Qwen payload stays fetched, so a
re-swap in either direction is a redeploy, not a refetch.
The frank-medium retirement tail the 2026-09-26 lucebox cutover left
uncommitted: the radiance quadlet tree, its swap/fetch tooling and its
seam test are deleted (archive copies live in dankserver/.AGENTTRASH/
20260926-frank-medium-radiance/ and scripts/.AGENTTRASH/20260926-
frank-medium-radiance/), the planner/allowlist/test-changed mappings
drop the service, and frank-large's chat template moves to scripts/
(its old home was the retired frank-medium dir).
Finished here:
- tests/frank_primary_unit.bats: the lucebox quadlet seam (boot
persistence, host-network bind, HIP_VISIBLE_DEVICES=0,1, HIP-reserved
env-name guard, checkout-mounted entrypoint/healthcheck, first-start
patience, deployer payload/port gates).
- test-changed.sh: explicit .AGENTTRASH/ case — retirement commits move
files to trash, and the wrapper refused those additions with "no
focused-test mapping".
- observability: the vllm: namespace left with the radiance runtime.
Rules keep only llamacpp:* series (prefix-cache reuse, spec-decode,
queueing, endpoint-down); the dashboard drops the vLLM KV/latency
panels; prometheus.yml documents that frank-primary (lucebox) has no
/metrics and therefore no scrape job. llm-fleet.json was left
corrupted mid-edit (missing opening brace) and is rewritten from HEAD.
Suite: 339 green (was 7 red).
node-exporter is net=host, so its 192.168.0.143:9100 bind is a host bind,
not a published port — the bridge-networked Prometheus container cannot
reach its own host's LAN IP there (netavark DNATs published ports only).
The node-dankclaw target has been red by construction since the
observability cutover while the container reported healthy. Point it at
host.containers.internal:9100 (netavark delivers that to the host LAN IP,
where node-exporter listens) — the same rule frank-large and frank-small
already use. node-dankserver is a different machine and keeps its LAN
address. Update the cross-file contract test and the Targets table.
- shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml: the llamacpp reuse recording rule
divided cached by prompt, but llama.cpp's prompt_tokens_total EXCLUDES
cached tokens (its own HELP line), so the ratio was unbounded — measured
77 on a fully-warm frank-large, meaning LlmPrefixCacheCollapse could never
fire on that side. Now cached / (cached + prompt), with the traffic floor
counting both terms too; the header documents the unit trap. Also fixed the
LlmEndpointDown description: frank-large's CIRU llama.cpp build DOES export
the llamacpp:* family (verified live), so the alert covers all three
endpoints.
- shared/grafana/provisioning/dashboards/llm-fleet.json: re-cut for two
namespaces. Every panel reads both (the endpoint picker selects); the
KV-pool-fill panel retired 2026-09-16 returned with
vllm:kv_cache_usage_perc; the latency p95 panel returned with the vLLM
histograms (TTFT/ITL/e2e); the alerts panel is scoped to the fleet's
Llm.* rules; the stale halogen-era description is gone. All 21 panel
expressions validated against the live endpoints.
- runbook + log + Observability: prefix caching measured, not inferred —
reuse happens at 1,648-token block granularity (attention block size padded
to the mamba page size); an identical 13,021-token prompt went 2.30 s cold
to 0.68 s warm with 9,888 tokens (76 %) reused, while a 2,521-token prompt
registered zero hits. Rule counts corrected to 6 alerts + 3 recording rules.
./tests/run.sh: 325 pass.
The radiance TP=2 cutover changed the metric namespace frank-medium exports
(llamacpp:* -> vllm:*) and left two scrape targets addressing host processes
by an address a container cannot reach.
- shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml: two namespaces side by side. Added
LlmRequestsWaiting, LlmKvCacheSaturated (vllm-only gauges llama.cpp never
had), the job:llm_vllm_prefix_cache_reuse:rate5m and
job:llm_spec_accept_length:rate5m recording rules, and re-cut
LlmPrefixCacheCollapse / LlmSpecDecodeOff to OR both families with
per-family traffic floors so an idle endpoint cannot fire them. Every
expression validated against live Prometheus.
- shared/prometheus/prometheus.yml: frank-small -> host.containers.internal:7771
and frank-large scraped at host.containers.internal:7770. Both are HOST
processes on Dankclaw and netavark DNATs published container ports only, so
the LAN-IP targets were red by construction; frank-large's CIRU llama.cpp
build does export the llamacpp:* family, contra the old comment.
- tests/observability_quadlet.bats: the two seams now encode the new contract
(per-endpoint reachability by process type; every named series must be on the
measured list for its engine; engine-independent rules must name both).
- homepage docs.html/services.json: frank-medium sees pictures, frank-large is
CIRU Orca with a single seat (was halogen w4b, two seats, 200k).
- docs: radiance runbook is ACTIVE (deployed flags, three-arm battery, verified
capabilities, rollback, replica-era sections labelled); llama.cpp runbook
carries the SUPERSEDED banner; Dual-R9700-Cooperation states the measured
verdict; Observability records the namespace split and the DNAT lesson;
AGENTS.md topology/frank-medium/Model Config/Benchmarking Policy/runbook
index flipped; both indexes updated; work-log entry added.
Also repaired agent-pass damage: prose prepended above frontmatter openers,
duplicated runbook bodies, a literal tool-call token pasted into a runbook, and
an index destroyed by diff artifacts (restored from HEAD, flips re-applied).
Vault link check: 128 pages, 0 unresolved. ./tests/run.sh: 325 pass.
