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GitHub - Luce-Org/lucebox-hub: Lucebox optimization hub: hand-tuned LLM inference, built for specific consumer hardware.

▲ 165 points 52 comments by GreenGames 4w ago HN discussion ↗

Pangram verdict · v3.3

We believe that this document is primarily AI-generated with some human-written content

61 %

AI likelihood · overall

AI
15% human-written 85% AI-generated
SEGMENTS · HUMAN 1 of 5
SEGMENTS · AI 4 of 5
WORD COUNT 913
PEAK AI % 100% · §1
Analyzed
Apr 20
backend: pangram/v3.3
Segments scanned
5 windows
avg 183 words each
Distribution
15 / 85%
human / AI fraction
Verdict
AI
Pangram v3.3

Article text · 913 words · 5 segments analyzed

Human AI-generated
§1 AI · 100%

Open LLM inference, rewritten by hand for one specific chip at a time. Kernels, speculative decoding, and quantization, tailored per target. We don't wait for better silicon. We rewrite the software.

Inside the box Two projects today, more coming. Each one is a self-contained release with its own benchmarks and paper-style writeup.

01 · Megakernel Qwen3.5 0.8B on RTX 3090 The first megakernel for hybrid DeltaNet/Attention LLMs. All 24 layers of Qwen 3.5-0.8B in a single CUDA dispatch, 1.87 tok/J on a 2020 GPU, matching Apple's latest silicon at 2× the throughput. # 1. clone + enter git clone https://github.com/Luce-Org/lucebox-hub && cd lucebox-hub/megakernel

# 2. install (Python 3.10+, CUDA 12+, PyTorch 2.0+). Weights stream from HF on first run. pip install -e .

# 3. run the benchmark (prefill pp520 + decode tg128 vs llama.cpp BF16 + PyTorch HF) python final_bench.py

Method Prefill pp520 Decode tg128 tok/J

Megakernel @220W 37,800 413 1.87

llama.cpp BF16 @350W 11,247 267 0.76

PyTorch HF 7,578 108 n/a

What makes it work: 82 blocks, 512 threads, one persistent kernel. No CPU round-trips between layers. Weights streamed straight from HuggingFace. Cooperative grid sync instead of ~100 kernel launches per token. Power ceiling hit before compute ceiling, so DVFS converts tight execution straight into saved watts.

§2 AI · 100%

Full writeup → · Benchmarks → · Blog post →

02 · DFlash DDtree Qwen3.5 27B GGUF on RTX 3090 First GGUF port of DFlash speculative decoding. Qwen3.5-27B on a single RTX 3090, Q4_K_M target + BF16 draft, DDTree budget=22.

Up to 207 tok/s in the demo (207.6 tok/s DFlash vs 38.0 tok/s AR, 5.46×) 129.5 tok/s mean on the HumanEval 10-prompt bench 3.43× faster than autoregressive (+15% over chain speculative decoding) 2.8× faster than SGLang AWQ on the same hardware 128K context in 24 GB (134.78 tok/s at ctx=131072)

# 1. clone with submodules (pulls the pinned Luce-Org/llama.cpp@luce-dflash fork) git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/Luce-Org/lucebox-hub && cd lucebox-hub/dflash

# 2. build the C++/CUDA decoder (~3 min on sm_86, CUDA 12+, CMake 3.18+) cmake -B build -S . -DCMAKE_CUDA_ARCHITECTURES=86 -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release cmake --build build --target test_dflash -j

# 3. fetch weights: ~16 GB Q4_K_M target + 3.46 GB bf16 draft huggingface-cli download unsloth/Qwen3.5-27B-GGUF Qwen3.5-27B-Q4_K_M.gguf --local-dir models/ huggingface-cli download z-lab/Qwen3.5-27B-DFlash model.safetensors --local-dir models/draft/

# 4a. one-shot streaming generate python3 scripts/run.py --prompt "def fibonacci(n):"

# 4b.

§3 AI · 100%

or reproduce the paper-style bench (HumanEval + GSM8K + Math500, ~15 min) python3 scripts/bench_llm.py

