nemo-mbridge-perf-activation-recompute

Activation Recompute

Stable docs: @docs/training/activation-recomputation.md
Card: @skills/nemo-mbridge-perf-activation-recompute/card.yaml

<!-- Guidance refreshed: 2026-08-12. -->

Activation recompute (activation checkpointing) trades additional forward work during backward for lower retained-activation memory. The useful checkpoint boundary depends on the model architecture, attention backend, parallelism, and the tensor that actually drives the per-rank peak.

Quick Decision Guide

1. Confirm the pressure is real allocation, not allocator fragmentation. Compare max_memory_allocated() with max_memory_reserved() on every rank.
2. Keep an explicit no-recompute control when the workload fits. Under selective granularity, recompute_modules=[] is valid and useful for this comparison.
3. Select the first boundary from the architecture and observed peak:
   • Standard attention: core_attn is the common first candidate. It is strongest when unfused attention materializes score/probability tensors. With Transformer Engine fused or Flash Attention, compare it against [] because those backends already rematerialize attention internals.
   • Multi-Latent Attention (MLA): start with mla_up_proj when expanded Q/K/V projections dominate. Add core_attn only when the attention-core state still matters.
   • Grouped MoE: start with moe_act when the expert intermediate activation dominates; add layernorm when norm outputs are material. Use whole moe recompute only after accounting for the extra expert compute and communication it replays.
   • Dense FFN: mlp can save the whole dense-MLP activation region, but it usually costs more compute than a narrow output-discard boundary.
4. Change one label at a time. Record per-rank allocated/reserved peaks plus steady-state step time or throughput; do not infer a global module ranking from one recipe.
5. Use full-layer recompute only when targeted selective boundaries do not make the workload fit. Full recompute has the broadest memory effect and the largest replay cost.
6. Treat CUDA graphs, FP8, context-parallel communication, and overlap features as compatibility constraints, not afterthoughts.

Megatron Core's cpu_offloading=True is an alternative when PCIe/NVLink transfer overhead is preferable to replayed compute. It cannot be combined with activation recompute and is not compatible with pipeline parallelism greater than one.

Enablement

Selective recompute

cfg.model.recompute_granularity = "selective"
cfg.model.recompute_modules = ["core_attn"]  # Common standard-attention candidate, not a universal default.

Use the decision table below to replace or extend that list for MLA, MoE, dense-MLP, or GDN workloads.

Full-layer recompute

cfg.model.recompute_granularity = "full"
cfg.model.recompute_method = "uniform"
cfg.model.recompute_num_layers = 1

• uniform: checkpoint fixed groups of recompute_num_layers transformer layers.
• block: checkpoint the first recompute_num_layers layers on each pipeline stage, with virtual-pipeline-aware distribution.

Selective Module Decision Table

The currently pinned Megatron Core accepts these labels. A development branch can add model-specific labels, so validate against the exact target revision rather than copying a list across branches.

Module	Checkpoint boundary	When to test it	Main cost or caveat
core_attn	Core attention	Standard attention, especially an unfused backend retaining attention intermediates	Replays attention. Incremental savings can be small with TE fused/Flash Attention; context parallelism can replay attention communication.
mla_up_proj	MLA Q/KV up-projection plus RoPE region	MLA models retaining expanded Q/K/V tensors	Replays the MLA expansion path. It is a distinct, potentially additive boundary from core_attn.
layernorm	Input and pre-MLP normalization outputs	Norm outputs contribute materially to the peak, often alongside MoE or MLA boundaries	Usually narrow, but savings depend on hidden size, sequence length, and which graph paths are active.
moe_act	Activation output between grouped expert FC1 and FC2	Grouped MoE expert-intermediate activations dominate	Narrow output-discard checkpoint. It does not replay dispatch, FC1, or FC2, but has FP8 delayed-scaling restrictions.
mlp	Whole dense MLP	Dense layers dominate after narrower boundaries are exhausted	Replays the complete dense MLP. It has no effect on layers whose MLP is MoE.
moe	Whole MoE forward	A broad MoE region must be discarded to make the workload fit	Replays routing, dispatch/combine communication, experts, and shared-expert work. It is incompatible with expert-parallel overlap.
shared_experts	Non-overlapped shared-expert MLP	Shared experts are a distinct material peak	Replays the shared-expert MLP and is invalid with shared-expert overlap. Outer moe already removes its original-forward saves, but nesting can still change the transient backward-replay peak.
gdn_norm_out	GDN gated-normalization output	GDN/hybrid models retain this output	Replays the normalization and its HP-to-CP all-to-all path.

