feat(demos): credential-free NIM for CNCF AI conformance evidence - #2244
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Included review availability: Your plan provides up to 12 included reviews per hour; 10 remain after this review. 📝 WalkthroughWalkthroughThe change documents NIM Operator installation boundaries and NGC and Hugging Face credential paths. It adds a credential-free Hugging Face NIMService sample for Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B. It indexes workload manifests in the demos README. It updates the existing NGC sample to use Estimated code review effort: 3 (Moderate) | ~20 minutes Merge Risk: ⚪ Minimal · up to This change adds documentation and an optional credential-free workload sample without changing existing runtime behavior; no actionable merge-blocking risk remains after normal checks and review. Suggested reviewers: 🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 4✅ Passed checks (4 passed)
✨ Finishing Touches🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)
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In `@demos/workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml`:
- Around line 67-68: Replace the mutable latest tag with the exact supported NIM
image version or immutable digest in
demos/workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml lines 67-68, and mirror the
identical pinned reference in docs/user/component-catalog.md lines 208-209.
- Around line 66-73: The NIM examples use a Llama-specific image and omit
required NGC authentication for the Qwen model. In
demos/workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml lines 66-73 and
docs/user/component-catalog.md lines 204-213, update the image repository to
nvcr.io/nim/nvidia/llm-nim, replace NIM_MODEL_NAME with NIM_MODEL_PATH set to
the Qwen3-0.6B Hugging Face URI, and configure an NGC image-pull secret; update
both sites consistently.
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yuanchen8911
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In `@demos/README.md`:
- Line 38: Update the workload entry for nimservice-llama-3-2-1b to document
both required NGC prerequisites: the ngc-api-secret and the ngc-pull-secret used
for nvcr.io image pulls, replacing the current single-secret description.
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In `@demos/README.md`:
- Line 37: Update the vllm-agg.yaml guidance in the demos README to explicitly
say “Remove the Queue document from the manifest before applying on such a
cluster,” replacing the ambiguous instruction to delete the Queue document while
preserving the surrounding warning.
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yuanchen8911
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AICR installs the k8s-nim-operator but never a NIMService, and nothing said what a NIMService then needs. The only worked example uses the NGC model path with two NGC-backed secrets, so a credential read as mandatory. It is not. Setting NIM_MODEL_NAME to an hf:// URI puts the operator on its Hugging Face path, where it marks NGC_API_KEY optional and injects HF_TOKEN from the same authSecret. Combined with a model-specific NIM repository, which serves anonymous registry tokens, a NIMService can serve an ungated Hugging Face model with no NGC API key and no pull secret. Verified on an AKS H100 cluster: the pod carries no imagePullSecrets, the secret holds only an empty HF_TOKEN, and /v1/chat/completions returns a completion. The Component Catalog now states that AICR installs the operator only and documents both paths, including that authSecret is schema-required while image.pullSecrets is optional. A credential-free sample sits alongside the existing NGC one. The existing demo mixed $NGC_CLI_API_KEY with NGC_API_KEY in a single header; it now uses NGC_API_KEY throughout, matching docs/user/container-images.md. demos/README.md indexed no file under demos/workloads/, leaving every workload sample undiscoverable. It now lists them, so the NIM and Dynamo manifests are reachable from the demo index. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
