[SpecDec + Reasoning] Fix race condition when <channel|> reasoning-end#43691
[SpecDec + Reasoning] Fix race condition when <channel|> reasoning-end#43691SvenLorenz wants to merge 1 commit into
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token appears as a rejected draft token When speculative decoding generates the <channel|> reasoning-end token as a draft token that gets rejected, the old code unconditionally set reasoning_ended=True and force-fed the unconstrained bonus token to the grammar, corrupting its state. All subsequent outputs were then constrained by a corrupted grammar. Fix: - Detect <channel|> mid-draft-batch in grammar_bitmask() and set bonus_requires_grammar=True to flag that the bonus slot should get a constrained bitmask and the grammar needs advancing - In update_from_output(), only mark reasoning as ended and advance the grammar when the bonus token is actually accepted (meaning the reasoning-end draft token was accepted by spec decode) - When the bonus token is rejected, leave reasoning_ended=False so the model continues generating reasoning text naturally - Add suppress_accept_errors flag to avoid ERROR-level log spam from expected grammar rejections in this path Signed-off-by: SvenLorenz <sven.m.lorenz@gmail.com>
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Hello,
Setup
I investigated further from my issue #38106. It's actually the combination of speculative decoding, reasoning and tool_choice="required". If either one of these three is disabled the bug doesn't happen. I reproduced this with these two configs:
The configs
And the following request fails in roughly 75% of cases before the bugfix for me:
The request
The bug
When speculative decoding generates the reasoning-end token as a draft token, the old code unconditionally set reasoning_ended=True and force-fed the unconstrained bonus token to the grammar, corrupting its state. All subsequent outputs were then constrained by a corrupted grammar leading to unconstrained generation of the model, which more often than not lead to the model generating native tool calls. This then breaks the tool_choice="required" path in
_parse_tool_calls_from_content, because it expects the tool calls to be a json of formatlist[FunctionDefinition]. The model generating native tool calls could be fixed by the suggestion I had in the issue above, but since the model could also generate something else afaik, this is not a true fix.This bug is also stochastic, because if the reasoning-end token gets generated as the bonus token everything works.
The fix
grammar_bitmask()now does per-token reasoning-end detection: whenapply_bitmask=False, each draft token is checked against the reasoner. If reasoning-end token is found mid-batch,apply_bitmaskflips toTruefor subsequent positions (draft tokens after the end token + bonus slot), andbonus_requires_grammar=Trueis set.update_from_output()has a new elif branch forbonus_requires_grammar. The bonus token is fed to the grammar:reasoning_ended=True, constrain all future tokensbonus_requires_grammar=False, leavereasoning_ended=False, grammar state untouched. The model continues reasoning naturally and reasoning-end token will appear in a future batch.accept_tokens()has asuppress_accept_errorsflag to avoid ERROR log spam from expected rejections in this path.Test Plan
Four unit tests were added to tests/v1/structured_output/test_reasoning_structured_output.py, using mocked reasoners and grammars to validate the
grammar_bitmask()per-token reasoning-end detection logic:test_grammar_bitmask_reasoning_ends_mid_batch—<channel|>is the last draft token ([10, 20, 30, 99]). Verifies: only the bonus slot (idx 4) gets a constrained bitmask,bonus_requires_grammar=Trueis set, reasoning_ended stays False, and no accept_tokens calls are made for draft positions.test_grammar_bitmask_reasoning_ends_mid_draft—<channel|>is at position 1 ([10, 99, 30, 40]). Verifies: positions 2, 3, and bonus (idx 2-4) get constrained bitmasks, accept_tokens is skipped for all positions (draft tokens after<channel|>were generated unconstrained),bonus_requires_grammar=True, no rollback called.test_grammar_bitmask_no_reasoning_end— No end token in batch ([10, 20, 30, 40]). Verifies: all positions unconstrained, reasoning_ended unchanged, no fill_bitmask calls.test_grammar_bitmask_reasoning_already_ended—reasoning_ended=Truebefore the batch. Verifies: all 5 positions (4 draft + 1 bonus) constrained, 4 accept_tokens calls made, rollback called — the normal pre-existing path is unchanged.Test Result
All tests for
tests/v1/structured_outputare passing.Essential Elements of an Effective PR Description Checklist