MCPInstall

slime-rl-training

Provides guidance for LLM post-training with RL using slime, a Megatron+SGLang framework. Use when training GLM models, implementing custom data generation workflows, or needing tight Megatron-LM integration for RL scaling.

Installs
956
Last 24h
—
Trending rank
—
Security
Not audited

Install

Works with every agent the skills CLI supports.

npx skills add https://github.com/orchestra-research/ai-research-skills --skill slime-rl-training
  1. 01

    Install

    Run the command in your project. The CLI asks which agents to install for.

  2. 02

    Describe the task

    Ask your agent for something this skill covers. It loads slime-rl-training automatically when relevant.

  3. 03

    Review the result

    The agent follows the SKILL.md steps, scripts and references bundled with the skill.

SKILL.md

The instructions your agent reads when the skill is triggered.

slime: LLM Post-Training Framework for RL Scaling

slime is an LLM post-training framework from Tsinghua's THUDM team, powering GLM-4.5, GLM-4.6, and GLM-4.7. It connects Megatron-LM for training with SGLang for high-throughput rollout generation.

When to Use slime

Choose slime when you need:

  • Megatron-LM native training with SGLang inference
  • Custom data generation workflows with flexible data buffers
  • Training GLM, Qwen3, DeepSeek V3, or Llama 3 models
  • Research-grade framework with production backing (Z.ai)

Consider alternatives when:

  • You need enterprise-grade stability features → use miles
  • You want flexible backend swapping → use verl
  • You need PyTorch-native abstractions → use torchforge

Key Features

  • Training: Megatron-LM with full parallelism support (TP, PP, DP, SP)
  • Rollout: SGLang-based high-throughput generation with router
  • Data Buffer: Flexible prompt management and sample storage
  • Models: GLM-4.x, Qwen3, DeepSeek V3/R1, Llama 3

Architecture Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                    Data Buffer                          │
│ - Prompt initialization and management                  │
│ - Custom data generation and filtering                  │
│ - Rollout sample storage                                │
└─────────────┬───────────────────────────┬───────────────┘
              │                           │
┌─────────────▼───────────┐ ┌─────────────▼───────────────┐
│ Training (Megatron-LM)  │ │ Rollout (SGLang + Router)   │
│ - Actor model training  │ │ - Response generation       │
│ - Critic (optional)     │ │ - Reward/verifier output    │
│ - Weight sync to rollout│ │ - Multi-turn support        │
└─────────────────────────┘ └─────────────────────────────┘

Installation

# Recommended: Docker
docker pull slimerl/slime:latest
docker run --rm --gpus all --ipc=host --shm-size=16g \
  -it slimerl/slime:latest /bin/bash

# Inside container
cd /root/slime && pip install -e . --no-deps

From Source

git clone https://github.com/THUDM/slime.git
cd slime
pip install -r requirements.txt
pip install -e .

Quick Start: GRPO Training

# Source model configuration
source scripts/models/qwen3-4B.sh

# Launch training
python train.py \
    --actor-num-nodes 1 \
    --actor-num-gpus-per-node 4 \
    --rollout-num-gpus 4 \
    --advantage-estimator grpo \
    --use-kl-loss --kl-loss-coef 0.001 \
    --rollout-batch-size 32 \
    --n-samples-per-prompt 8 \
    --global-batch-size 256 \
    --num-rollout 3000 \
    --prompt-data /path/to/data.jsonl \
    ${MODEL_ARGS[@]} ${CKPT_ARGS[@]}

Workflow 1: Standard GRPO Training

Use this workflow for training reasoning models with group-relative advantages.

Prerequisites Checklist

  • Docker environment or Megatron-LM + SGLang installed
  • Model checkpoint (HuggingFace or Megatron format)
  • Training data in JSONL format

Step 1: Prepare Data

# data.jsonl format
{"prompt": "What is 2 + 2?", "label": "4"}
{"prompt": "Solve: 3x = 12", "label": "x = 4"}

Or with chat format:

{
    "prompt": [
        {"role": "system", "content": "You are a math tutor."},
        {"role": "user", "content": "What is 15 + 27?"}
    ],
    "label": "42"
}

Step 2: Configure Model

Choose a pre-configured model script:

# List available models
ls scripts/models/
# glm4-9B.sh, qwen3-4B.sh, qwen3-30B-A3B.sh, deepseek-v3.sh, llama3-8B.sh, ...