…dence The sample used the mutable `latest` tag. Pinning it surfaced that the hf:// capability is version-dependent: 2.0.9 ignores NIM_MODEL_NAME, falls back to its own NGC profile (fp8-tool-calling), and fails with an authentication error, while the image validated as `latest` honours it. That image is 2.0.10, and the tag resolves to the same digest (sha256:524f75bb099c...), so the sample can be pinned to the exact artifact that was verified rather than to a nearby version. The manifest and catalog now pin 2.0.10 and state that the pin should not move without re-verifying. Both files also record that the pairing is off-label: a Llama-specific image serving a Hugging Face model it was not built for runs its own profile against the downloaded weights. It works and is verified, but nvcr.io/nim/nvidia/llm-nim is the image intended for arbitrary hf:// models, and that repository is gated — choosing it trades the credential-free property for a supported pairing. The docs state the trade-off instead of recommending one silently. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
Two gaps in the workload index added by this branch. vllm-agg.yaml applies a cluster-scoped Queue/dynamo with parentQueue: default-parent-queue and zeroed quotas. Where dynamo-platform is installed it creates a queue of that same name with parentQueue: dynamo-default and quota: -1, so applying the manifest silently repoints the platform's queue and rescopes every workload in it. Deleting the dynamo-workload namespace cannot revert a cluster-scoped object. Indexing the manifest without saying so pointed users of the supported stack straight at that hazard, so the row now carries the conflict and the mitigation. vllm-metrics-test.yaml was omitted even though the section claims to index the manifests used for conformance evidence collection, and that file exists precisely for AI Service Metrics evidence. It is now listed, and every manifest under demos/workloads/ is indexed. Removing the Queue document from vllm-agg.yaml is deliberately left out of scope here: it is a pre-existing manifest with existing references, and changing what it deploys belongs in its own change. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
The workload index described the NGC-path demo as requiring an NGC_API_KEY secret, but the manifest references two: ngc-api-secret as authSecret for the model download, and ngc-pull-secret in image.pullSecrets for the nvcr.io pull. Naming only one would leave a reader short a prerequisite for that manifest as written. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
"Delete the Queue document before applying" could be read as deleting the live cluster-scoped Queue/dynamo, which is the outcome the caution exists to prevent. It now says to remove the document from your copy of the manifest, and states explicitly not to delete the live queue. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
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Method: 3 persona passes (docs-consistency · domain/K8s-NIM · docs-style/CI-gates), each finding independently confirmed or refuted by a senior meta-reviewer against the resolved files at head ef84b446.
Tier legend: 🔴 Blocker · 🟠 Major · 🟡 Minor · 🔵 Nitpick · ✅ Confirmed non-issue
Overall assessment — Approve ✅
Accurate, unusually well-hedged doc-only PR. It fills a real gap (AICR installs the NIM operator but never documented what a NIMService then requires), and the credential-free path is backed by a live 7-PASS conformance run, with the two footguns — version-dependence (2.0.10 vs 2.0.9) and the off-label image/model pairing — called out explicitly. All doc CI gates pass (yamllint, check-docs-mdx, check-docs-filenames, license, anchor resolution). No blocking or major issues; the surviving items are optional nitpicks left inline.
✅ Confirmed non-issues (checked and cleared)
- hf:// credential-free path + empty
HF_TOKEN=""— external k8s-nim-operator behavior; stated as empirically verified, with the explicit2.0.10-vs-2.0.9version caveat and the key-must-exist-but-empty subtlety. Correctly hedged. - vllm-agg Queue caution — matches the manifest exactly (
Queue/dynamo,scheduling.run.ai/v2,parentQueue: default-parent-queue,quota: 0); the cluster-scoped name-collision / "ns delete can't revert" mechanism is sound. Only the externaldynamo-platformspecifics (dynamo-default,quota: -1) are unverifiable from the repo. - NGC env rename
NGC_CLI_API_KEY → NGC_API_KEY— complete (zero remaining occurrences repo-wide), matchesdocs/user/container-images.md. - Anchors / CI gates — both
#nim-workload-credentialslinks resolve;### Credential-free path (Hugging Face)slugs cleanly (no gotcha); no renamed heading breaks an inbound link. - Setup ordering — ns+secret created before apply; the embedded
Namespacedoc makes apply idempotent. No hazard.
