* Multiple backends for text generation in a single UI and API, including [Transformers](https://github.com/huggingface/transformers), [llama.cpp](https://github.com/ggerganov/llama.cpp) (through [llama-cpp-python](https://github.com/abetlen/llama-cpp-python)), [ExLlamaV2](https://github.com/turboderp/exllamav2), [AutoGPTQ](https://github.com/PanQiWei/AutoGPTQ), and [TensorRT-LLM](https://github.com/NVIDIA/TensorRT-LLM). [AutoAWQ](https://github.com/casper-hansen/AutoAWQ), [HQQ](https://github.com/mobiusml/hqq), and [AQLM](https://github.com/Vahe1994/AQLM) are also supported through the Transformers loader.
* OpenAI-compatible API server with Chat and Completions endpoints – see the [examples](https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui/wiki/12-%E2%80%90-OpenAI-API#examples).
* Automatic prompt formatting for each model using the Jinja2 template in its metadata.
* Three chat modes: `instruct`, `chat-instruct`, and `chat`, allowing for both instruction-following and casual conversations with characters. `chat-instruct` mode automatically applies the model's template to the chat prompt, ensuring high-quality outputs without manual setup.
* "Past chats" menu to quickly switch between conversations and start new ones.
* Free-form generation in the Default/Notebook tabs without being limited to chat turns. Send formatted chat conversations from the Chat tab to these tabs.
* Multiple sampling parameters and generation options for sophisticated text generation control.
* Easy switching between different models through the UI without restarting, using the "Model" tab.
* Extensions support, including numerous built-in and user-contributed extensions. See [the wiki](https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui/wiki/07-%E2%80%90-Extensions) and [the extensions directory](https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui-extensions) for details.
This script creates an `installer_files` folder where it sets up the project's requirements. If you need to reinstall the requirements, just delete that folder and start the web UI again.
The script accepts command-line flags, such as `./start_linux.sh --help`. Alternatively, you can edit the `CMD_FLAGS.txt` file with a text editor and add your flags there, such as `--api` in case you need to use the API.
If you ever need to install something manually in the `installer_files` environment, you can launch an interactive shell using the cmd script: `cmd_linux.sh`, `cmd_windows.bat`, `cmd_macos.sh`, or `cmd_wsl.bat`.
* To install the requirements for extensions, you can use the `extensions_reqs` script for your OS. At the end, this script will install the main requirements for the project to make sure that they take precedence in case of version conflicts.
* For automated installation, you can use the `GPU_CHOICE`, `USE_CUDA118`, `LAUNCH_AFTER_INSTALL`, and `INSTALL_EXTENSIONS` environment variables. For instance: `GPU_CHOICE=A USE_CUDA118=FALSE LAUNCH_AFTER_INSTALL=FALSE INSTALL_EXTENSIONS=TRUE ./start_linux.sh`.
2) Manually install llama-cpp-python using the appropriate command for your hardware: [Installation from PyPI](https://github.com/abetlen/llama-cpp-python#installation-with-hardware-acceleration).
* Use the `LLAMA_HIPBLAS=on` toggle.
* Note the [Windows remarks](https://github.com/abetlen/llama-cpp-python#windows-remarks).
The `requirements*.txt` above contain various wheels precompiled through GitHub Actions. If you wish to compile things manually, or if you need to because no suitable wheels are available for your hardware, you can use `requirements_nowheels.txt` and then install your desired loaders manually.
* You need to have Docker Compose v2.17 or higher installed. See [this guide](https://github.com/oobabooga/text-generation-webui/wiki/09-%E2%80%90-Docker) for instructions.
--multi-user Multi-user mode. Chat histories are not saved or automatically loaded. Warning: this is likely not safe for sharing publicly.
--character CHARACTER The name of the character to load in chat mode by default.
--model MODEL Name of the model to load by default.
--lora LORA [LORA ...] The list of LoRAs to load. If you want to load more than one LoRA, write the names separated by spaces.
--model-dir MODEL_DIR Path to directory with all the models.
--lora-dir LORA_DIR Path to directory with all the loras.
--model-menu Show a model menu in the terminal when the web UI is first launched.
--settings SETTINGS Load the default interface settings from this yaml file. See settings-template.yaml for an example. If you create a file called settings.yaml, this
file will be loaded by default without the need to use the --settings flag.
--extensions EXTENSIONS [EXTENSIONS ...] The list of extensions to load. If you want to load more than one extension, write the names separated by spaces.
--verbose Print the prompts to the terminal.
--chat-buttons Show buttons on the chat tab instead of a hover menu.
--idle-timeout IDLE_TIMEOUT Unload model after this many minutes of inactivity. It will be automatically reloaded when you try to use it again.