For example, DeepSeek V4 configurations can use the model-specific mhc
label only with their required Megatron Core development branch. It is not a
portable label for the pinned revision and therefore is not included in the
table above.

Common performance configurations consequently fall into several patterns rather than one universal list:

• standard transformer recipes often use core_attn;
• MLA recipes often use mla_up_proj, sometimes with mlp;
• grouped-MoE recipes often use moe_act or layernorm plus moe_act;
• higher-pressure MoE recipes sometimes use broader combinations such as moe plus layernorm.

These are candidate patterns, not an ordering guarantee. Peak attribution and matched measurements decide the final list.

Measurement Contract

For every candidate, capture:

• exact Bridge and Megatron Core revisions;
• model, sequence length, micro/global batch sizes, precision, attention backend, and parallelism;
• the exact recompute_granularity, module list, method, and layer count;
• per-rank max_memory_allocated() and max_memory_reserved();
• steady-state step time or throughput after warmup;
• a short convergence or numerical-sanity check appropriate to the task.

Use a matched no-recompute control and change one recompute choice at a time. Peak memory from different jobs, backends, or parallel layouts is not a module-ranking benchmark.

Do not call a candidate successful merely because it advances farther than the
control. Run through optimizer-state initialization and multiple steady-state
steps: selective recompute can move the memory wall from forward into gradient
synchronization or the optimizer without making the workload viable.

Matched H100 Evidence: Moonlight 16B

A 2026-08-12 short-run study used the exact Bridge revision
600d069b824dd5ce50367a311a5a3244478faf22 and Megatron Core revision
24bad8e677d22625d86ef2a54c9506b6e4992c93. The Moonlight 16B BF16
pretraining recipe ran on 8 H100 80GB GPUs with sequence length 4096, MBS=1,
GBS=4, TP=2, PP=1, CP=1, EP=8, mock data, and 20 steps. This model mixes one
dense layer with 26 MLA+MoE layers. Each row changed only
recompute_modules; all 20 losses were finite with zero skipped or NaN
iterations.

Peak allocated memory is the maximum post-optimizer value reported after
iteration 2. Time and throughput are means over iterations 11--20.

Selective modules	Peak allocated (GB)	Step time (ms)	TFLOP/s/GPU	Allocated vs []	Time vs []
[]	36.618	457.18	77.50	control	control
core_attn	36.614	474.80	74.44	-0.01%	+3.85%
mla_up_proj	35.902	480.89	73.72	-1.96%	+5.19%
mla_up_proj, mlp	35.917	496.73	71.50	-1.91%	+8.65%
moe_act	35.941	466.26	75.50	-1.85%	+1.99%
layernorm, moe_act	35.949	506.53	70.27	-1.83%	+10.79%

For this exact workload, moe_act is the best first boundary: it recovered
nearly as much allocated memory as mla_up_proj for less replay cost.
mla_up_proj is the next candidate if its roughly 39 MB additional reduction
matters. Adding mlp to mla_up_proj or layernorm to moe_act did not
improve the observed peak and made steps slower. Explicit core_attn added
cost without material memory benefit under fused attention.

Maximum reserved memory stayed near 40 GB and did not fall monotonically.
That is allocator caching, not contrary evidence: boundary selection in this
study is based on allocated memory and successful end-to-end steps.

Matched H100 Evidence: Nemotron 3 Nano

The same 2026-08-12 study used the native 16-H100 BF16 performance recipe for
the 52-layer hybrid Mamba/fused-attention MoE model. The matched short-run
configuration used sequence length 8192, MBS=1, GBS=16, TP=1, PP=1, CP=1,
EP=8, DP=16, expert-DP=2, HybridEP, grouped GEMM, TE CUDA graphs for attention and Mamba,
mock data, and 12 steps. Each row changed only recompute_modules.