Summary
| Tier | Count | Items |
|---|---|---|
| 🔴 Blocker | 0 | — |
| 🟠 Major | 0 | — |
| 🟡 Minor | 0 | — |
| 🔵 Nitpick | 5 | nim/meta/* wildcard · snippet missing NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME · off-label phrasing · hardcoded pool label · double blank lines |
Recommendation: Approve. No changes required. The two most useful polish items, if you want them, are the nim/meta/* wildcard narrowing and mentioning NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME in the catalog snippet.
| # - NIM_MODEL_NAME uses an hf:// URI, which puts the operator on its Hugging | ||
| # Face path. There it marks NGC_API_KEY optional and injects HF_TOKEN from | ||
| # the same authSecret, so the secret need not carry an NGC key at all. | ||
| # - Model-specific NIM repositories (nim/meta/*) serve anonymous registry |
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🔵 Nitpick — Header's nim/meta/* wildcard anonymous-pull claim is broader than tested
The header generalizes "anonymous registry tokens" to all nim/meta/* repos, but the sibling nimservice-llama-3-2-1b.yaml is also nim/meta/* (nvcr.io/nim/meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct) and ships a required ngc-pull-secret. Anonymous-pull availability is per-repository, not namespace-wide.
Blast radius: A reader over-applying the rule to another nim/meta image hits an ImagePullBackOff — self-correcting, hence nitpick.
Fix: Match the catalog (line 217), which already scopes it to "for example nim/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct", rather than the nim/meta/* wildcard.
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Fixed in 2e87f65 — the header now names the repository it was measured on and states that availability is per-repository, matching the catalog wording.
One correction to the premise, since it affects what the rule actually is: nim/meta/llama-3.2-1b-instruct does serve anonymous tokens. I probed it directly against nvcr.io/proxy_auth with no credentials — 200, same as llama-3.1-8b-instruct and nv-embedqa-e5-v5, against 403 for nim/nvidia/llm-nim and 403 for a nonexistent repo as control. The sibling sample carries ngc-pull-secret because it is the NGC-path example and needs an NGC credential for the model download regardless; the pull secret there is not evidence that the repository is gated.
Your conclusion still holds and the wildcard was still wrong: I measured three repositories, not a namespace, so nim/meta/* claimed more than I tested.
| image: | ||
| repository: nvcr.io/nim/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct # pulls anonymously; no pullSecrets | ||
| tag: "2.0.10" # pin a version; avoid the mutable latest | ||
| env: |
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🔵 Nitpick — Catalog spec: snippet omits NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME
This fragment shows only NIM_MODEL_NAME, but the complete sample also sets NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME: Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B — the model id /v1/chat/completions expects and what the sample's curl posts. A reader copying just the snippet may not know the request model id.
Blast radius: Reader who copies the fragment (not the full linked sample) could get a model-not-found on the chat call.
Fix: Add NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME to the snippet, or note it sets the OpenAI-API model id.
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Fixed in 2e87f65 — the snippet now includes NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME, annotated as the OpenAI-API model id.
You are right that the fragment was the copy target: the sample sets both, the curl posts Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B, and someone lifting only the spec: block had nothing tying the two together.
| # ungated model; a gated Hugging Face repository needs a real token. | ||
| # | ||
| # Off-label combination: this is a Llama-specific NIM image serving a Hugging | ||
| # Face model it was not built for. The container runs its own profile |
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🔵 Nitpick — Off-label pairing: phrasing and a silent-quality caveat
"runs its own profile (model_tag meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct) against the downloaded weights" reads oddly — an 8B image profile can't run 0.6B weights; the real path is likely NIM's generic vLLM HF mode. And "verified" here means it loads and returns a completion; an off-label image/model pairing can still apply the wrong chat template/tokenizer and degrade generation quality silently.
Blast radius: Low for a liveness smoke test; a reader adopting the pattern for real chat inference could ship subtly-wrong output.
Fix: Optional — soften the phrasing and note that off-label output should be spot-checked, not just liveness-tested. The doc already flags off-label and steers production to llm-nim.
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Fixed in 2e87f65 — the nodeSelector now carries # Replace gpuworker1 with your own GPU pool's agentpool label.