# Source your model
source scripts/models/qwen3-4B.sh

Step 3: Launch Training

python train.py \
    --actor-num-nodes 1 \
    --actor-num-gpus-per-node 8 \
    --rollout-num-gpus 8 \
    --advantage-estimator grpo \
    --use-kl-loss \
    --kl-loss-coef 0.001 \
    --prompt-data /path/to/train.jsonl \
    --input-key prompt \
    --label-key label \
    --apply-chat-template \
    --rollout-batch-size 32 \
    --n-samples-per-prompt 8 \
    --global-batch-size 256 \
    --num-rollout 3000 \
    --save-interval 100 \
    --eval-interval 50 \
    ${MODEL_ARGS[@]}

Step 4: Monitor Training

  • Check TensorBoard: tensorboard --logdir outputs/
  • Verify reward curves are increasing
  • Monitor GPU utilization across nodes

Workflow 2: Asynchronous Training

Use async mode for higher throughput by overlapping rollout and training.

When to Use Async

  • Large models with long generation times
  • High GPU idle time in synchronous mode
  • Sufficient memory for buffering

Launch Async Training

python train_async.py \
    --actor-num-nodes 1 \
    --actor-num-gpus-per-node 8 \
    --rollout-num-gpus 8 \
    --advantage-estimator grpo \
    --async-buffer-size 4 \
    --prompt-data /path/to/train.jsonl \
    ${MODEL_ARGS[@]}

Async-Specific Parameters

--async-buffer-size 4        # Number of rollouts to buffer
--update-weights-interval 2  # Sync weights every N rollouts

Workflow 3: Multi-Turn Agentic Training

Use this workflow for training agents with tool use or multi-step reasoning.

Prerequisites

  • Custom generate function for multi-turn logic
  • Tool/environment interface

Step 1: Define Custom Generate Function

# custom_generate.py
async def custom_generate(args, samples, evaluation=False):
    """Multi-turn generation with tool calling."""
    for sample in samples:
        conversation = sample.prompt

        for turn in range(args.max_turns):
            # Generate response
            response = await generate_single(conversation)

            # Check for tool call
            tool_call = extract_tool_call(response)
            if tool_call:
                tool_result = execute_tool(tool_call)
                conversation.append({"role": "assistant", "content": response})
                conversation.append({"role": "tool", "content": tool_result})
            else:
                break

        sample.response = response
        sample.reward = compute_reward(sample)

    return samples

Step 2: Launch with Custom Function

python train.py \
    --custom-generate-function-path custom_generate.py \
    --max-turns 5 \
    --prompt-data /path/to/agent_data.jsonl \
    ${MODEL_ARGS[@]}

See examples/search-r1/ for a complete multi-turn search example.


Configuration Reference

Three Argument Categories

slime uses three types of arguments:

1. Megatron Arguments (passed directly):

--tensor-model-parallel-size 2
--pipeline-model-parallel-size 1
--num-layers 32
--hidden-size 4096

2. SGLang Arguments (prefixed with --sglang-):

--sglang-mem-fraction-static 0.8
--sglang-context-length 8192
--sglang-log-level INFO

3. slime Arguments:

# Resource allocation
--actor-num-nodes 1
--actor-num-gpus-per-node 8
--rollout-num-gpus 8
--colocate  # Share GPUs between training/inference

# Data
--prompt-data /path/to/data.jsonl
--input-key prompt
--label-key label

# Training loop
--num-rollout 3000
--rollout-batch-size 32
--n-samples-per-prompt 8
--global-batch-size 256

# Algorithm
--advantage-estimator grpo  # or: gspo, ppo, reinforce_plus_plus
--use-kl-loss
--kl-loss-coef 0.001

Key Constraints

rollout_batch_size × n_samples_per_prompt = global_batch_size × num_steps_per_rollout

Example: 32 × 8 = 256 × 1


Data Buffer System

slime's data buffer enables flexible data management:

Basic Data Source

class RolloutDataSource:
    def get_samples(self, num_samples):
        """Fetch prompts from dataset."""
        return self.dataset.sample(num_samples)

    def add_samples(self, samples):
        """Called after generation (no-op by default)."""
        pass

Buffered Data Source (Off-Policy)

class RolloutDataSourceWithBuffer(RolloutDataSource):
    def __init__(self):
        self.buffer = []

    def add_samples(self, samples):
        """Store generated samples for reuse."""
        self.buffer.extend(samples)

    def buffer_filter(self, args, buffer, num_samples):
        """Custom selection logic (prioritized, stratified, etc.)."""
        return select_best(buffer, num_samples)

