BUDDY MLIR

An MLIR-based compiler framework designed for a co-design ecosystem from DSL (domain-specific languages) to DSA (domain-specific architectures). (Project page)

Getting Started

Dependencies

• LLVM/MLIR dependencies

Please make sure the dependencies are available on your machine.

• Other dependencies

sudo apt install flatbuffers-compiler libflatbuffers-dev libnuma-dev

Clone and Initialize

git clone git@github.com:buddy-compiler/buddy-mlir.git
cd buddy-mlir
git submodule update --init llvm

Prepare Python Environment

pip

python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

uv

uv venv
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install -r requirements.txt

conda

conda activate <your virtual environment name>
cd buddy-mlir
pip install -r requirements.txt

Build and Test LLVM/MLIR/CLANG

cd buddy-mlir
cmake -G Ninja -S llvm/llvm -B llvm/build \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_PROJECTS="mlir;clang" \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_RUNTIMES="openmp" \
    -DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="host;RISCV" \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=ON \
    -DOPENMP_ENABLE_LIBOMPTARGET=OFF \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE \
    -DMLIR_ENABLE_BINDINGS_PYTHON=ON \
    -DPython3_EXECUTABLE="$(which python)" \
    -DPython_EXECUTABLE="$(which python)"
ninja -C llvm/build check-clang check-mlir check-openmp

If your target machine includes an NVIDIA GPU, you can add the following configuration:

-DLLVM_TARGETS_TO_BUILD="host;RISCV;NVPTX" \
-DMLIR_ENABLE_CUDA_RUNNER=ON \

Build buddy-mlir

cd buddy-mlir
cmake -G Ninja -S . -B build \
    -DMLIR_DIR=$PWD/llvm/build/lib/cmake/mlir \
    -DLLVM_DIR=$PWD/llvm/build/lib/cmake/llvm \
    -DLLVM_ENABLE_ASSERTIONS=ON \
    -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RELEASE \
    -DBUDDY_MLIR_ENABLE_PYTHON_PACKAGES=ON \
    -DPython3_EXECUTABLE="$(which python)" \
    -DPython_EXECUTABLE="$(which python)"
ninja -C build
ninja -C build check-buddy

Set the PYTHONPATH environment variable to include both the LLVM/MLIR Python bindings and buddy-mlir Python packages:

export BUDDY_MLIR_BUILD_DIR=$PWD/build
export LLVM_MLIR_BUILD_DIR=$PWD/llvm/build
export PYTHONPATH=${BUDDY_MLIR_BUILD_DIR}/python_packages:${PYTHONPATH}

If you want to test your model end-to-end conversion and inference, you can add the following configuration

cmake -G Ninja -S . -B build -DBUDDY_ENABLE_E2E_TESTS=ON
ninja -C build check-e2e

Building and running the model

Use the following to build:

cd buddy-mlir
python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/deepseek_r1/specs/f32.json \
  --build-dir build

For Whisper, use the same build entry point with the Whisper spec:

python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/whisper/specs/base.json \
  --build-dir build

DeepSeek R1, Whisper, and Qwen3-VL support template-based layer-partitioned compilation. It is disabled by default. Enable it explicitly by passing --cmake-args=-DBUDDY_MODEL_LAYER_PARTITION=ON to build_model.py. DeepSeek R1 also retains the existing PartitionedGraphDriver workflow. See Layer Partitioning for details.

For example, enable template-based layer partitioning for Whisper with:

python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/whisper/specs/base.json \
  --build-dir build \
  --cmake-args=-DBUDDY_MODEL_LAYER_PARTITION=ON

To import weights from a local HuggingFace style directory (offline or a custom path), pass --local-model to that directory (it must contain config.json and the weight files). If you omit --hf-config, build_model.py uses <local-model>/config.json for codegen when present:

python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/deepseek_r1/specs/f32.json \
  --build-dir build \
  --local-model /path/to/DeepSeek-R1-Distill-Qwen-1.5B

If CMake is configured with -DBUDDY_BUILD_DEEPSEEK_R1_MODEL=ON, you can build the model with:

ninja deepseek_r1_model_so deepseek_r1_rax

To build the DeepSeek R1 f32 tiered KV cache variant for use with buddy-cli, use the dedicated spec:

python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/deepseek_r1/specs/f32_tiered_kv_cache.json \
  --build-dir build

./build/bin/buddy-cli \
  --model ./build/models/deepseek_r1/deepseek_r1.rax \
  --prompt "Tell me a joke in 200 words."

# Equivalent to: numactl --cpunodebind=0,1,2,3 --interleave=0,1,2,3 taskset -c 0-47
./build/bin/buddy-cli \
  --numa 0,1,2,3 \
  --cpus 0-47 \
  --model ./build/models/deepseek_r1/deepseek_r1.rax \
  --prompt "Tell me a joke in 200 words."

Whisper uses the same .rax / buddy-cli deployment path, with an audio input:

./build/bin/buddy-cli \
  --model ./build/models/whisper/whisper.rax \
  --audio ./build/models/whisper/audio.wav

Qwen3-VL (vision-language OCR)

models/qwen3_vl is a self-contained vision-language model (ViT + DeepStack encoder feeding a dense Qwen3 decoder) that runs end-to-end on buddy-compiled kernels via buddy-cli. Use the same tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py entry point with the Qwen3-VL spec (a local HuggingFace snapshot is required):

python3 tools/buddy-codegen/build_model.py \
  --spec models/qwen3_vl/specs/instruct_2b.json \
  --build-dir build \
  --local-model /path/to/Qwen3-VL-2B-Instruct

./build/bin/buddy-cli \
  --model ./build/models/qwen3_vl/qwen3_vl.rax \
  --image ./models/qwen3_vl/test_text.png \
  --prompt "Read all the text in the image."

See models/qwen3_vl/README.md for prerequisites and details.

Build Python Package

We use setuptools to bundle CMake outputs (Python packages, bin/, and lib/) into a single wheel.

Build x86_64 artifacts:

./scripts/release.sh cp312 0.0.0 x86_64

Build riscv64 artifacts:

./scripts/release.sh cp312 0.0.0 riscv64

This script calls docker run internally to enter the offical manylinux container, builds LLVM and buddy_mlir, and writes artifacts to:

• ./build-docker/x86_64/<py_tag>/target
• ./build-docker/riscv64/<py_tag>/target

See Manylinux release notes for current known build notes.

Install and test the wheel:

pip install buddy-*.whl --no-deps
python -c "import buddy; import buddy_mlir; print('ok')"
buddy-opt --help

Examples

We provide examples to demonstrate how to use the passes and interfaces in buddy-mlir, including IR-level transformations, domain-specific applications, and testing demonstrations.

For more details, please see the examples documentation.

Contributions

We welcome contributions to our open-source project!

Before contributing, please read the Contributor Guide and Code Style.

To maintain code quality, this project provides pre-commit checks:

pre-commit install

How to Cite

If you find our project and research useful or refer to it in your own work, please cite the survey paper in which the Buddy Compiler design was first proposed:

@article{zhang2023compiler,
  title={Compiler Technologies in Deep Learning Co-Design: A Survey},
  author={Zhang, Hongbin and Xing, Mingjie and Wu, Yanjun and Zhao, Chen},
  journal={Intelligent Computing},
  year={2023},
  publisher={AAAS}
}

For direct access to the paper, please visit Compiler Technologies in Deep Learning Co-Design: A Survey.