Reference

Command line

Every kvad command, grouped by what it is for.

kvad <command> [options]

kvad --help prints the same list. Most commands with subcommands print their own usage with --help.

#Models

Command
kvad search QUERY Find models on Hugging Face, and say which this build can run.
kvad pull REPO Download a model.
kvad ls List downloaded and trained models.
kvad use MODEL Set the default model.
kvad rm MODEL Delete a downloaded or trained model.
kvad info [MODEL] Show a model's config without downloading weights.
kvad arch List the architectures this build can run.
kvad cache [REPO|clear] List or delete pre-quantised weight files.

#Generating

Command
kvad run --prompt TEXT One answer.
kvad chat A conversation.
kvad images make PROMPT A picture. Also ls and rm ID.
kvad videos make PROMPT A clip. Also ls, show, watch, get, rm.
kvad tokenize TEXT How the model splits a text.
kvad cancel Stop whatever is generating.

#Training

Command
kvad train --data FILE --name NAME Train a model from a text file.
kvad crawl URL Read a documentation site into a text file.
kvad datasets ls, add FILE, crawl URL, show, check, search, rm.
kvad-gpu tune --data DIR --name NAME Train an SDXL LoRA on a folder of pictures.

#The server

Command
kvad serve [...] Run the HTTP server and web UI in the foreground.
kvad service ... Run it at login: status, start, stop, restart, logs, install, uninstall.
kvad ps The models in memory, and what memory is left.
kvad load MODEL [--backend ID] Put a model in memory.
kvad unload [ID] Take one out, or all of them.
kvad conversations ls, show ID, edit ID, rm ID.
kvad jobs ls, show ID, watch ID, cancel ID.
kvad evals Prompt suites and perplexity. See Benchmarks and evals.
kvad bench Benchmarks.
kvad metrics The machine, recent requests, and the log.
kvad api [METHOD PATH [JSON]] Any route, raw. With no arguments, the list of them.

#Accounts

Command
kvad auth status, login [--key], logout, setup TOKEN, password.
kvad users ls, add NAME, edit ID, rm ID.
kvad sessions ls, rm ID.
kvad keys ls, add NAME, rm ID.

#Where a command runs

Option
--remote URL Send the command to the server at URL.
--local Run it in this process, even with a server running.
--json Print what the server sent, as JSON. A streaming command prints one event a line.
-y, --yes Answer yes to the question a command would ask.

Without --remote or --local, the order is KVAD_URL, then url under [client] in kvad.toml, then this machine's service if it answers, then the process itself. The first line of output says which, and why.

--json makes every command composable:

kvad ps --json | jq '.residents[].id'

#Generation options

Option Default
--model MODEL the default model A name trained here, a directory, or a Hugging Face repository.
--prompt TEXT The prompt for run.
--system TEXT The system prompt for chat.
--max-tokens N 256
--temperature F 0.7 0 is greedy.
--top-k N 40
--top-p F 0.95
--seed N 7
--greedy --temperature 0.
--quant f32|q8|q4 f32 Quantise weights on load. On a server, the CPU backend at that precision.
--backend ID On a server: the backend to load on, such as gpu-q8.
--raw run on a server: continue the prompt, with no chat template.
--save chat on a server: keep the conversation there.
--conversation ID chat on a server: carry on with a kept one.

#The other binaries

kvad-tui takes no arguments. See The terminal app.

kvad-gpu runs the GPU engine without a server:

kvad-gpu <run|chat> [--model REPO] [--device metal|cpu] [--dtype bf16|f16|f32]
                    [--quant none|q8|q4|q4k|q6k] [--prompt TEXT] …
kvad-gpu tune --help
esc

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