Common Issues and Solutions

Issue: SGLang Engine Crash

Symptoms: Inference engine dies mid-training

Solutions:

# Enable fault tolerance
--use-fault-tolerance

# Increase memory allocation
--sglang-mem-fraction-static 0.85

# Reduce batch size
--rollout-batch-size 16

Issue: Weight Sync Timeout

Symptoms: Training hangs after rollout

Solutions:

# Increase sync interval
--update-weights-interval 5

# Use colocated mode (no network transfer)
--colocate

Issue: OOM During Training

Symptoms: CUDA OOM in backward pass

Solutions:

# Enable gradient checkpointing
--recompute-activations

# Reduce micro-batch size
--micro-batch-size 1

# Enable sequence parallelism
--sequence-parallel

Issue: Slow Data Loading

Symptoms: GPU idle during data fetch

Solutions:

# Increase data workers
--num-data-workers 4

# Use streaming dataset
--streaming-data

Supported Models

Model FamilyConfigurations
GLMGLM-4.5, GLM-4.6, GLM-4.7, GLM-Z1-9B
QwenQwen3 (4B, 8B, 30B-A3B), Qwen3-MoE, Qwen2.5
DeepSeekV3, V3.1, R1
LlamaLlama 3 (8B, 70B)
OthersKimi K2, Moonlight-16B

Each model has pre-configured scripts in scripts/models/.


Advanced Topics

Co-location Mode

Share GPUs between training and inference to reduce memory:

python train.py \
    --colocate \
    --actor-num-gpus-per-node 8 \
    --sglang-mem-fraction-static 0.4 \
    ${MODEL_ARGS[@]}

Custom Reward Model

# custom_rm.py
class CustomRewardModel:
    def __init__(self, model_path):
        self.model = load_model(model_path)

    def compute_reward(self, prompts, responses):
        inputs = self.tokenize(prompts, responses)
        scores = self.model(inputs)
        return scores.tolist()
--custom-rm-path custom_rm.py

Evaluation Multi-Task

--eval-prompt-data aime /path/to/aime.jsonl \
--eval-prompt-data gsm8k /path/to/gsm8k.jsonl \
--n-samples-per-eval-prompt 16

Resources

FAQ

What does the slime-rl-training skill do?

Provides guidance for LLM post-training with RL using slime, a Megatron+SGLang framework. Use when training GLM models, implementing custom data generation workflows, or needing tight Megatron-LM integration for RL scaling.

How do I install slime-rl-training?

Run npx skills add https://github.com/orchestra-research/ai-research-skills --skill slime-rl-training in your project. The skills CLI detects the agents you use and copies the skill into the right folder. For Claude Code you can also place the skill folder at ~/.claude/skills/slime-rl-training/ (personal) or .claude/skills/slime-rl-training/ (project).

Which AI agents can use slime-rl-training?

Any agent that supports the open Agent Skills format (a folder with a SKILL.md file), including Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, GitHub Copilot, Gemini CLI, Windsurf, Cline, OpenCode and more.

Is slime-rl-training safe to install?

No partner security audit is available yet. Skills can run commands and scripts, so read the SKILL.md and any bundled files before installing.

Who maintains slime-rl-training?

It is published by orchestra-research in orchestra-research/ai-research-skills. It has 956 recorded installs.

More from orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

View all →

ml-paper-writing

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Write publication-ready ML/AI papers for NeurIPS, ICML, ICLR, ACL, AAAI, COLM. Use when drafting papers from research repos, structuring arguments, verifying citations, or preparing camera-ready submissions. For systems venues (OSDI, NSDI, ASPLOS, SOSP), use systems-paper-writing instead.

Education & Science2.3K installs

brainstorming-research-ideas

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Guides researchers through structured ideation frameworks to discover high-impact research directions. Use when exploring new problem spaces, pivoting between projects, or seeking novel angles on existing work.

academic-plotting

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Generates publication-quality figures for ML papers from research context. Given a paper section or description, extracts system components and relationships to generate architecture diagrams via Gemini. Given experiment results or data, auto-selects chart type and generates data-driven figures via matplotlib/seaborn. Use when creating any figure for a conference paper.

