DocumentLanguageModel

.dlm is a trainable local AI document format: typed sections, directives, replay-backed retraining, and export.

DocumentLanguageModel (DLM) is a local-first training, inference, and export toolchain built around authored documents instead of hosted dashboards.

A .dlm can be:

• a hand-written training document with prose, instruction, and preference data
• a directive-driven entrypoint into a codebase or notes tree
• a multi-adapter project with learned routing
• a selected multimodal or audio-language document

DLM trains LoRA / QLoRA / DoRA adapters on real pretrained bases, keeps a replay history so retrains do not silently forget, and exports local runtimes such as Ollama, llama-server, vllm, and mlx-serve.

Status: pre-v1.0, but far beyond the original MVP framing. The core author/train/prompt/export/pack/share loop is real, and newer runtime-target work is landing incrementally. Current export targets are ollama, llama-server, vllm, and mlx-serve.

What A .dlm Actually Is

A .dlm is not just “a text file with a special extension.”

It is a trainable project surface with:

• frontmatter for base-model choice, training config, export defaults, sources, cache policy, and multi-adapter gate settings
• typed body sections such as prose, ::instruction::, ::preference::, ::image::, and ::audio::
• adapter routing via fences like ::instruction#knowledge::
• directive-driven ingestion from files and directories through training.sources
• repo-local subtree control through .dlm/training.yaml and .dlm/ignore
• a stable dlm_id that binds the document to a local store under ~/.dlm/store/<dlm_id>/

That combination is what makes DLM more like a local AI authoring format than a single prompt file.

Why DLM

Most “personal AI” tooling still pushes you toward one of two bad choices:

• upload your data to someone else’s cloud
• run an oversized model with weak authoring and retraining ergonomics

DLM sits in the gap:

• The document is the interface. You author the thing you care about instead of wiring together a hidden dataset pipeline.
• Training is real. LoRA / QLoRA / DoRA on pretrained bases, not a toy from-scratch transformer.
• Retraining is additive. Previous document versions flow into a replay corpus so the model does not forget last week’s state by default.
• Everything stays local. Training, inference, store state, exports, and packs all live on your machine unless you explicitly push them somewhere.
• Determinism is a contract. Locks, pinned versions, and golden checks are first-class design constraints, not “best effort.”

Core Capabilities

• Author structured training data in one place. Mix prose, SFT examples, preferences, image sections, and audio sections in one document.
• Ingest whole trees, not just one file. training.sources can walk a repo, and subtree-local .dlm/training.yaml / .dlm/ignore let the corpus carry its own curation rules.
• Train on modern base families. Text, reasoning-tuned, sparse-MoE, vision-language, and audio-language registry rows ship today, plus hf:org/name escape hatches.
• Compose multiple adapters in one document. Named adapters, weighted export mixes, and learned adapter gates let one .dlm separate knowledge, tone, or persona lanes.
• Stay in a local iteration loop. dlm prompt, dlm repl, dlm train --watch, dlm metrics, and dlm doctor are all part of the normal workflow now.
• Export beyond the original Ollama-only story. DLM still does explicit Ollama exports with pinned templates, and now also emits llama-server, vllm, and mlx-serve launch artifacts for local runtime targets.
• Close the eval loop. dlm harvest can pull failing sway-style probe reports back into the document as new training examples.
• Pack and share reproducibly. .dlm.pack, verification, push/pull, and local serve flows are all built around the same store contracts.

Supported Platforms

See docs/hardware and docs/hardware/vl-memory.md for the real support matrix and current caveats.

Install

From the Homebrew tap

brew tap tenseleyFlow/tap
brew install dlm

# Optional, only if you want `--target ollama` registration/smoke:
brew install ollama

brew install dlm pulls in the Python environment and the vendored llama.cpp source tree DLM uses for GGUF conversion. CUDA users unlock QLoRA after install:

$(brew --prefix dlm)/libexec/venv/bin/pip install 'dlm[cuda]'

From source

git clone https://github.com/tenseleyFlow/DocumentLanguageModel.git
cd DocumentLanguageModel
uv sync

# Build GGUF tooling:
scripts/bump-llama-cpp.sh build

# If you want the llama.cpp HTTP target too:
scripts/bump-llama-cpp.sh build --with-server

# If you want the Apple Silicon MLX HTTP target:
uv sync --extra mlx

# If you want the vLLM HTTP target:
# install a compatible vllm runtime separately; DLM writes launch artifacts
# but does not bundle the server runtime itself.

uv run dlm --help

We deliberately do not publish to PyPI yet. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the release flow.

30-Second Start

uv run dlm init tutor.dlm --base smollm2-135m
$EDITOR tutor.dlm
uv run dlm train tutor.dlm
uv run dlm prompt tutor.dlm "What is a Python decorator?"
uv run dlm export tutor.dlm --target ollama --name my-tutor

A minimal .dlm still works:

---
dlm_id: 01KPM5CXB51GRX86Q25AKERN6E
dlm_version: 1
base_model: smollm2-135m
---

# Your document title

Write prose here.