Model loader:
--loader LOADER Choose the model loader manually, otherwise, it will get autodetected. Valid options: Transformers, llama.cpp, llamacpp_HF, ExLlamav2_HF, ExLlamav2,
--cpu Use the CPU to generate text. Warning: Training on CPU is extremely slow.
--auto-devices Automatically split the model across the available GPU(s) and CPU.
--gpu-memory GPU_MEMORY [GPU_MEMORY ...] Maximum GPU memory in GiB to be allocated per GPU. Example: --gpu-memory 10 for a single GPU, --gpu-memory 10 5 for two GPUs. You can also set values
in MiB like --gpu-memory 3500MiB.
--cpu-memory CPU_MEMORY Maximum CPU memory in GiB to allocate for offloaded weights. Same as above.
--disk If the model is too large for your GPU(s) and CPU combined, send the remaining layers to the disk.
--disk-cache-dir DISK_CACHE_DIR Directory to save the disk cache to. Defaults to "cache".
--load-in-8bit Load the model with 8-bit precision (using bitsandbytes).
--bf16 Load the model with bfloat16 precision. Requires NVIDIA Ampere GPU.
--no-cache Set use_cache to False while generating text. This reduces VRAM usage slightly, but it comes at a performance cost.
--trust-remote-code Set trust_remote_code=True while loading the model. Necessary for some models.
--force-safetensors Set use_safetensors=True while loading the model. This prevents arbitrary code execution.
--no_use_fast Set use_fast=False while loading the tokenizer (it's True by default). Use this if you have any problems related to use_fast.
--use_flash_attention_2 Set use_flash_attention_2=True while loading the model.
--numa Activate NUMA task allocation for llama.cpp.
--logits_all Needs to be set for perplexity evaluation to work. Otherwise, ignore it, as it makes prompt processing slower.
--no_offload_kqv Do not offload the K, Q, V to the GPU. This saves VRAM but reduces the performance.
--cache-capacity CACHE_CAPACITY Maximum cache capacity (llama-cpp-python). Examples: 2000MiB, 2GiB. When provided without units, bytes will be assumed.
--row_split Split the model by rows across GPUs. This may improve multi-gpu performance.
--streaming-llm Activate StreamingLLM to avoid re-evaluating the entire prompt when old messages are removed.
--attention-sink-size ATTENTION_SINK_SIZE StreamingLLM: number of sink tokens. Only used if the trimmed prompt does not share a prefix with the old prompt.
--deepspeed Enable the use of DeepSpeed ZeRO-3 for inference via the Transformers integration.
--nvme-offload-dir NVME_OFFLOAD_DIR DeepSpeed: Directory to use for ZeRO-3 NVME offloading.
--local_rank LOCAL_RANK DeepSpeed: Optional argument for distributed setups.
RoPE:
--alpha_value ALPHA_VALUE Positional embeddings alpha factor for NTK RoPE scaling. Use either this or compress_pos_emb, not both.
--rope_freq_base ROPE_FREQ_BASE If greater than 0, will be used instead of alpha_value. Those two are related by rope_freq_base = 10000 * alpha_value ^ (64 / 63).
--compress_pos_emb COMPRESS_POS_EMB Positional embeddings compression factor. Should be set to (context length) / (model's original context length). Equal to 1/rope_freq_scale.
Gradio:
--listen Make the web UI reachable from your local network.
--listen-port LISTEN_PORT The listening port that the server will use.
--listen-host LISTEN_HOST The hostname that the server will use.
--share Create a public URL. This is useful for running the web UI on Google Colab or similar.
--auto-launch Open the web UI in the default browser upon launch.
--gradio-auth GRADIO_AUTH Set Gradio authentication password in the format "username:password". Multiple credentials can also be supplied with "u1:p1,u2:p2,u3:p3".
--gradio-auth-path GRADIO_AUTH_PATH Set the Gradio authentication file path. The file should contain one or more user:password pairs in the same format as above.
--ssl-keyfile SSL_KEYFILE The path to the SSL certificate key file.
--ssl-certfile SSL_CERTFILE The path to the SSL certificate cert file.
Models should be placed in the folder `text-generation-webui/models`. They are usually downloaded from [Hugging Face](https://huggingface.co/models?pipeline_tag=text-generation&sort=downloads).
In both cases, you can use the "Model" tab of the UI to download the model from Hugging Face automatically. It is also possible to download it via the command-line with
In August 2023, [Andreessen Horowitz](https://a16z.com/) (a16z) provided a generous grant to encourage and support my independent work on this project. I am **extremely** grateful for their trust and recognition.