Selective modules	Outcome	Rank-0 measured peak	Failure or steady-state evidence
[]	OOM after iteration 1	66.297 GB after iteration 1	Iteration-2 MoE router allocation failed; hot ranks had about 72.9 GiB allocated.
core_attn	OOM in iteration 1	not comparable	Grouped-expert linear allocation failed; explicit attention recompute did not make the fused-attention workload fit.
moe_act	OOM after iteration 1	62.103 GB after iteration 1	4.194 GB (6.33%) below the control at the matched checkpoint, but the iteration-2 output projection still needed 2 GiB.
layernorm, moe_act	OOM in iteration 1	not comparable	Output projection still needed 2 GiB; CUDA-graph private pools were material.
moe	completed 12 steps	64.653 GB after iteration 2	657.42 ms and 277.72 TFLOP/s/GPU over iterations 7--12.
moe, layernorm	completed 12 steps	63.639 GB after iteration 2	677.62 ms and 270.62 TFLOP/s/GPU over iterations 7--12.

Both successful rows had finite losses and zero skipped or NaN iterations.
For this exact capacity-limited recipe, whole-moe recompute is the smallest
tested passing boundary. Adding layernorm recovered another 1.014 GB (1.57%)
of rank-0 peak at 3.07% higher step time, so the recipe's broader combination
is justified when that headroom is required. Narrow moe_act produced real
activation relief but did not make the whole training step viable.

An exploratory native 8-H100 layout failed during FP32 optimizer-state
initialization even at sequence length 4096. That is optimizer capacity, not a
selective-boundary throughput baseline; no timing comparison from those runs
is used here.

Cross-model conclusion

These measurements do not define one ranking. Moonlight fit with an empty
control and favored narrow moe_act; Nemotron required broad whole-moe
recompute; historical dense Llama evidence found whole-mlp replay costly and
lacked an empty control. The correct first candidate is therefore the narrowest
boundary implicated by the architecture and peak, followed by broader replay
only when the narrow choice does not pass the complete step.

Compatibility and Validation

Configuration semantics

• recompute_granularity="selective" uses recompute_modules; an empty list is accepted as an explicit control.
• recompute_granularity="full" uses recompute_method and recompute_num_layers; selective labels do not apply.
• Full granularity supersedes selective module choices rather than composing with them.
• Unknown labels fail Megatron Core validation. Labels may differ on development branches, so use the exact revision's TransformerConfig validator as the source of truth.

Attention backend and context parallelism

• TE fused and Flash Attention already use internal rematerialization. Explicit core_attn may still change retained inputs/outputs, but it must earn its place in a matched [] comparison.
• Under context parallelism, an attention checkpoint can replay communication as well as compute. Include CP size and topology in the measurement record.

MoE restrictions

• Whole-moe recompute is incompatible with expert-parallel overlap because backward replay would repeat the overlapped routing/communication region.
• shared_experts recompute is incompatible with shared-expert overlap.
• moe_act applies to grouped-GEMM experts and is the narrower choice when only the expert activation needs to be discarded.
• mlp targets dense MLPs and is a no-op on MoE layers; mixed dense/MoE models can still benefit on their dense layers.

FP8 restrictions

• moe_act and layernorm recompute are not supported with FP8 delayed scaling and require a compatible Transformer Engine version.
• Absorbed MLA paths have additional FP8/FP4 restrictions. Validate the exact model/provider path before selecting mla_up_proj.

CUDA graphs

• Selective recompute is valid only when a checkpointed module lies wholly inside or wholly outside the selected graph scope. A checkpoint boundary that straddles a graph boundary is invalid.
• Capture/warmup can bypass checkpoint wrappers, so verify the final graph scope and replay path rather than assuming eager behavior carries over.
• Full recompute with CUDA graphs requires cuda_graph_impl="full_iteration" in the pinned Megatron Core. Otherwise disable CUDA graphs; scoped/local graph capture is not a substitute for full-iteration capture here.

