Perf Baseline Record

perf-baseline-record

Purpose

Make perf measurements durable, comparable, and diff-able by recording them into a versioned registry with full provenance. Replaces the hand-maintained "best run of record" table pattern: any operator can register any measurement (NCCL BW, MFU, latency, throughput, kernel-time, anything that produces a number or structured JSON) and have future regressions diff against it deterministically.

Pairs with perf-baseline-diff. Together they replace the historical "I'll just remember last week's number" anti-pattern with a registry that survives the operator changing.

Inference-perf use

For inference perf measurements specifically (TTFT / ITL / throughput / tok-per-user / prefix-cache-hit-rate captured by inference-perf-bench), prefer the inference-perf-baseline-bridge skill. It wraps this verb with the canonical inference_perfbench_v1 schema, parses the upstream perf-bench bundle automatically, and supplies per-metric tolerances tuned for inference workloads (TTFT 5%, throughput 3%, cache-hit-rate 2 absolute pts). No new MCP verb is added. The bridge is a thin frontmatter-fluent wrapper around perf_baseline_record + perf_baseline_diff.

This skill is backed by a native MCP verb: mcp__profile_and_optimize__perf_baseline_record. The verb does the registry write atomically (provenance + source snapshot + INDEX.md update in one shot). The Bash-tool path documented below remains supported as a fallback for environments without the MCP server.

Why a registry, not a one-shot

A single perf measurement is a number with no shoulder. A registered baseline carries:

• Provenance: who recorded it, on what cluster, on what cohort, with what git SHA, with what capture command.
• Raw payload hash: sha256sum of the source data the measurement was derived from. Lets perf-baseline-diff confirm that two measurements were derived from the same shape of input.
• Versioning: every registration is a timestamped immutable directory. Nothing is ever overwritten. Going back N versions is ls + cat.
• Schema check: the measurement shape (units, dimensions, ranges) is validated against an operator-supplied JSON schema. Diffing apples-to-oranges fails fast.

When to use

• After a fabric benchmark run (e.g. the upstream nccl-tests suite) on a fresh cluster / driver / firmware release - register the per-N busBW numbers as the new baseline.
• After an nvbandwidth link sweep - register the per-node heatmap.
• After a green MLPerf training run - register the step-time + MFU.
• After a kernel-level profile capture - register the top-N kernel-time table.
• Anytime the operator hits a perf number worth remembering.

Do not use this skill for:

• One-shot debugging measurements that don't need to be remembered - those go in experiments/artifacts/<family>/<run-id>/ directly without registration.
• Per-run results that change with every run by design (e.g. live goodput counters) - record those as ordinary run artifacts, not baselines.

Example prompts

• "Register this nccl-tests bundle as the new B200 8B busBW baseline."
• "Save this MFU number as the perf-of-record for llama31_8b on cohort X."
• "Baseline the nvbandwidth heatmap I just captured."
• "Record this latency number as the inference-baseline for the deepseek-v3 image."
• "perf-baseline-record family=llama31_8b measurement=nccl_busbw value=480 unit=GB/s source="
• /perf-baseline-record --family llama31_8b --measurement nccl_busbw --source experiments/artifacts/nccl-tests/<run-id>/results.json

Prerequisites

1. Source data - operator names --source <path> (file or directory). Must be readable.
2. Family + measurement-name - --family <name> (e.g. llama31_8b, gb300-cluster, deepseek-v3-inference) + --measurement <name> (e.g. nccl_busbw, step_time, nvlink_pairwise_bw).
3. Value - --value <number> for scalar baselines, or --source for structured baselines (the source file IS the baseline payload).
4. Direction - --direction higher-is-better, lower-is-better, or two-sided. This is required. Use two-sided only when either deviation is adverse.
5. Optional units - --unit <gb/s | ms | tokens/s | mfu>.
6. Optional schema - --schema <path-to-json-schema> for structured baselines. Skill validates the source against the schema.
7. PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT for the registry path.

Interaction style

Mostly autonomous. One pause: confirm the registry path + provenance before write.

