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[docs] Add docs for new RL flows#36188

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hmellor merged 13 commits intovllm-project:mainfrom
hao-aaron:rl-docs
Mar 18, 2026
Merged

[docs] Add docs for new RL flows#36188
hmellor merged 13 commits intovllm-project:mainfrom
hao-aaron:rl-docs

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@hao-aaron hao-aaron commented Mar 5, 2026

Purpose

Introduce new docs detailing weight sync and new pause resume, move old rlhf examples to legacy

Test Plan

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  • The purpose of the PR, such as "Fix some issue (link existing issues this PR will resolve)".
  • The test plan, such as providing test command.
  • The test results, such as pasting the results comparison before and after, or e2e results
  • (Optional) The necessary documentation update, such as updating supported_models.md and examples for a new model.
  • (Optional) Release notes update. If your change is user facing, please update the release notes draft in the Google Doc.

Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
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mergify bot commented Mar 5, 2026

Documentation preview: https://vllm--36188.org.readthedocs.build/en/36188/

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mergify bot commented Mar 5, 2026

This pull request has merge conflicts that must be resolved before it can be
merged. Please rebase the PR, @hao-aaron.

https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-pull-requests/working-with-forks/syncing-a-fork

@mergify mergify bot added documentation Improvements or additions to documentation needs-rebase labels Mar 5, 2026
Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
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Code Review

This pull request introduces comprehensive documentation for new Reinforcement Learning (RL) features, including asynchronous RL flows and weight transfer mechanisms. The new documentation is well-structured, covering the overview, API usage, and different backends like NCCL and IPC. The PR also reorganizes the example files by moving older examples to a legacy directory. The documentation additions are clear and provide important details, such as required environment variables and API behavior, which will be very helpful for users. I have reviewed the changes and found no issues.

Note: Security Review is unavailable for this PR.

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Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
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Feel free to put all the RLHF examples in examples/rlhf. It would make them nice and discoverable like the Pooling examples:

Image

)
```

See [`NCCLTrainerSendWeightsArgs`](https://github.com/vllm-project/vllm/blob/main/vllm/distributed/weight_transfer/nccl_engine.py) for the full list of configurable fields.
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You could instead link to the API docs with [`NCCLTrainerSendWeightsArgs`][vllm.distributed.weight_transfer.nccl_engine.NCCLTrainerSendWeightsArgs]

Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
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This pull request has merge conflicts that must be resolved before it can be
merged. Please rebase the PR, @hao-aaron.

https://docs.github.com/en/pull-requests/collaborating-with-pull-requests/working-with-forks/syncing-a-fork

@mergify mergify bot added the needs-rebase label Mar 11, 2026
hmellor added 2 commits March 12, 2026 09:36
Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
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hmellor commented Mar 12, 2026

I just pushed a couple of changes to make the documentation generation a bit better.

Is there any reason to keep the legacy examples? They will still be present in older versions of the docs

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they could be good to have so people have an idea of how to use worker extension in case the custom weight sync doesn't work for their use case, but otherwise its not necessary. I can remove it

Made-with: Cursor

# Conflicts:
#	.buildkite/test_areas/distributed.yaml

Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
Signed-off-by: ahao-anyscale <ahao@anyscale.com>
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Signed-off-by: Harry Mellor <19981378+hmellor@users.noreply.github.com>
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```bash
vllm serve my-model \
--weight-transfer-config '{"backend": "nccl"}'
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@hao-aaron I just wanted to give you the option to recommend this, I think it looks nicer but it's up to you

Suggested change
--weight-transfer-config '{"backend": "nccl"}'
--weight-transfer-config.backend nccl

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This is a really nice improvement!

I'll start merging now and any tweaks to syntax/API reference linking can be follow ups if we want.

@hmellor hmellor enabled auto-merge (squash) March 18, 2026 07:56
@github-actions github-actions bot added the ready ONLY add when PR is ready to merge/full CI is needed label Mar 18, 2026
@hmellor hmellor merged commit 47a1f11 into vllm-project:main Mar 18, 2026
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wendyliu235 pushed a commit to wendyliu235/vllm-public that referenced this pull request Mar 18, 2026
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