Historical Measurement: Context, Not a Module Ranking

Historical H100 measurements from Bridge PR #3107 used Llama 3 70B SFT on 32 H100 80GB GPUs with FP8 current scaling, sequence length 4096, micro-batch size 1, global batch size 32, TP=4, PP=4, VPP=5, and DP=2:

Configuration	TFLOP/s/GPU	Peak memory
core_attn baseline in that run	~704	58.8 GB (OOM on rank 0)
mlp	593.6	55.6 GB
mlp + core_attn	586.8	55.6 GB
core_attn + layernorm	~702	59.6 GB (OOM on rank 0)
Golden throughput recorded in the PR context	709.93	Not a paired memory measurement

Limitations of this evidence:

• it did not include a matched no-recompute row;
• the golden row was not a paired module-only comparison;
• the measurements cover one dense Llama workload, not MLA or MoE;
• the table supports the local memory/throughput tradeoff only and must not be used to rank all recompute labels.

Code Anchors

• Selective-label validation and cross-feature checks: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/transformer_config.py
• Checkpoint implementations: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/tensor_parallel/random.py
• Standard-attention checkpoint boundary: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/attention.py
• MLA up-projection boundary: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/multi_latent_attention.py
• Layernorm, dense-MLP, and outer-MoE placement: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/transformer_layer.py
• Grouped expert activation boundary: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/moe/experts.py
• Shared-expert and whole-MoE paths: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/transformer/moe/moe_layer.py
• GDN normalization boundary: 3rdparty/Megatron-LM/megatron/core/ssm/gated_delta_net/gdn.py

Failure Diagnosis

Symptom	Likely cause	Next action
core_attn gives little or no peak reduction	Fused/Flash attention already rematerializes the expensive internals, or the peak is elsewhere	Compare with [], attribute the peak, then test the architecture-specific boundary such as mla_up_proj or moe_act.
MLA still OOMs after core_attn	Expanded Q/K/V projection tensors, not attention-core tensors, dominate	Test mla_up_proj; add core_attn only if matched evidence supports it.
MoE peak remains high	Expert intermediate or norm outputs dominate	Test moe_act, then layernorm; reserve whole moe for broader pressure.
Expert-overlap validation fails	Whole-moe or shared_experts recompute conflicts with overlap	Keep overlap and use a compatible inner boundary, or disable overlap and remeasure the entire configuration.
A selected label has no measurable effect	That module is absent or inactive on the measured layers, or graph capture bypassed the wrapper	Inspect the provider/layer mix and final graph scope; for example, mlp is ineffective on pure-MoE layers.
Full recompute plus CUDA graphs asserts	Graph implementation is not full-iteration	Set cuda_graph_impl="full_iteration" or disable CUDA graphs.
Reserved memory is high but allocated memory is stable	Allocator fragmentation or caching	Try PYTORCH_CUDA_ALLOC_CONF=expandable_segments:True before adding recompute.
OOM moves to a different rank after enabling recompute	Pipeline/virtual-pipeline layer distribution changed the bottleneck	Compare per-rank peaks and tune full block/uniform placement or selective boundaries for the actual hot stage.
A candidate gets farther but still OOMs	Recompute moved the peak into gradient synchronization or optimizer-state initialization	Record the changed failure stage as diagnostic evidence, but require optimizer initialization and multiple steady steps before calling it a pass.

Known Limitations

• A module list is not portable across model families, attention backends, parallel layouts, or Megatron Core revisions.
• Memory savings are nonlinear when boundaries overlap or nest; additive arithmetic is unreliable.
• Full recompute changes RNG execution paths; dropout workloads need a numerical/convergence check.
• Activation recompute does not address parameter, optimizer-state, or allocator-fragmentation pressure.
• The correct result is the smallest measured replay cost that satisfies the per-rank memory target, not the longest module list.

Further Reading

• docs/performance-guide.md
• skills/nemo-mbridge-perf-memory-tuning/SKILL.md
• skills/nemo-mbridge-perf-cuda-graphs/SKILL.md
• skills/nemo-mbridge-perf-cpu-offloading/SKILL.md
• Megatron Core activation recomputation guide: https://docs.nvidia.com/megatron-core/developer-guide/latest/api-guide/index.html