Workflow

Phase 0: resolve baseline metadata

Resolve and report:

• Family (<family> becomes the top-level registry directory).
• Measurement name (<measurement> becomes the per-measurement subdirectory).
• Value / source (scalar OR structured).
• Direction (higher-is-better, lower-is-better, or two-sided).
• Units (free-text, operator-supplied).
• Schema (optional. If provided, validate the source).
• Registry path: ${PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT}/experiments/artifacts/perf-baselines/<family>/<measurement>/<UTC-timestamp>/.

Ask: "Register?" One confirmation.

Phase 1: gather provenance

Collect in parallel:

• Bash(date -u +%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ) - registration time.
• Bash(hostname) - workstation that recorded it.
• Bash(uname -a) - workstation kernel.
• Bash(git -C ${PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT} rev-parse HEAD) - current SHA of the bundled server checkout.
• Bash(sha256sum <source>) - content hash of the source payload.
• Operator identity: ${USER} - recorded for the audit trail, not as an ownership claim.

Phase 2: schema validate (if provided)

If --schema <path> was provided, parse the source as JSON and validate against the schema. If invalid, stop and report.

Phase 3: write

Preferred (MCP verb):

mcp__profile_and_optimize__perf_baseline_record with:
  args: ["--family", "<family>",
         "--measurement", "<measurement>",
         "--source", "<source>",
         "--value", "<value>",      # omit for structured baselines
         "--direction", "<higher-is-better|lower-is-better|two-sided>",
         "--unit", "<unit>",
         "--notes", "<notes>",
         "--json"]

The verb does the entire write atomically: creates the immutable directory, snapshots the source, hashes it, writes baseline.json + SOURCE.md, appends to INDEX.md. Returns the entry directory path and the source SHA-256.

Fallback (Bash-tool path, no MCP server):

mkdir -p ${PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT}/experiments/artifacts/perf-baselines/<family>/<measurement>/<UTC-ts>/

Write baseline.json with:
  {
    "family": "<family>",
    "measurement": "<measurement>",
    "value": <value or null>,
    "direction": "<higher-is-better|lower-is-better|two-sided>",
    "unit": "<unit or null>",
    "source_path": "<source>",
    "source_sha256": "<hash>",
    "schema_path": "<schema or null>",
    "registered_at_utc": "<ts>",
    "registered_by": {"team": "<team-or-project>", "operator_user": "<USER>"},
    "workstation": {"hostname": "<host>", "uname": "<uname>"},
    "profile_and_optimize_sha": "<git-sha>",
    "notes": "<operator-supplied note or empty>"
  }

Copy <source> into the registry directory as source-snapshot.<ext>
Write SOURCE.md with human-readable provenance + the capture command (the operator's original prompt that produced the source).

Phase 4: update the per-measurement index

${PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT}/experiments/artifacts/perf-baselines/<family>/<measurement>/INDEX.md

Append a row to the index (one line per registered baseline). Index becomes the chronological history of this measurement.

Phase 5: confirm + hand off

Print the registry path. Recommend:

• "Diff a future measurement against this baseline" -> perf-baseline-diff --baseline <registry-path>.
• "Make this the documented run-of-record" -> cite the registry path in your project docs. The INDEX.md row is the canonical history.

Registry layout

${PROFILE_AND_OPTIMIZE_REPO_ROOT}/experiments/artifacts/perf-baselines/
  <family>/                              # e.g. llama31_8b, gb300-cluster
    <measurement>/                       # e.g. nccl_busbw, step_time
      INDEX.md                           # chronological history
      <UTC-timestamp>/                   # immutable per-registration dir
        baseline.json
        SOURCE.md
        source-snapshot.<ext>            # exact source data
      <UTC-timestamp>/
        ...

Safety

• Never overwrite. Every registration is a new timestamped directory. The registry is append-only by construction.
• Schema validation fails fast. If the source doesn't match the schema, the registry write does not happen. No corrupt baselines.
• Provenance is mandatory. A baseline without a source_sha256 + profile_and_optimize_sha + registered_at_utc is rejected by the writer.
• Attribution is audit-only. baseline.json captures the operator's ${USER} for the audit trail. It is never asserted as a "lead" / "owner" claim.

