Click the diagram for the full architecture reference, or read the short ARCHITECTURE.md.
SKaiNET is a Kotlin Multiplatform AI framework. New here? Choose the path that matches what you want to try first.
| Goal | Start here | Time |
|---|---|---|
| Run tensor operations | Quickstart (below) | 2–5 min |
| Build and train a neural net | Hello Neural Net (below) | 5 min |
| Run a local GGUF model | SKaiNET Transformers starter | 5 min after model setup |
| Export a secure MCU bundle | Minerva getting started | 10 min without firmware flashing |
Working in Java? SKaiNET ships first-class Java support — see the Java getting-started guide.
Use the version shown in this README as the source of truth for first-run snippets. If another page shows a different version, please open an issue or PR.
Add the core dependencies (Gradle Kotlin DSL):
dependencies {
// Recommended: import the umbrella BOM and drop versions on the engine modules.
implementation(platform("sk.ainet:skainet-bom:0.35.0"))
implementation("sk.ainet.core:skainet-lang-core")
implementation("sk.ainet.core:skainet-backend-cpu")
}val model = nn {
input(28 * 28)
dense(out = 128)
relu()
dense(out = 10)
}val a = tensor(shape(2, 2)) { float(1f, 2f, 3f, 4f) }
val b = tensor(shape(2, 2)) { float(5f, 6f, 7f, 8f) }
val c = a matMul b
val d = c.relu()// Recommended: streaming reader — memory-efficient, supports quantized types
val source = JvmRandomAccessSource.open("model.gguf")
StreamingGGUFReader.open(source).use { reader ->
println("Tensors: ${reader.tensorCount}")
// Load specific tensor on demand (no whole-file loading)
val bytes = reader.loadTensor("token_embd.weight")
// Or get a TensorStorage descriptor with encoding/placement metadata
val storage = reader.loadTensorStorage("token_embd.weight")
}More examples: SKaiNET-examples | SKaiNET-notebook
SKaiNET is a modular ecosystem. While this repository contains the core engine, specialized high-level libraries are maintained in standalone repositories:
| Project | Description |
|---|---|
| SKaiNET-transformers | Pre-built transformer architectures and layers |
| SKaiNET-examples | Sample projects and integration demos |
| Goal | Start here |
|---|---|
| Examples and sample projects | SKaiNET-examples |
| Interactive notebooks | SKaiNET-notebook |
| Eager backends & kernels (what runs where) | Backends & kernels mindmap |
| Design proposals and long-lived API decisions | SKEEP proposals |
Small fixes can go straight through the normal contribution flow described in CONTRIBUTING.md and GITFLOW.adoc.
Use a SKEEP when a change affects public APIs, DSL syntax, tensor semantics,
compiler/runtime integration, storage behavior, compatibility policy, or other
decisions that need a durable design record. SKEEP files live under
docs/modules/skeep/pages/ and use three-digit numbering, starting with
001.
SKaiNET ships an official Phoronix-Test-Suite-compatible benchmark
program for the compute engine. See the
methodology and replay docs,
the release manifest, and the
CI workflow. Smoke runs fire
on every PR via ubuntu-latest; full publishable runs fire on a
self-hosted Linux x86 runner on release.
Quick local replay:
./gradlew :skainet-backends:benchmarks:jvm-cpu-publish:shadowJar
./scripts/run_engine_smoke.shSKaiNET is built around one path: a model is defined once in the Kotlin DSL, then either compiled or executed eagerly — without rewriting it.
- Define the model with the DSL (
nn { }/dag { }). - Capture it as a tape (traced execution) or a DAG (explicit graph) — a
ComputeGraph. - Run it one of two ways:
- Compile — lower the captured
ComputeGraphthrough one of several sibling code-generation backends, each emitting code for a different target from the same graph:- StableHLO / MLIR (
HloGenerator) → IREE-compilable, for native / edge / accelerator targets and the wider MLIR ecosystem. - Arduino / C99 → standalone, statically-allocated C for microcontrollers.
- Minerva → a secure-MCU bundle (weights + firmware skeleton + fingerprinted manifest).
- StableHLO / MLIR (
- Eager — execute directly on an available backend. On the JVM this is the primary, go-to path.
- Compile — lower the captured
StableHLO/MLIR is therefore one code-generation backend among siblings — the IREE/native path next to the C99/Arduino and Minerva MCU paths — not a separate pipeline.
flowchart LR
DSL["Model — Kotlin DSL"] --> Graph["Tape / DAG (ComputeGraph)"]
Graph --> Eager["Eager backend (JVM, …)"]
Graph -->|code generation| HLO["StableHLO / MLIR"]
Graph -->|code generation| C99["Arduino / C99"]
Graph -->|code generation| Minerva["Minerva"]
HLO --> Native["IREE → native / edge / accelerator"]
C99 --> MCU["Microcontroller"]
Minerva --> SecMCU["Secure-MCU bundle"]
The same DSL model feeds every path: eager execution for development and JVM deployment, and the code-generation backends — StableHLO/MLIR (→ IREE), Arduino/C99, and Minerva — as sibling alternatives for native, edge, and secure-MCU targets.
SKaiNET now includes a Minerva export backend for secure MCU deployment. It is a sibling to StableHLO and Arduino/C99 export: it starts from a supported ComputeGraph, lowers static MLPs to a Minerva compiler input, invokes libminerva when configured, and packages generated weights, host fixtures, firmware skeletons, and a fingerprinted manifest.json.
