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include/cudnn_frontend — Agent Guide

The header-only C++ library (CMake INTERFACE target cudnn_frontend, C++17). Umbrella header: include/cudnn_frontend.h. Build/test commands: ../../AGENTS.md.

Hard rules

  • Header-only: no .cpp files, no link-time dependencies beyond cuDNN/CUDA. New third-party code must be vendored under thirdparty/ (currently only nlohmann/json.hpp, excludable via CUDNN_FRONTEND_SKIP_JSON_LIB).
  • Builds with -Wall -Wextra -Wpedantic -Werror (GCC/Clang) and /W4 /WX (MSVC) — code must be warning-clean on both.
  • C++17 only in include/ (the pybind11 layer under python/ is C++20).
  • Guard anything needing a newer cuDNN with runtime detail::get_backend_version() checks (compare against CUDNN_FRONTEND_VERSION-style integers, e.g. 9.12.0 → 91200); the same headers must compile against older cuDNN 9.x.
  • clang-format (Google-based, indent 4, 120 cols, SortIncludes: false) via pre-commit run.

Layering

graph_interface.h   Graph class (namespace cudnn_frontend::graph); includes every node/*.h
  node/*.h          one header per op node (matmul, conv_fprop, sdpa, rmsnorm, ...): <Op>Node + <Op>_attributes
  node_interface.h  INode base; graph_properties.h holds attribute classes
  cudnn_interface.h ICudnn: lowering to cuDNN backend ops/plans
  backend/          C-backend descriptor wrappers (execution plans, kernel cache, device properties)
plans.h, knobs.h, graph_helpers.h, context.h   plan management, autotuning knobs, error handling

Legacy flat API (include/cudnn_frontend_*.h: Tensor, Operation, ExecutionPlan, Heuristics...) is maintained but frozen — new features target the graph API under this directory.

Adding a graph operation (typical shape)

  1. node/<op>.h: <Op>_attributes (+ NLOHMANN_DEFINE_TYPE_INTRUSIVE-style serialization where applicable) and the node class implementing infer/expand/lowering.
  2. Wire into graph_interface.h (include + Graph::<op>(...) builder method returning tensor attributes).
  3. Serialization support in utils/serialize.h if the op is cacheable.
  4. Doc page in docs/operations/, sample under samples/cpp/, tests (C++ and/or test/python/).
  5. Python surface: pybind wrapper in python/pygraph/ when the op should be scriptable.

experimental/ and generated/

  • generated/ holds open-sourced kernel source embedded as raw C++ string literals (inline constexpr const char <name>_source[], namespace cudnn_frontend::experimental::generated) — SDPA prefill (sm90/sm100) and RMSNorm+SiLU. These files are large and machine-produced; don't hand-edit kernel bodies casually, and don't "clean them up".
  • experimental/ is the NVRTC glue that compiles those strings at runtime (IOssSdpaEngine: check_support/build/execute, per-arch engines, nvrtc_shim.h).

Versioning

cudnn_frontend_version.h defines CUDNN_FRONTEND_{MAJOR,MINOR,PATCH}_VERSION. Keep in sync with CMakeLists.txt project(VERSION ...) and python/cudnn/__init__.py.__version__ when bumping.