kvmech

mixedPythonInference & servingJuly 11, 2026

the question

Is the 'Keys need more quant bits than Values' rule caused by outliers or by softmax amplification?

what came out

Entirely outliers plus grouping, and the softmax DAMPS Keys rather than amplifying them -- a mechanistic correction verified to machine precision on an exact attention-output oracle. Under best-practice grouping, K is no more sensitive than V.

method & receipts

Result: mixed
Pre-registered — the prediction was written down and committed before the run.

→ read the code and re-run it

github.com/v-code01/kvmech