Start here:
- Minerva getting started — run the maintained tiny MLP dry sample, then the real libminerva runtime profile.
- Minerva export how-to — configure compiler paths, keys, calibration, CMake/CTest host verification, and troubleshooting.
- How Minerva secure MCU export fits — understand why Minerva is not an Arduino replacement and when to choose StableHLO instead.
Runnable examples:
./gradlew :skainet-compile:skainet-compile-minerva:runMinervaSecureMcuExamples
./gradlew :skainet-compile:skainet-compile-minerva:runMinervaSecureMcuExamples \
-Pminerva.example=sensor-classifier- Targets: JVM, macOS (Native), JS, WASM (Browser + WasmWasi)
- Single codebase shared across all platforms via Kotlin Multiplatform
- ComputeGraphExecutor: Optimized engine with fusion passes and trace-to-DAG bridging.
- SDPA & Gather: High-performance Scaled Dot-Product Attention and indexing operations.
- TurboQuant: Runtime KV-cache compression (~8x at 4-bit) for long-context LLM inference. Presets:
safe-lowbit,balanced,experimental-max. SeeTurboQuantUsagefor integration guide.
- Sequential:
nn { input(); dense(); relu(); dense() } - DAG / Graph: arbitrary wiring with
dag { }for ResNet, YOLO-style architectures - Layers: Dense, Conv1d/2d/3d, MaxPool, AvgPool, BatchNorm, Dropout, LeakyReLU, ELU
- KAN (Kolmogorov–Arnold Networks) layer (experimental)
- Autograd engine with reverse-mode gradients, SGD and Adam/AdamW optimizers
- Built-in loaders: MNIST, Fashion-MNIST, CIFAR-10
- URI-backed data sources:
file://,https://,hf+https://, andhf://... - Dataset operations: deterministic shuffle/split, stratified split, filter/map/transform views, batch flows, and epoch flows
- Raw dataset parsers: CSV, TSV, JSON arrays/objects, JSON Lines (
.jsonl,.ndjson) - Type-safe transform DSLs: image/tensor transforms plus suspendable raw data pipelines
- Formats: GGUF, ONNX, SafeTensors, JSON, Image (JPEG, PNG)
val raw = JvmDataSourceResolver().rawDataset {
from("hf://datasets/org/repo@main/train.jsonl")
format(DataFormat.JSON_LINES)
cachePolicy(CachePolicy.Use)
}
val withoutLabel = dataPipeline<RawDataset>()
.stage(
dataTransformer(
name = "drop-label",
outputSchema = { schema -> DataSchema(schema.columns - "label") }
) { dataset ->
val columns = dataset.schema.columns - "label"
dataset.copy(
schema = DataSchema(columns),
rows = dataset.rows.map { row ->
RawDataRow(row.values.filterKeys { key -> key in columns })
}
)
}
)
.execute(raw)- Start with the data sources getting started guide
- Export trained models to standalone, optimized C99 with static memory allocation
- Ready-to-use Arduino library output
- Export supported static MLP graphs to Minerva project bundles for secure MCU inference
- Emits compiler NPZ input, libminerva weights, a fingerprinted manifest, host harness, firmware example, and host verification results
- Start with the Minerva getting started guide
- Lower Kotlin DSL to MLIR StableHLO dialect
- Optimization passes: constant folding, operation fusion, dead code elimination
- Valid IREE-compilable output with streaming API and public
HloGenerator
- Use StableHLO when you want portable MLIR/IREE-compatible graphs for native, accelerator, or ecosystem compiler flows.
- Use Arduino / C99 export / Minerva export when you want standalone generated C with static memory allocation or external secure runtime.
argMax(dim)tensor op — index of the maximum along a dimension (ties → lowest index). Lowered to StableHLO by composingiota+ reduce-max +compare/select+ reduce-min — a single op, no new primitive — plus an eager CPU kernel. Lets an LLM'slogits → token-idsargmax tail live inside the DSL trace.- URI-backed data sources — new
skainet-data-sourcemodule:file://,https://, and Hugging Face URIs, raw-format parsers (CSV/TSV/JSON/JSONL), suspendable data pipelines - Dataset views and richer batches — seeded shuffle, stratified split, filter views, batch/epoch flows, batch indices + metadata
- bf16-native DSL → StableHLO export — weights reach the matmuls as bf16, verified down to an aarch64 vmfb
- Pluggable per-phase, per-target compile optimization (
TargetOptimizers,OpGranularityPolicy) - 2.07× Q4_K NEON matmul on Cortex-A55 — plus LayerNorm statistics now computed in f32 (bf16-safe)
See CHANGELOG.md for details and the full release history.
- Q1 2026: Comprehensive documentation ✅
- Q2 2026: TurboQuant KV-cache compression ✅ (shipped in 0.18.0); Qwen/LLaMA tokenizers ✅ (shipped in 0.20.0)
- Q3 2026: Missing ML features: metrics, optimizers, and training utilities.
- Q4 2026: On-Device AI, small LLMs improvements
We love contributions! Whether it's a new operator, documentation, or a bug fix:
- Read our Contribution Guide.
- Check the Good First Issues.
- Open a discussion or issue on GitHub.
Browse the full codebase documentation on DeepWiki.
- Dhia Chemingui (@dhiaspaner) — Android KMP plugin migration (#385, #386)
MIT — see LICENCE.
