llm-pipeline-analysis

name	llm-pipeline-analysis
description	Inspect LLM torch profiler traces at forward-pass, layer, and kernel level. Use when you need layer timings, anchor-kernel boundaries, representative kernel flows, or Perfetto time ranges.

LLM Pipeline Analysis

Overview

Use this when a whole-trace profiler summary is too coarse. The scripts read a Chrome-trace JSON file, find layer-boundary anchor kernels, group kernels into forward passes and layers, and print timing tables you can use for Perfetto navigation or detailed timing analysis.

When To Use It

• when you need to know which layers contribute most
• when the model has alternating layer types (e.g. models with compress_ratios like DeepSeek-V4 NSA)
• when you need to compare cold-start vs steady-state forward passes
• when you need to navigate to a specific layer in Perfetto UI
• when you need to select representative layers for deep-dive analysis

Confirmation Required

Before running scripts, collect or verify these inputs:

Item	Why it matters	How to obtain	Default if user skips
Model name	Determines which config.json to use; affects layer classification	Ask user	— (required)
Model profile	Determines anchor kernel, blocks-per-layer, and kernel classification rules	Ask user or auto-infer from config	Auto-inferred from config
config.json path	Provides compress_ratios, num_hidden_layers, num_hash_layers etc.	Ask user or search filesystem	— (required)
GPU type	Optional context for reports and hardware notes	Ask user	—
TP / EP	Parallelism config affects kernel naming and AllReduce count	Ask user or infer from trace filename (e.g. TP-0)	TP=8, EP=8
Serving mode	Decode vs prefill changes kernel mix and FLOPs profile	Ask user	decode B=1

If the user cannot provide config.json, search common locations such as /root/workspace/*/config.json and the HuggingFace cache. If it is still not available, require an explicit --profile.

Model Profiles

Scripts use ModelProfile to determine layer boundary detection and kernel classification. Profiles are auto-inferred from config.json or selected via --profile:

Profile	Anchor kernel	Blocks/layer	Layer structure	Auto-infer condition
dsv4_csa_hca	mhc_post_tilelang	2	attn + ffn halves	compress_ratios non-empty
dsv3_mla	flash_fwd_mla_combine	1	full layer	kv_lora_rank > 0
generic	repeated RMSNorm/AllReduce or --anchor-kernel	1	full layer	fallback

Use --profile generic --anchor-kernel YOUR_KERNEL for models not covered by built-in profiles. Generic TP=1 traces can auto-detect a repeated RMSNorm anchor without requiring an NCCL AllReduce marker.

Prerequisites

• A torch.profiler trace in Chrome-trace JSON format (.json or .json.gz)
• The model's config.json (for profile inference, compress_ratios, etc.)
• The trace must contain a recognizable layer-boundary anchor kernel (auto-detected from the profile, or specified via --anchor-kernel)

Layer Boundary Detection

The scripts use an anchor kernel as a layer-boundary marker. The anchor and layer structure are determined by the active ModelProfile.

For example, with the dsv4_csa_hca profile, each transformer layer produces 2 consecutive mhc_post_tilelang calls:

mhc_post_tilelang  ← end of attn half (attention + O-proj + AllReduce)
  ... ffn computation ...
mhc_post_tilelang  ← end of ffn half (MoE experts + AllReduce)
  ... next layer attn ...
mhc_post_tilelang  ← next layer's attn boundary

So for N layers with the dsv4_csa_hca profile, one forward pass has 2N anchor blocks. With dsv3_mla or generic, each layer has 1 block.

Forward pass P starts at block index P * (N * blocks_per_layer).

Scripts

1. layer_timeline_analyzer.py — Per-layer timeline and cluster stats

# Show all forward passes summary (cold-start vs steady-state)
python3 scripts/layer_timeline_analyzer.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --show-all-passes

# Detailed per-layer breakdown for a specific forward pass
python3 scripts/layer_timeline_analyzer.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5

# Auto-select the first relatively stable pass window
python3 scripts/layer_timeline_analyzer.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json

The script prints:

• Per-layer wall-clock time, sum-duration, and category breakdown (MLA, MoE, GEMM, NCCL, MHC, Hadamard)
• Layer cluster statistics grouped by type (C4_LIGHT, C128_HEAVY, HASH, etc.)
• All-passes summary showing cold-start → steady-state growth

Automatic steady-state selection requires two consecutive layer-0 timing changes within 5%. It does not use an absolute latency threshold, so the same rule works across model sizes and accelerators. If no stable window exists, choose --fwd-pass explicitly.

2. layer_kernel_breakdown.py — Per-layer kernel detail and compute flow

# Single layer kernel dump
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 3

# Compute flow format (with model architecture summary and category column)
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 3 --format compute-flow

# JSON export
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 3 --format json

# Compare two layers side-by-side
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 2 --compare-layer 3

Output formats:

• --format text (default): grouped summary + top hot kernels ranked by duration, with simplified names and percentages
• --format compute-flow: model architecture summary + per-kernel hotness table with Category, %, and ts_rel(ms) columns
• --format json: one machine-readable JSON document ranked by duration; with --compare-layer, it contains primary, comparison, and kernel_diff
• Kernel diff when comparing two layers (unique kernels in each)

3. perfetto_time_mapper.py — Perfetto UI time navigation

# Show all forward pass time ranges in Perfetto
python3 scripts/perfetto_time_mapper.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json

# Layer-level time ranges for a specific forward pass
python3 scripts/perfetto_time_mapper.py \
  --trace /path/to/TP-0.trace.json.gz \
  --config /path/to/config.json \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layers 2,3,38,42

The script prints:

• Forward pass time ranges in Perfetto-relative seconds
• Per-layer start/end times with compress_ratio labels

Workflow

Step 1: Identify steady-state forward pass

python3 scripts/layer_timeline_analyzer.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG --show-all-passes

Read the "all-passes" table. The first pass is cold-start (few tokens). Use the first relative-stability window selected by the script, or choose a pass explicitly when timings continue to change.