169.254.1.2 is not a local address on this host (netavark runs its
bridges in aardvark-dns' netns), so the relay cannot bind it — and a
loopback bind refuses container traffic. Probe-socket proof: a host
socket on 192.168.0.143:18094 answers the container's 169.254.1.2:18094
dial while the LAN IP refuses from the container. The relay binds
192.168.0.143:18093 and the deployer installs an iptables INPUT pair
(ACCEPT 10.89.0.0/16, DROP rest) so the unauthenticated endpoint stays
off the LAN.
A socket bound to 127.0.0.1 refuses container traffic that arrives via
the podman bridge: the first live webhook failed with 'dial tcp
169.254.1.2:18093: connection refused'. The relay now binds the
host-gateway endpoint — link-local to the podman bridge, off the LAN —
and the deployer's health probe follows it there.
Context: 262144 was measured before it was deployed -- 24.72 GB on GPU 0 and
29.14 GB on GPU 1 of 34.21 GB each, ~5 GB of headroom on the busier card, and a
140,069-token prompt prefilled through the single slot in 134 s to prove the
window is real. The 114688 wall was the vLLM predecessor's arithmetic, not this
runtime's.
Throughput, measured through the service: 1.0-1.4k tok/s prefill from 4k to
140k, 43.8 tok/s decode on a 512-token generation, 41-71 % DFlash2 acceptance,
and the prefix cache re-prefilling 4 of 998 tokens on a repeated prompt.
The signals move with the runtime, so the fleet's rules and dashboard are
re-cut rather than renamed: vllm: series do not exist any more, and two of the
old rules watched things llama.cpp does not export at all (KV-pool fill, p95
latency). Those are retired with the reason written down, and LlmSpecDecodeOff
takes one of the slots -- a lost drafter is the failure no client can see. The
observability seam now fails if any rule names a series the endpoint does not
export, which is what would have caught the stale vllm: expressions.
omp models.yml (outside the repo) is updated in the same pass: contextWindow
262144, and the full reasoning-effort map, because Qwen3.8's template answers
500 on 'high' -- verified against the live endpoint, low/medium/xhigh answer
200. Subagents run at high.
frank-large has no /metrics to scrape any more, and scraping it would be red by
construction: the halogen engine publishes /health, /cache and /v1/* only. That
job is removed with the reason written down (the remedy is the blackbox
exporter this fleet already wants for the comfyui/services probes), and
frank-small's llama.cpp endpoint takes the slot at 192.168.0.143:7771.
Homepage: frank-large's card still described the ik runtime, and the new
endpoint had no card at all. Both fixed, with a loopback probe -- the checker
runs on Dankclaw, which is also what makes the card green-able.
Dashboard: the endpoint picker was sourced from a vLLM-only metric, so a
llama.cpp job could never be selected, and the prose named frank-large as the
llama.cpp endpoint. The picker now matches both runtimes' series and the
llama.cpp targets carry the job filter every other panel already used.
The seams assert the new contract including the ABSENCE of a 7770 target, so a
well-meaning edit cannot re-add a permanently-red probe.
The scraped metrics have no rules over them, so every graph was read after the
fact by a human. This adds shared/prometheus/rules/llm-fleet.yml, loaded via
rule_files and installed by the same copier that ships prometheus.yml (a rule
file nothing loads evaluates nothing, and Prometheus reports no error for it):
LlmKvPoolSaturated kv pool > 90% for 10m — the 122,636-token wall
LlmRequestsQueueing waiting > 0 for 10m — MAXSEQS=4 reached
LlmPrefixCacheCollapse reuse < 20% for 15m with traffic — the thrash signature
LlmEndpointDown scrape target down 2m — both replicas gone
LlmLatencyHigh p95 end-to-end > 60s for 10m — what an operator feels
job:llm_prefix_cache_reuse:rate5m — recording rule shared by the alert and the
dashboard, so the two cannot drift
Every threshold is tied to something measured on this fleet, not to a guess,
and the file says plainly at the top that **nothing is notified**: there is no
Alertmanager here, so a firing alert reaches Prometheus' /alerts page, the
ALERTS metric and the dashboard panel added alongside it — and nowhere else.
Choosing how Frank actually gets paged is his call, not a missing config line.
Seam covers the silent failure mode: rules exist, the config references the
directory, the deployer installs it, and the dashboard graphs ALERTS.
vllm:prefix_cache_hit_rate does not exist in this build; the exported pair is
vllm:prefix_cache_hits_total / vllm:prefix_cache_queries_total, whose rates give
the hit rate. A comment naming a series nobody can query is worse than no
comment.
Neither LLM endpoint was scraped, and frank-medium exports 418 vllm: series —
including the ones this fleet argues about under load: kv_cache_usage_perc (how
full the per-card pool is), prefix_cache_hit_rate (whether pinned conversations
are being reused), num_requests_waiting (queue depth) and the request-latency
histograms. Everything diagnosed tonight by hand — 122,636 KV tokens per card,
thrash when three large contexts overlap, cold-vs-warm prefix reuse — is a
graph now, on the LAN addresses rather than the guarded vhosts.
frank-large comes along in the same change: llama.cpp exposes throughput
counters under llamacpp:, and watching one LLM endpoint without the other was
arbitrary.
The seam added to observability_quadlet.bats pins the cross-file contract that
breaks silently: if a scrape target drifts from the :7770 the units publish,
the graphs vanish with no error anywhere.
- loki: recent releases require compactor.delete_request_store when
retention is enabled (was crash-looping on start)
- prometheus: scrape targets carried legacy dankclaw.local names with
URL schemes (invalid); point at published LAN ports and the gitea
quadlet's published port instead
- grafana: GF_SERVER_ROOT_URL to the canonical HTTPS name
- tests: 3 new seams for the deployed observability configs
Frank