Rwkv Architecture
RNN+Transformer hybrid with O(n) inference.
Install
npx skills add Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs --skill rwkv-architecture -g -a claude-code -y- Repository
- Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs14.2k
- Category
- Engineering
- Updated
- 25d ago
- License
- MIT
- Context cost
- Mediumabout 1,630 tokens
- Runs scripts
- No, instructions only
What it does
RNN+Transformer hybrid with O(n) inference. Linear time, infinite context, no KV cache. Train like GPT (parallel), infer like RNN (sequential). Linux Foundation AI project. Production at Windows, Office, NeMo. RWKV-7 (March 2025). Models up to 14B parameters.
RWKV - Receptance Weighted Key Value
Quick start
RWKV (RwaKuv) combines Transformer parallelization (training) with RNN efficiency (inference).
Installation:
# Install PyTorch
pip install torch --upgrade --extra-index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu121
# Install dependencies
pip install pytorch-lightning==1.9.5 deepspeed wandb ninja --upgrade
# Install RWKV
pip install rwkv
Basic usage (GPT mode + RNN mode):
import os
from rwkv.model import RWKV
os.environ["RWKV_JIT_ON"] = '1'
os.environ["RWKV_CUDA_ON"] = '1' # Use CUDA kernel for speed
# Load model
model = RWKV(
model='/path/to/RWKV-4-Pile-1B5-20220903-8040',
strategy='cuda fp16'
)
# GPT mode (parallel processing)
out, state = model.forward([187, 510, 1563, 310, 247], None)
print(out.detach().cpu().numpy()) # Logits
# RNN mode (sequential processing, same result)
out, state = model.forward([187, 510], None) # First 2 tokens
out, state = model.forward([1563], state) # Next token
out, state = model.forward([310, 247], state) # Last tokens
print(out.detach().cpu().numpy()) # Same logits as above!
Common workflows
Workflow 1: Text generation (streaming)
Efficient token-by-token generation:
from rwkv.model import RWKV
from rwkv.utils import PIPELINE
model = RWKV(model='RWKV-4-Pile-14B-20230313-ctx8192-test1050', strategy='cuda fp16')
pipeline = PIPELINE(model, "20B_tokenizer.json")
# Initial prompt
prompt = "The future of AI is"
state = None
# Generate token by token
for token in prompt:
out, state = pipeline.model.forward(pipeline.encode(token), state)
# Continue generation
for _ in range(100):
out, state = pipeline.model.forward(None, state)
token = pipeline.sample_logits(out)
print(pipeline.decode(token), end='', flush=True)
Key advantage: Constant memory per token (no growing KV cache)