Benchmark AR (tok/s) DFlash+DDTree (tok/s) Speedup

HumanEval 37.8 129.5 3.43×

Math500 37.7 110.5 2.93×

GSM8K 37.7 96.2 2.55×

The constraint that shaped the project. AWQ INT4 of Qwen3.5-27B plus the BF16 draft doesn't leave room for the DDTree verify state on a 24 GB card. Q4_K_M GGUF (~16 GB target) is the largest format that fits target + 3.46 GB draft + budget=22 tree state + KV cache in 24 GB on the RTX 3090. Picking it forced a new port on top of ggml, since no public DFlash runtime supports a GGUF target. What we built vs what we didn't. The algorithms are not ours:

DFlash (z-lab, 2026): block-diffusion draft conditioned on target hidden states. DDTree (Ringel et al., 2026): tree-structured verify that beats chain verify at the same compute budget.

What we ported and tuned:

C++/CUDA decode engine on top of ggml (no libllama, no Python runtime, Q4_K_M target path). Three custom CUDA kernels for tree-aware SSM state rollback: ggml_ssm_conv_tree, ggml_gated_delta_net_tree, ggml_gated_delta_net_tree_persist. DDTree budget swept for RTX 3090 + Q4_K_M target: budget=22 is the sweet spot. Q4_0 KV cache + sliding target_feat ring to fit 128K context in 24 GB with ~3% AL hit.

Full writeup → · Benchmarks → · Blog post →

Why this exists Local AI should be a default, not a privilege: private data, no per-token bill, no vendor lock-in. The hardware to run capable models already sits on desks.

§4 AI · 100%

The software to run those chips well doesn't. General-purpose frameworks dominated the last decade because hand-tuning kernels per chip was too expensive to justify. One stack, decent on everything, great on nothing. Most of the silicon's capability stays on the floor. AI-assisted development flips that calculus. Rewrites that took a quarter now fit in a release cycle. Lucebox is where we publish them, one chip and one model family at a time. MIT source, full writeup, reproducible benchmarks.

Requirements NVIDIA GPU (Ampere+, sm_86+), CUDA 12+, PyTorch 2.0+. Tested on RTX 3090 (2020). dflash needs CMake 3.18+ and --recurse-submodules for the pinned Luce-Org/llama.cpp@luce-dflash fork (three tree-mode ggml ops). Optional, find your GPU's sweet spot: sudo nvidia-smi -pl 220 (megakernel hits best tok/J at 220 W).

Repository layout lucebox-hub/ ├── megakernel/ · fused forward pass for Qwen 3.5-0.8B ├── dflash/ · DFlash speculative decoding port for Qwen 3.5-27B on RTX 3090 └── assets/ · banners, cards, diagrams

Roadmap Q1 2026 ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮ RTX 3090 kernels & optimizations Q2 2026 ▮▮▮▮▮▯▯▯▯▯ Ryzen AI MAX+ 395 optimizations

§5 Human · 25%

Q2 2026 ▮▮▯▯▯▯▯▯▯▯ Heterogeneous CPU + GPU latency optimizations

Citation @software{lucebox_2026, title = {Lucebox: Open LLM Inference, Rewritten by Hand for One Specific Chip at a Time}, author = {Lucebox}, url = {https://github.com/Luce-Org/lucebox-hub}, year = {2026} } Per-project citations live in each subproject's README.

Inspired by

Hazy Research: megakernel idea and the intelligence-per-watt methodology. z-lab/DFlash (Wang et al., 2026): block-diffusion speculative decoding algorithm. We use their published Qwen3.5-27B-DFlash draft weights as-is. DDTree (Ringel & Romano, 2026): tree-structured verify that DFlash 27B uses for its 3.5× speedup over chain spec decoding. liranringel/ddtree. AlpinDale/qwen_megakernel, Infatoshi/MegaQwen: prior art on fused Qwen kernels.

Community

Discord: discord.gg/yHfswqZmJQ Website: lucebox.com Issues: github.com/Luce-Org/lucebox-hub/issues Blog: lucebox.com/blog

MIT · Lucebox.com