The literal came straight from the cluster it was verified on, and you are right that the header covered the cross-platform case while leaving the same-platform one implicit.
| limits: | ||
| nvidia.com/gpu: 1 | ||
| nodeSelector: | ||
| agentpool: gpuworker1 |
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🔵 Nitpick — Hardcoded AKS pool label agentpool: gpuworker1
agentpool: gpuworker1 is a specific literal; even an AKS reader with a differently-named GPU pool gets a Pending pod. The header covers cross-platform adjustment but not the same-platform case.
Blast radius: Obvious, self-correcting Pending pod.
Fix: Add an inline # replace gpuworker1 with your pool's agentpool label.
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Both points taken, fixed in 2e87f65.
On the mechanism: you are right that the phrasing misdescribed it. The image keeps its profile identity — the logs report model_tag: meta/llama-3.1-8b-instruct from source: PROFILE — while vLLM is launched against the downloaded Hugging Face weights (vllm serve /opt/nim/.cache/tmp/nim_... with --served-model-name Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B). "Runs its own profile against the weights" made it sound like the 8B profile was executing the 0.6B model. The header now separates profile identity from what vLLM actually serves.
On silent quality: a fair catch and the more useful half. "Verified" meant the service reached Ready and /v1/chat/completions returned a completion — liveness, not generation quality. I did not evaluate the chat template or tokenizer, and an off-label pairing can get those wrong without failing. The header now says so explicitly and tells readers to spot-check generations rather than treat a returned completion as validation.
| | [workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml](workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml) | NIM inference via an `hf://` model; no NGC credential required (see [NIM workload credentials](../docs/user/component-catalog.md#nim-workload-credentials)) | | ||
| | [workloads/inference/vllm-metrics-test.yaml](workloads/inference/vllm-metrics-test.yaml) | Standalone vLLM server with a Prometheus ServiceMonitor, used for AI Service Metrics evidence collection; no credential required | | ||
| | [workloads/training/gke-nccl-test-tcpxo.yaml](workloads/training/gke-nccl-test-tcpxo.yaml) | NCCL all-reduce bandwidth test for GKE TCPXO fabric | | ||
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🔵 Nitpick — Cosmetic double blank lines
Double blank line here (and in nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml lines 14-15, where the sibling llama sample uses a single blank). Passes CI (yamllint empty-lines.max=2, no markdownlint config).
Blast radius: None functional.
Fix: Collapse to one blank line if touching the file.
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Fixed in 2e87f65 — collapsed both, in the manifest header and after the workload table.
Review feedback on the credential-free NIM sample. The manifest header generalized anonymous registry tokens to nim/meta/*, but that was measured for three repositories, not a namespace. Anonymous availability is per-repository, so the header now names the repository it verified and says to check any other image rather than assuming. The catalog snippet set only NIM_MODEL_NAME while the full sample also sets NIM_SERVED_MODEL_NAME, which is the model id the /v1/chat/completions call posts. A reader copying just the fragment would have had no way to know the request id, so the snippet now carries both. The off-label note said the image "runs its own profile against the downloaded weights", which misdescribes the mechanism: the image keeps its profile identity in logs while vLLM serves the Hugging Face weights. It also called the pairing verified without saying what was verified. Both are corrected, and it now warns that an off-label pairing can apply the wrong chat template or tokenizer and degrade output silently -- the live check proved liveness, not generation quality. The GPU pool nodeSelector is a literal from the cluster it was verified on; it now says to substitute your own pool label. Refs NVIDIA#2228 Signed-off-by: Yuan Chen <yuanchen97@gmail.com>
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Summary
Documents that NIM can be deployed with no NGC credential at all, adds a pinned, verified credential-free sample, and makes the workload manifests discoverable from the demo index.
