[CI] Include chat template fallbacks in package_data

[tarukumar]

Problem

vllm/transformers_utils/chat_templates/registry.py resolves built-in multimodal chat template fallbacks from files such as template_chatml.jinja in the same directory. After installing vLLM from a wheel built from a source archive (without a git checkout), only the Python modules are present:

chat_templates/
  __init__.py
  registry.py

The *.jinja files are missing, which breaks models that rely on these fallbacks when no Hugging Face chat template is available.

Root cause

• __init__.py and registry.py are installed automatically as Python package modules.
• *.jinja files are package data and are not listed in package_data or MANIFEST.in.
• Builds from a git checkout may still include the templates because setuptools discovers them during egg_info.
• Builds from a source archive regenerate SOURCES.txt without the .jinja files, so they are omitted from sdists and wheels.

Fix

Declare the templates explicitly in setup.py:

"transformers_utils/chat_templates/*.jinja",

Verification

git archive --format=tar HEAD | tar x -C /tmp/vllm-src
cd /tmp/vllm-src
VLLM_TARGET_DEVICE=empty BUILD_VERSION=0.0.0 python3 -m pip wheel . --no-deps -w /tmp/wheels
unzip -l /tmp/wheels/vllm-*.whl | grep transformers_utils/chat_templates

Before this change, the wheel contains only __init__.py and registry.py. After this change, all template_*.jinja files are included.

LOG:
If people do not copy the template it fails like this if you are creating a wheel and installing it

(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/renderers/base.py", line 977, in render_chat
(APIServer pid=1)     self.render_messages(conversation, chat_params)
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/renderers/hf.py", line 829, in render_messages
(APIServer pid=1)     content_format=resolve_chat_template_content_format(
(APIServer pid=1)                    ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/renderers/hf.py", line 512, in resolve_chat_template_content_format
(APIServer pid=1)     detected_format = _resolve_chat_template_content_format(
(APIServer pid=1)                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/renderers/hf.py", line 455, in _resolve_chat_template_content_format
(APIServer pid=1)     resolved_chat_template = resolve_chat_template(
(APIServer pid=1)                              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/renderers/hf.py", line 308, in resolve_chat_template
(APIServer pid=1)     chat_template = load_chat_template(path)
(APIServer pid=1)                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/entrypoints/chat_utils.py", line 1354, in load_chat_template
(APIServer pid=1)     return _cached_load_chat_template(chat_template, is_literal=is_literal)
(APIServer pid=1)            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1)   File "/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/entrypoints/chat_utils.py", line 1315, in _load_chat_template
(APIServer pid=1)     with open(chat_template) as f:
(APIServer pid=1)          ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
(APIServer pid=1) FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/opt/app-root/lib64/python3.12/site-packages/vllm/transformers_utils/chat_templates/template_basic.jinja'

[claude]

Claude Code Review

This pull request is from a fork — automated review is disabled. A repository maintainer can comment @claude review to run a one-time review.

[DarkLight1337]

/ci run

[github-actions]

✅ Triggered Buildkite CI #86792 for commit e6f96bf5bcff.