::instruction::
### Q
What is a decorator?

### A
A function that takes a function and returns a wrapped function.

That path is still important. It is just no longer the whole story.

Authoring Beyond The Toy Example

A more representative .dlm can mix directives, named adapters, and export defaults in one place:

---
dlm_id: 01KTESTEXAMPLE000000000000
dlm_version: 1
base_model: qwen3-1.7b
system_prompt: |
  You are a concise engineering assistant.
training:
  adapter: lora
  sequence_len: 4096
  sources_policy: strict
  sources:
    - path: ./src
      include: ["**/*.py", "**/*.md"]
      exclude: ["tests/**", "**/__pycache__/**"]
  adapters:
    knowledge:
      adapter: lora
      lora_r: 8
    tone:
      adapter: lora
      lora_r: 4
  gate:
    enabled: true
export:
  default_quant: Q4_K_M
---

# Project notes

Shared prose trains all declared adapters by default.

::instruction#knowledge::
### Q
What does the cache layer do?

### A
It avoids re-tokenizing unchanged directive-sourced files.

::preference#tone::
### Prompt
Explain a failure mode.

### Chosen
Explain it directly, then give the fix.

### Rejected
Over-explain the background before naming the problem.

Two important upgrades over the older README story:

• training.sources can turn a repo or notes tree into synthetic training sections.
• training.adapters + training.gate let one document route prompts across multiple adapters instead of pretending one flat adapter is the only mode.

If you need deeper subtree-specific curation, drop .dlm/training.yaml and .dlm/ignore into nested directories and let the corpus carry its own rules.

Common Workflows

1. Hand-authored document

uv run dlm init tutor.dlm --base smollm2-135m
uv run dlm train tutor.dlm
uv run dlm prompt tutor.dlm "Explain decorators"

2. Train across a codebase

uv run dlm train ./my-repo --base qwen3-1.7b --include '**/*.py' --name corpus

That auto-scaffolds a .dlm under ./my-repo/.dlm/ and lets the repo become its own training surface.

3. Multi-adapter composition

uv run dlm prompt mydoc.dlm "Explain the runbook" --adapter knowledge
uv run dlm export mydoc.dlm --adapter-mix knowledge:1.0,tone:0.5

4. Local iteration loop

uv run dlm train mydoc.dlm --watch
uv run dlm repl mydoc.dlm
uv run dlm metrics mydoc.dlm

5. Export and ship

uv run dlm export mydoc.dlm --target ollama --name mydoc
uv run dlm export mydoc.dlm --target llama-server --no-smoke
uv run dlm export mydoc.dlm --target vllm --no-smoke
uv run dlm export mydoc.dlm --target mlx-serve --no-smoke
uv run dlm pack mydoc.dlm --include-exports
uv run dlm verify mydoc.dlm.pack

On Apple Silicon, --target vllm now emits conservative vllm-metal defaults in the launch script: it pins the server to the MLX KV path (VLLM_METAL_USE_PAGED_ATTENTION=0, VLLM_METAL_MEMORY_FRACTION=auto) and caps --max-model-len to the document's training.sequence_len instead of blindly asking vllm for the base model's full context.

6. Pull eval failures back into training

uv run dlm harvest mydoc.dlm --sway-json sway-report.json --apply

That is the probe-driven loop: evaluation finds a miss, DLM turns it into document-level training data, and the next train closes the gap.

Command Surface

The CLI is broader than the original MVP now. A useful mental map:

See the CLI reference for the full flag surface.

Documentation

• Getting started
• Frontmatter reference
• Section grammar
• Training across codebases
• Multi-adapter composition
• Learned adapter gate
• Multimodal training
• Audio training
• Probe-driven training / sway harvest
• Multi-target export
• CLI reference
• Architecture
• Determinism

Principles

1. The document is the interface. But the document is structured: frontmatter, typed sections, directives, and store contracts all matter.
2. Training is real. LoRA / QLoRA / DoRA on pretrained bases, not a toy transformer.
3. Retraining should not silently forget. Replay-backed accumulation is part of the product.
4. Local-first is load-bearing. Your training data, adapters, exports, and packs stay on your machine unless you explicitly move them.
5. Determinism is a contract. If a change breaks the reproducibility story, that is a product regression.

Tech Stack

Python 3.11+ · PyTorch · HuggingFace transformers / peft / trl / accelerate / datasets · watchfiles · prompt-toolkit · safetensors · vendored llama.cpp for GGUF export · Ollama (optional runtime target) · Typer · Pydantic · uv

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md. Testing conventions live in docs-internal/README-testing.md.

uv run pre-commit install

License

MIT. Base-model licenses are separate and enforced where DLM needs them: dlm init, dlm train, dlm export, and dlm pack all keep the gated-base acceptance path explicit.