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# Hidden State Extraction
The Hidden State Extraction feature allows vLLM to save intermediate layer activations from a target model during inference. This is useful for training [EAGLE](eagle.md)-style draft models, knowledge distillation, or offline analysis of model internals.
!!! note
It is possible to save the last-layer's output hidden states by passing `num_hidden_layers` as a layer id. Note that these are _not_ normalized using the output norm.
## Offline Example
```python
import tempfile
from vllm import LLM, SamplingParams
from vllm.config.kv_transfer import KVTransferConfig
from vllm.distributed.kv_transfer.kv_connector.v1 import (
example_hidden_states_connector,
)
with tempfile.TemporaryDirectory() as tmpdir:
llm = LLM(
model="Qwen/Qwen3-8B",
speculative_config={
"method": "extract_hidden_states",
"num_speculative_tokens": 1,
"draft_model_config": {
"hf_config": {
"eagle_aux_hidden_state_layer_ids": [1, 2, 3, 4],
},
},
},
kv_transfer_config=KVTransferConfig(
kv_connector="ExampleHiddenStatesConnector",
kv_role="kv_producer",
kv_connector_extra_config={
"shared_storage_path": tmpdir,
},
),
)
outputs = llm.generate(
["The future of AI is"],
SamplingParams(max_tokens=1),
)
for output in outputs:
path = output.kv_transfer_params["hidden_states_path"]
obj = example_hidden_states_connector.load_hidden_states(path)
print(f"token_ids: {obj['token_ids'].shape}")
print(f"hidden_states: {obj['hidden_states'].shape}")
```
A complete example is available at [`examples/features/speculative_decoding/extract_hidden_states_offline.py`](../../../examples/features/speculative_decoding/extract_hidden_states_offline.py).
## Online Example
For improved performance, it is recommended to use a RAM-mounted file system such as `/dev/shm/` for online usage in which the client cleans up the files soon after they are generated.
```bash
vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-8B \
--speculative_config '{"method": "extract_hidden_states", "num_speculative_tokens": 1, "draft_model_config": {"hf_config": {"eagle_aux_hidden_state_layer_ids": [1, 2, 3, 4]}}}' \
--kv_transfer_config '{"kv_connector": "ExampleHiddenStatesConnector", "kv_role": "kv_producer", "kv_connector_extra_config": {"shared_storage_path": "/dev/shm/hidden_states"}}'
```
## Per-Request Options
Both offline and online modes support per-request options via `kv_transfer_params`:
| Parameter | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `hidden_states_path` | Auto-generated | Custom file path for saving hidden states. If not set, files are saved to `<shared_storage_path>/<request_id>.safetensors`. Requires `allow_custom_save_path` to be enabled in the server config. |
| `include_output_tokens` | `False` | When `True`, save hidden states for both prompt and generated output tokens. When `False`, only prompt token hidden states are saved. |
### Offline usage
Pass per-request options via `extra_args` on `SamplingParams`:
```python
SamplingParams(
max_tokens=32,
extra_args={
"kv_transfer_params": {
"hidden_states_path": "/tmp/my_output.safetensors",
"include_output_tokens": True,
}
},
)
```
### Online usage
Pass `kv_transfer_params` as a top-level field in the API request:
```json
{
"model": "Qwen/Qwen3-8B",
"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}],
"max_tokens": 32,
"kv_transfer_params": {
"hidden_states_path": "/tmp/my_output.safetensors",
"include_output_tokens": true
}
}
```
## Configuration
The `kv_connector_extra_config` dict accepts these server-level options:
| Parameter | Default | Description |
| --- | --- | --- |
| `shared_storage_path` | `/tmp` | Directory where hidden state files are saved (used when `hidden_states_path` is not set per-request) |
| `allow_custom_save_path` | `False` | Allow API clients to specify custom file paths via `hidden_states_path`. When disabled, client-provided paths are ignored with a warning. Enable only with trusted clients — custom paths can write to arbitrary locations on the server. |
| `num_writer_threads` | `8` | Thread pool size for async disk writes |
| `use_synchronization_lock` | `True` | Use file locks so concurrent readers block until writes complete. Can be disabled for batch generation where synchronization is not needed. |
## Output Format
Each request produces a `.safetensors` file containing:
- **`hidden_states`** — shape `[num_tokens, num_extracted_layers, hidden_size]`
- **`token_ids`** — shape `[num_tokens]`
The file path is returned in `output.kv_transfer_params["hidden_states_path"]`. Use `load_hidden_states()` from the connector module to read the file with proper synchronization.
!!! note
Chunked prefill is not compatible with this feature and must be disabled.