Full-context reporting (no bare numbers)

Per docs/METHODOLOGY.md "Full-context reporting": every number this skill emits MUST carry its full measurement-context descriptor, and every comparison MUST be matched on it. A bare tok/s / TPOT / BW / %SoL / speedup is a defect - it cannot set a default, ship a config, or appear in a report.

• Identity: model (+HF path), hardware (exact ceiling token GB300/B200), quant, kv-cache dtype.
• Parallelism: TP, DP (replicas), PP, EP, parallel_strategy.
• Serving cfg: max-num-seqs, max-num-batched-tokens, gpu-memory-utilization, max-model-len, cudagraph_mode/enforce_eager, async_scheduling, prefix-caching.
• Workload: dataset, ISL/OSL (or mean in/out tokens), concurrency, num-prompts.
• Regime: warm vs cold. Latency vs throughput tier.
• Stack: image/vllm commit, bench backend, serving engine.
• Grounding: %SoL (+ ceiling key from configs/sol-ceilings.yaml - never inline a peak), sol_rigor (L1-L4), trials n (mean±std), same-node, baseline named.
• Per-number exact shape (no smoothing): when reporting more than one number, keep EACH with its own exact shape (ISL/OSL, concurrency, dataset, regime) - never normalize a set to one uniform descriptor that hides per-point variation (e.g. c=1 @ ISL1024/OSL256 + c=64 @ ISL4096/OSL512, NOT one shared "random").

Per docs/METHODOLOGY.md "Speed-of-light framing", baseline.json SHOULD carry an optional sol_pct field per measurement, computed at record time and frozen with the baseline (so future diffs can report SoL deltas against an immutable reference). Schema fragment:

{
  "measurement_value": 310.0,
  "units": "GB/s",
  "sol_pct": 17.2,
  "sol_ceiling_key": "b200_sm100.nvlink5_tbps",
  "sol_ceiling_value": 1800.0
}

• sol_ceiling_key is the YAML path used to source the peak (e.g. b200_sm100.nvlink5_tbps, gb300_nvl72.nvfp4_dense_pflops) - sourced from configs/sol-ceilings.yaml. Never inline.
• sol_ceiling_value is the value snapshotted at record time so future diffs are stable even if the YAML's peak number is later updated.
• sol_pct is computed at record time = measurement_value / sol_ceiling_value * 100 for bandwidth measurements. For compute measurements use the analogous TFLOPS / peak_TFLOPS ratio.

Baselines for measurements that are not roofline-bound (eval scores, acceptance rates, etc.) MAY omit the sol_* fields.

Next lever / BREAKTHROUGH (Grind Mandate)

If this skill emits a measured result, its output MUST end by naming the next perf lever, its expected unlock (direction + rough magnitude), and the gate that proves/refutes it, per docs/METHODOLOGY.md "Always be grinding". A measured win is the new floor, not the finish -- so do everything we can to find the next BREAKTHROUGH: the highest-EV unlock toward Speed-of-Light (a new champion / kernel / router / quant / parallelism / spec-decode win, or an unblocked stack), not just the next micro-lever. Rank the candidate breakthrough levers by value x cost (the GRIND FRONTIER, perftunereport value_view), pursue the top, bank the rest with evidence. Record WHY a refuted lever loses, update the standing frontier in the active bundle's HANDOFF.md. Never conclude "exhausted/optimal/done" without an explicit next-lever frontier (an empty frontier AND a documented SoL wall only). Delete this section ONLY if the skill produces no measurements.

Verdict rigor (DRAFT vs VERDICT)

Per docs/METHODOLOGY.md "Verdict rigor: DRAFT vs VERDICT", tier every number this skill records. Default to DRAFT (provisional). A baseline is only VERDICT-grade when it is variance-controlled (same-node, >=3 trials, mean +/- std), metric-isolated (median TPOT/ITL for decode-latency, not output tok/s at small num_prompts), and captured against a production-representative config. Record the tier + provenance in baseline.json so a downstream diff can be promoted to a VERDICT.

Source-of-truth references

• docs/METHODOLOGY.md - measurement canon (full-context reporting, verdict rigor, speed-of-light framing).
• server/docs/perf-lake-contract.md - raw-payload provenance rules.
• server/AGENTS.md - fail-fast + artifact-durability rules.