Motivation / Context
AICR installs the
k8s-nim-operatorbut never aNIMService, and nothing said what aNIMServicethen requires. The only worked example uses the NGC model path with two NGC-backed secrets, so a credential read as mandatory — that assumption cost real time during conformance validation before it turned out to be wrong.Fixes: #2228
Related: #2222
Type of Change
Component(s) Affected
cmd/aicr,pkg/cli)cmd/aicrd,pkg/server)pkg/recipe)pkg/bundler,pkg/component/*)pkg/collector,pkg/snapshotter)pkg/validator)pkg/errors,pkg/k8s)docs/,demos/)Implementation Notes
Two independent credential gates, both avoidable. The confusion came from conflating the image pull with the model download:
nvcr.ioNGC_API_KEYSetting
NIM_MODEL_NAMEto anhf://URI puts the operator on its Hugging Face path, where it marksNGC_API_KEYoptional and injectsHF_TOKENfrom the sameauthSecret— an intentional operator feature, not a workaround.authSecretremains schema-required either way;image.pullSecretsis optional.Anonymous-token probes against
nvcr.io/proxy_auth, with no credentials supplied:Two caveats are documented in both the sample and the catalog, because both cost a debugging cycle to find:
The capability is version-dependent. Image
2.0.10honourshf://;2.0.9ignoresNIM_MODEL_NAME, falls back to its own NGC profile (fp8-tool-calling), and dies withAuthentication Error. The sample pins2.0.10— the exact digest verified below — and says to re-verify before moving the pin.The pairing is off-label. A Llama-specific image serving a Hugging Face model it was not built for runs its own profile against the downloaded weights. It works and is verified, but
nvcr.io/nim/nvidia/llm-nimis the image intended for arbitraryhf://models — and because that repository is gated, choosing it trades the credential-free property for a supported pairing. The docs state the trade-off rather than recommending one blindly.Changes:
docs/user/component-catalog.md— new "NIM Workload Credentials" section covering both paths; thek8s-nim-operatorrow now states AICR installs the operator only and links to it.demos/workloads/inference/nimservice-hf-nocred.yaml— new credential-free sample, pinned to2.0.10. The existing NGC-based demo stays as the production-shaped example.demos/workloads/inference/nimservice-llama-3-2-1b.yaml— header mixed$NGC_CLI_API_KEYwithNGC_API_KEY; now usesNGC_API_KEYthroughout, matchingdocs/user/container-images.md.demos/README.md— indexed no file underdemos/workloads/at all, so every workload sample was undiscoverable. Now lists them.The new sample's node scheduling targets an AKS GPU pool and says so, since the existing examples encode EKS assumptions (
pvc: nim-model-store,dedicated=worker-workload) without marking them platform-specific.Testing
Verified on a live AKS H100 cluster (
Standard_ND96isr_H100_v5, K8s v1.35, driver 580.159.04):HF_TOKEN; noNGC_API_KEYkey existed.NGC_API_KEY … optional=True,HF_TOKEN … optional=None,NIM_MODEL_NAME=hf://Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B.imagePullSecretsand pullednvcr.io/nim/meta/llama-3.1-8b-instructanonymously.NIMServicereachedReady;/v1/chat/completionsreturned a real completion:{"model":"Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B","choices":[{"message":{"role":"assistant","content":"OK"}}]}Full conformance evidence collection against that credential-free deployment: 7 PASS / 0 FAIL / 2 SKIP. Both NIM sections passed — AI Service Metrics via the NIM branch, and Robust AI Operator reporting "9 CRDs registered, NIMService reconciled with 1 healthy inference pod(s)". The two SKIPs are Inference Gateway (agentgateway not installed) and Cluster Autoscaling (EKS/GKE only).
The pinned tag was verified as the same artifact, not assumed:
2.0.10resolves tosha256:524f75bb099c…, byte-identical to thelatestused in the run above, and the manifest as committed was redeployed from this branch to confirm it reachesReadyand serves.Doc-only gates (no Go changes, so
make qualifyis not the relevant gate):Every indexed workload path was verified to exist on disk.
Risk Assessment
Rollout notes: The only edit to an existing manifest is comment text. The new sample is additive and referenced from the catalog and demo index. Its image tag is pinned; the header records that the
hf://capability is version-dependent so the pin is not moved casually.Checklist
make lint-yaml, docs gates,make license)git commit -S)