Step 2: Per-layer breakdown on steady-state pass

python3 scripts/layer_timeline_analyzer.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG --fwd-pass 5

Identify:

• Which layer type dominates (C4_LIGHT vs C128_HEAVY vs HASH)
• The MLA / MoE / GEMM / NCCL proportion per layer type
• Which layer type is the best next target

Step 3: Compute flow for representative layer(s)

Select 1-2 representative layers (one per bottleneck type), then:

# Human-readable compute flow table
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 3 --format compute-flow

# JSON export
python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 3 --format json > /tmp/layer3_detail.json

The --format compute-flow output includes:

• Model architecture summary at the top
• Per-kernel hotness table with # | Half | Category | Simplified Name | dur(us) | % | ts_rel(ms) | Input Dims
• Rows are ranked by dur(us) descending by default; use ts_rel(ms) to jump back to the kernel's trace location.

Step 4: Compare layer types (optional)

python3 scripts/layer_kernel_breakdown.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layer 2 --compare-layer 3

This shows the exact kernel difference between the two layer types.

Step 5: Navigate in Perfetto UI (optional)

python3 scripts/perfetto_time_mapper.py \
  --trace $TRACE --config $CONFIG \
  --fwd-pass 5 --layers 2,3,38,42

Use the printed time ranges to navigate directly in Perfetto.

Layer Type Classification

The scripts classify layers based on config.json fields:

Config field	Value	Layer Type	Description
compress_ratios[i]	0	FULL_ATTN	No NSA compression (layers 0-1)
compress_ratios[i]	4	C4_LIGHT	C128 sparse attention, fastest
compress_ratios[i]	128	C128_HEAVY	C4 attention + Hadamard + Indexer, bottleneck
i >= N - num_hash_layers	—	HASH	Hash-table routing with paged MQA
i == 0	—	FIRST	First layer (empty KV cache)
i == N - 1	—	FINAL	Final layer (lm_head output)

Kernel Categories

Kernels are classified by the active ModelProfile's rules. Categories marked with (DSv4) are specific to the dsv4_csa_hca profile; all profiles include the universal categories.

Category	Match Pattern	Profile	Typical Share (DSv4)
★ MLA Attention	flash_fwd_splitkv_mla	DSv4, DSv3	21-33%
★ MoE Fused	fused_moe_kernel	DSv4, DSv3	11-17%
● NCCL AllReduce	AllReduce	universal	5-8%
GEMM fp8	deep_gemm	universal	12-25%
GEMM bf16	nvjet	universal	11-13%
Hadamard Xform	hadamard	DSv4	0-2.4%
Indexer Cache	indexer	DSv4	0-0.1%
Paged MQA	paged_mqa_logits	DSv4	0-1.8%
MHC	mhc_pre_gemm_sqrsum, mhc_pre_big_fuse, mhc_post_tilelang	DSv4	10-15%
C4/C128 Prefill	c4_prefill, c128_prefill	DSv4	0-0.3%
RMSNorm	RMSNorm, rms_normalize	universal	1-2%
FP8 Quant	quant, Quant	universal	1-2%
TopK	topk	universal	0-0.7%
RoPE	deepseek_rope, fused_norm_rope	DSv4, DSv3	1-2%
Activation	silu_mul_clamp, act_and_mul	universal	0-0.5%
Other	—	universal	2-5%

Reporting Checklist

Include:

1. Trace metadata: trace path, model config path, GPU type, TP/EP
2. Model Architecture Summary (from config.json):
   • model name, num_layers, hidden_size, num_attention_heads, num_key_value_heads, head_dim
   • Attention type (e.g. csa_hca), Q/O LoRA ranks
   • MoE config: num_experts, topk, num_shared_experts, intermediate_size
   • MHC config (if applicable)
   • NSA config (if applicable): index_n_heads, index_head_dim, index_topk, qk_rope_head_dim, sliding_window
   • compress_ratios distribution (how many C4_LIGHT / C128_HEAVY / FULL_ATTN / HASH layers)
3. Per-batch forward passes summary table (from layer_timeline_analyzer.py --show-all-passes):
   • Columns: Fwd#, Start(s), End(s), Duration(ms), Avg Layer(ms), First Layer(ms), Notes
   • Identifies cold-start vs steady-state passes
4. Chosen forward pass: index and rationale (cold-start vs steady-state)
5. Per-layer wall-clock and sum-duration table (from layer_timeline_analyzer.py --fwd-pass N):
   • Columns: L, c_r, Type, Wall(ms), SumDur(ms), MLA, MoE, GEMM, NCCL, MHC, Hadam, AR#, K#
   • Each row is one layer, with layer type label
6. Layer cluster statistics table grouped by type:
   • Columns: Cluster, #, Avg Wall(ms), Avg Sum(ms), MLA%, MoE%, GEMM%, NCCL%, MHC%, Hadam%
   • Identifies bottleneck layer type and likely next target
7. Compute Flow Table for selected representative layer(s):
   • Produced by layer_kernel_breakdown.py --format compute-flow
   • Columns: # | Half | Category | Simplified Name | dur(us) | % | ts_rel(ms) | Input Dims
   • Rows are sorted by top hot kernels (dur(us) descending) by default
   • Optional JSON export (--format json)
8. Perfetto UI time ranges when requested
9. One-line summary: bottleneck layer type and likely next target