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model-pruning

โ˜… 11

by firecrawl ยท part of firecrawl/ai-research-skills

Reduce LLM size and accelerate inference using pruning techniques like Wanda and SparseGPT. Use when compressing models without retraining, achieving 50% sparsity with minimal accuracy loss, or enabling faster inference on hardware accelerators. Covers unstructured pruning, structured pruning, N:M sparsity, magnitude pruning, and one-shot methods.

๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐Ÿ”ฅFreeQuick setup
๐Ÿงฉ One of 7 skills in the firecrawl/ai-research-skills package โ€” works on its own, and pairs well with its siblings.

This is the playbook your agent receives when the skill activates โ€” you don't need to read it to use the skill, but it's here to audit before installing.

Model Pruning: Compressing LLMs

When to Use This Skill

Use Model Pruning when you need to:

  • Reduce model size by 40-60% with <1% accuracy loss
  • Accelerate inference using hardware-friendly sparsity (2-4ร— speedup)
  • Deploy on constrained hardware (mobile, edge devices)
  • Compress without retraining using one-shot methods
  • Enable efficient serving with reduced memory footprint

Key Techniques: Wanda (weights ร— activations), SparseGPT (second-order), structured pruning, N:M sparsity

Papers: Wanda ICLR 2024 (arXiv 2306.11695), SparseGPT (arXiv 2301.00774)

Core Concepts

1. Pruning Criteria

Magnitude Pruning (baseline):

# Prune weights with smallest absolute values
importance = weight.abs()
threshold = torch.quantile(importance, sparsity)
mask = importance >= threshold

Wanda (weights ร— activations):

# Importance = |weight| ร— input_activation
importance = weight.abs() * activation
# Better than magnitude alone (considers usage)

SparseGPT (second-order):

# Uses Hessian (second derivative) for importance
# More accurate but computationally expensive
importance = weight^2 / diag(Hessian)

2. Structured vs Unstructured

Unstructured (fine-grained):

  • Prune individual weights
  • Higher quality (better accuracy)
  • No hardware speedup (irregular sparsity)

Structured (coarse-grained):

  • Prune entire neurons, heads, or layers
  • Lower quality (more accuracy loss)
  • Hardware speedup (regular sparsity)

Semi-structured (N:M):

  • Best of both worlds
  • 50% sparsity (2:4) โ†’ 2ร— speedup on NVIDIA GPUs
  • Minimal accuracy loss

3. Sparsity Patterns

# Unstructured (random)
# [1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0]
# Pros: Flexible, high quality
# Cons: No speedup

# Structured (block)
# [1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0]
# Pros: Hardware friendly
# Cons: More accuracy loss

# N:M (semi-structured)
# [1, 0, 1, 0] [1, 1, 0, 0]  (2:4 pattern)
# Pros: Hardware speedup + good quality
# Cons: Requires specific hardware (NVIDIA)

Pruning Strategies

Strategy 1: Gradual Magnitude Pruning

def gradual_prune(model, initial_sparsity=0.0, final_sparsity=0.5, num_steps=100):
    """Gradually increase sparsity during training."""
    for step in range(num_steps):
        # Current sparsity
        current_sparsity = initial_sparsity + (final_sparsity - initial_sparsity) * (step / num_steps)

        # Prune at current sparsity
        for module in model.modules():
            if isinstance(module, torch.nn.Linear):
                weight = module.weight.data
                threshold = torch.quantile(weight.abs().flatten(), current_sparsity)
                mask = weight.abs() >= threshold
                weight *= mask.float()

        # Train one step
        train_step(model)

    return model

Strategy 2: Layer-wise Pruning

def layer_wise_prune(model, sparsity_per_layer):
    """Different sparsity for different layers."""
    # Early layers: Less pruning (more important)
    # Late layers: More pruning (less critical)

    sparsity_schedule = {
        "layer.0": 0.3,   # 30% sparsity
        "layer.1": 0.4,
        "layer.2": 0.5,
        "layer.3": 0.6,   # 60% sparsity
    }

    for name, module in model.named_modules():
        if isinstance(module, torch.nn.Linear):
            # Find layer index
            for layer_name, sparsity in sparsity_schedule.items():
                if layer_name in name:
                    # Prune at layer-specific sparsity
                    prune_layer(module, sparsity)
                    break

    return model

Strategy 3: Iterative Pruning + Fine-tuning

def iterative_prune_finetune(model, target_sparsity=0.5, iterations=5):
    """Prune gradually with fine-tuning between iterations."""
    current_sparsity = 0.0
    sparsity_increment = target_sparsity / iterations

    for i in range(iterations):
        # Increase sparsity
        current_sparsity += sparsity_increment

        # Prune
        prune_model(model, sparsity=current_sparsity)

        # Fine-tune (recover accuracy)
        fine_tune(model, epochs=2, lr=1e-5)

    return model

# Results: Better accuracy than one-shot at high sparsity

Best Practices

1. Sparsity Selection

# Conservative (safe)
sparsity = 0.3  # 30%, <0.5% loss

# Balanced (recommended)
sparsity = 0.5  # 50%, ~1% loss

# Aggressive (risky)
sparsity = 0.7  # 70%, 2-5% loss

# Extreme (model-dependent)
sparsity = 0.9  # 90%, significant degradation

2. Method Selection

# One-shot, no retraining โ†’ Wanda or SparseGPT
if no_retraining_budget:
    use_method = "wanda"  # Faster

# Best quality โ†’ SparseGPT
if need_best_quality:
    use_method = "sparsegpt"  # More accurate

# Hardware speedup โ†’ N:M structured
if need_speedup:
    use_method = "nm_prune"  # 2:4 or 4:8

3. Avoid Common Pitfalls

# โŒ Bad: Pruning without calibration data
prune_random(model)  # No activation statistics

# โœ… Good: Use calibration data
prune_wanda(model, calib_data)

# โŒ Bad: Too high sparsity in one shot
prune(model, sparsity=0.9)  # Massive accuracy loss

# โœ… Good: Gradual or iterative
iterative_prune(model, target=0.9, steps=10)

Performance Comparison

Pruning methods at 50% sparsity (LLaMA-7B):

MethodAccuracy LossSpeedMemoryRetraining Needed
Magnitude-2.5%1.0ร—-50%No
Wanda-0.8%1.0ร—-50%No
SparseGPT-0.4%1.0ร—-50%No
N:M (2:4)-1.0%2.0ร—-50%No
Structured-3.0%2.0ร—-50%No

Source: Wanda paper (ICLR 2024), SparseGPT paper

Resources