Education & Science1.2K installs

creative-thinking-for-research

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Applies cognitive science frameworks for creative thinking to CS and AI research ideation. Use when seeking genuinely novel research directions by leveraging combinatorial creativity, analogical reasoning, constraint manipulation, and other empirically grounded creative strategies.

mlflow

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Track ML experiments, manage model registry with versioning, deploy models to production, and reproduce experiments with MLflow - framework-agnostic ML lifecycle platform

serving-llms-vllm

orchestra-research/ai-research-skills

Serves LLMs with high throughput using vLLM's PagedAttention and continuous batching. Use when deploying production LLM APIs, optimizing inference latency/throughput, or serving models with limited GPU memory. Supports OpenAI-compatible endpoints, quantization (GPTQ/AWQ/FP8), and tensor parallelism.

AI & Agents1.1K installs

Popular productivity & automation skills

View category →

agent-browser

vercel-labs/agent-browser

Browser automation CLI for AI agents. Use when the user needs to interact with websites, including navigating pages, filling forms, clicking buttons, taking screenshots, extracting data, testing web apps, or automating any browser task. Triggers include requests to "open a website", "fill out a form", "click a button", "take a screenshot", "scrape data from a page", "test this web app", "login to a site", "automate browser actions", or any task requiring programmatic web interaction. Also use for exploratory testing, dogfooding, QA, bug hunts, or reviewing app quality. Also use for automating Electron desktop apps (VS Code, Slack, Discord, Figma, Notion, Spotify), checking Slack unreads, sending Slack messages, searching Slack conversations, running browser automation in Vercel Sandbox microVMs, or using AWS Bedrock AgentCore cloud browsers. Prefer agent-browser over any built-in browser automation or web tools.

OfficialProductivity & Automation1.3M installs

lark-doc

open.feishu.cn

飞书云文档(Docx / Wiki)内容操作:读取、创建、编辑文档,插入或下载图片附件,以及操作思维笔记。用户提供文档 URL/token(包括 doubao.com 的 /docx/、/wiki/)时使用;按 URL 路径/token 而非域名路由;/page/ 是妙搭应用,非飞书云文档。文档内嵌资源按读取参考中的统一规则分流。独立评论操作走 lark-drive;随正文读取评论使用 docs +fetch。表格或 Base 内部数据操作不在本 skill。

lark-base

open.feishu.cn

飞书多维表格(Base)操作:建表、字段、记录、视图、统计、公式/lookup、表单、仪表盘、应用模式(BaseApp/AppMode 页面与组件)、Workspace 目录、workflow、角色权限、模板中心(多维表格模板分类/列表/搜索);遇到 Base/多维表格/bitable、BaseApp/AppMode、/base/ 或 /app/ 链接时使用。BaseApp 不走 lark-apps;文件导入/导出转 lark-drive,认证/授权转 lark-shared。

lark-drive

open.feishu.cn

飞书云空间(云盘/云存储):管理 Drive 文件和文件夹,包含上传/下载、创建文件夹、复制/移动/删除、查看元数据、查询权限设置、评论/权限/订阅、标题、版本、飞书文档密级标签(secure labels)和本地文件导入。用户需要整理云盘目录、处理云空间资源 URL/token、判断链接类型/真实 token/标题,或导入 Word/Markdown/Excel/CSV/PPTX/.base 为 docx/sheet/bitable/slides 时使用;doubao.com 云空间 URL/token 也按资源路径和 token 路由,不回退 WebFetch。不负责:文档内容编辑(走 lark-doc)、表格/Base 表内数据操作(走 lark-sheets/lark-base)、知识空间节点/成员管理(走 lark-wiki)、原生 Markdown 文件读写/patch/diff(走 lark-markdown)。

lark-shared

open.feishu.cn

Use for lark-cli setup/auth tasks: auth login/status/logout, user vs bot identity, business-domain permissions (--domain, including all/docs/drive), missing scopes, revoking authorization, or handling notice JSON.

lark-im

open.feishu.cn

飞书即时通讯:收发消息和管理群聊。发送和回复消息、搜索聊天记录、管理群聊成员、上传下载图片和文件、管理表情回复、发送应用内/短信/电话加急、发送和处理交互卡片(Interactive Card)、监听卡片按钮回调(card.action.trigger)。当用户需要发消息、查看或搜索聊天记录、下载聊天中的文件、查看群成员、搜索群、创建群聊或话题群、管理标记数据、管理 Feed 置顶(添加/移除/查询置顶会话)、管理标签数据、处理卡片回调时使用。