ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0

Model

Underdog Saluki 27B 1.0

322

2 commits

updated Oct 10, 2026

See the code

README

Underdog Saluki 27B 1.0

Qwen3.8-27B in under 8 GB, tuned to keep tool calling intact. A standard GGUF for stock llama.cpp.

Tool calling (Underdog Bench)Parallel tool callsAverage retentionSize
88 vs 84 for the full model42 vs 35 for the full model96% across 9 benchmarks7.89 GB vs 54 GB
Base modelQwen3.8-27B
FileUnderdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf, 7.89 GB
Runtimestock llama.cpp, and apps built on it
Modalitytext, plus images with the optional vision add-on
Vision add-onmmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf (928 MB) or -Q8_0.gguf (629 MB)
Thinkingon by default, switchable per request, same as Qwen3.8

Quickstart

huggingface-cli download ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0 Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --local-dir .
llama-server -m Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --jinja -ngl 99 -fa on -c 32768

Add vision. Download the vision add-on too, and pass it with --mmproj. Then send images through the OpenAI chat API as usual.

huggingface-cli download ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0 mmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf --local-dir .
llama-server -m Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --mmproj mmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf --jinja -ngl 99 -fa on -c 32768

--jinja turns on the Qwen3.8 chat template, which handles tool calls and thinking. The server speaks the OpenAI chat API on port 8080.

UseSettings
General use, reasoning, instructionsthinking on (default), temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95, top_k 20
Fast, direct tool callsthinking off with "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false}, temperature 0

Benchmarks

Saluki ran in stock llama.cpp. Where we ran the full-size Qwen3.8-27B ourselves, it used the same harness and settings.

Tool calling. Underdog Bench is 120 tasks from the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL v4), frozen before any model was tested. Thinking off, temperature 0.

ModelSizePassed (of 120)
Underdog Saluki 27B 1.07.89 GB88
Qwen3.8-27B, full size54 GB84
Bonsai 25.95 GB70

Parallel tool calls. 100 BFCL v4 parallel tasks, official checker, thinking off: Saluki 42, full size 35.

Agents, instructions, coding and reasoning.

BenchmarkSalukiFull size
SWE-bench Verified (50 issues fixed)3033
IFEval (prompt-loose)93.591.5 (public)
IFBench (prompt-loose)72.771.0 (public)
MBPP+78.083.9 (public)
MuSR67.579.6 (public)
AIME 2025 (avg@4)79.296.7 (public)
AIME 2026 (avg@4)80.094.6 (public)

Public scores come from a different harness than ours. 120 tasks is a modest test, and a few tasks of any gap is run-to-run variation.

Limitations

  • Keeps about 82 to 85% of the full model's competition math score.
  • Weakest on letter-level instruction puzzles (palindromes, vowel rules, alphabetical order).
  • About a fifth of parallel-call replies have small formatting slips.
  • With thinking on, it often reasons at length before answering.
  • Vision is an add-on. The main file is text only; add the 0.6 to 0.9 GB vision file when you need images.

Credits and license

Apache 2.0. Built on Qwen3.8-27B by the Qwen team and Qwen3.8-27B-GSQ-RCO-GGUF by ISTA-DASLab, both Apache 2.0. Underdog Bench tasks come from the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard. See NOTICE.

Built by Underdog.

2-bit
agents
conversational
endpoints_compatible
function-calling
gguf
imatrix
llama.cpp
qwen3.8
text-generation
tool-calling

ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0

Model

Underdog Saluki 27B 1.0

322

2 commits

updated Oct 10, 2026

See the code

README

Underdog Saluki 27B 1.0

Qwen3.8-27B in under 8 GB, tuned to keep tool calling intact. A standard GGUF for stock llama.cpp.

Tool calling (Underdog Bench)Parallel tool callsAverage retentionSize
88 vs 84 for the full model42 vs 35 for the full model96% across 9 benchmarks7.89 GB vs 54 GB
Base modelQwen3.8-27B
FileUnderdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf, 7.89 GB
Runtimestock llama.cpp, and apps built on it
Modalitytext, plus images with the optional vision add-on
Vision add-onmmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf (928 MB) or -Q8_0.gguf (629 MB)
Thinkingon by default, switchable per request, same as Qwen3.8

Quickstart

huggingface-cli download ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0 Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --local-dir .
llama-server -m Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --jinja -ngl 99 -fa on -c 32768

Add vision. Download the vision add-on too, and pass it with --mmproj. Then send images through the OpenAI chat API as usual.

huggingface-cli download ConwayResearch/Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0 mmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf --local-dir .
llama-server -m Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-IQ2-mix.gguf --mmproj mmproj-Underdog-Saluki-27B-1.0-F16.gguf --jinja -ngl 99 -fa on -c 32768

--jinja turns on the Qwen3.8 chat template, which handles tool calls and thinking. The server speaks the OpenAI chat API on port 8080.

UseSettings
General use, reasoning, instructionsthinking on (default), temperature 0.6, top_p 0.95, top_k 20
Fast, direct tool callsthinking off with "chat_template_kwargs": {"enable_thinking": false}, temperature 0

Benchmarks

Saluki ran in stock llama.cpp. Where we ran the full-size Qwen3.8-27B ourselves, it used the same harness and settings.

Tool calling. Underdog Bench is 120 tasks from the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard (BFCL v4), frozen before any model was tested. Thinking off, temperature 0.

ModelSizePassed (of 120)
Underdog Saluki 27B 1.07.89 GB88
Qwen3.8-27B, full size54 GB84
Bonsai 25.95 GB70

Parallel tool calls. 100 BFCL v4 parallel tasks, official checker, thinking off: Saluki 42, full size 35.

Agents, instructions, coding and reasoning.

BenchmarkSalukiFull size
SWE-bench Verified (50 issues fixed)3033
IFEval (prompt-loose)93.591.5 (public)
IFBench (prompt-loose)72.771.0 (public)
MBPP+78.083.9 (public)
MuSR67.579.6 (public)
AIME 2025 (avg@4)79.296.7 (public)
AIME 2026 (avg@4)80.094.6 (public)

Public scores come from a different harness than ours. 120 tasks is a modest test, and a few tasks of any gap is run-to-run variation.

Limitations

  • Keeps about 82 to 85% of the full model's competition math score.
  • Weakest on letter-level instruction puzzles (palindromes, vowel rules, alphabetical order).
  • About a fifth of parallel-call replies have small formatting slips.
  • With thinking on, it often reasons at length before answering.
  • Vision is an add-on. The main file is text only; add the 0.6 to 0.9 GB vision file when you need images.

Credits and license

Apache 2.0. Built on Qwen3.8-27B by the Qwen team and Qwen3.8-27B-GSQ-RCO-GGUF by ISTA-DASLab, both Apache 2.0. Underdog Bench tasks come from the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard. See NOTICE.

Built by Underdog.

2-bit
agents
conversational
endpoints_compatible
function-calling
gguf
imatrix
llama.cpp
qwen3.8
text-generation
tool-calling