Implements the paged-attention gather-read (the real engine compute): attention
reads ONLY a sequence's used cells by gathering K, V and the kq_mask by the
non-empty-cell index list before build_attn_mha. Verified token-identical to stock
greedy generation, 9/9 across 3 prompts x {32,96,128} tokens on Qwen3-0.6B, with
n_gather=71 < n_kv=256 confirming real compaction (not an identity no-op).
Built in the additive "hook, don't edit" form: all logic in new src/paged-attn.{h,cpp}
(an llm_graph_input_i gather-index subclass + the K/V/mask gather), hooked by one line
in build_attn + two thin accessors on llama_kv_cache_context + one CMake line. No edit
to llm_graph_input_attn_kv or llama-graph.h. 216 insertions; default-off behind
LLAMA_KV_PAGED so stock path stays byte-identical.
Key correctness finding: get_gather_idxs emits cells sorted by token position. CPU
flash-attn's online softmax reduces cells in physical-array order and is FP-order-
sensitive, so 0002's scattered placement alone (full-window read) diverges from stock
past the first block; the position-sorted gather reproduces stock's exact reduction
order -> bit-identical. So 0003 is what makes paged placement token-identical under
flash-attn.
Verified on a dev tree at the pin (0001+0002+0003 on branch paged); not pushed.
Assisted-by: Claude:opus-4.8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>
Numbered patches under backend/cpp/llama-cpp/patches/ applied in order against
the pinned LLAMA_VERSION (build hook in the llama.cpp: target). Each phase is one
small, independently-buildable patch so the work rebases cleanly across llama.cpp
bumps (anti-drift). README defines the series (0001 vendor manager -> 0006 prefix
caching) + the regen workflow.
Assisted-by: Claude:opus-4.8 [Claude Code]
Signed-off-by: Ettore Di Giacinto <mudler@localai.io>
