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vllm-cli

A command-line interface tool for serving LLM using vLLM.

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Description

A command-line interface tool for serving LLM using vLLM.

README

vLLM CLI

CI Release PyPI version License: MIT Python 3.9+ PyPI Downloads

A command-line interface tool for serving Large Language Models using vLLM. Provides both interactive and command-line modes with features for configuration profiles, model management, and server monitoring.

vLLM CLI Welcome Screen Interactive terminal interface with GPU status and system overview
Tip: You can customize the GPU stats bar in settings

Features

  • ๐ŸŽฏ Interactive Mode - Rich terminal interface with menu-driven navigation
  • โšก Command-Line Mode - Direct CLI commands for automation and scripting
  • ๐Ÿค– Model Management - Automatic discovery of local models with HuggingFace and Ollama support
  • ๐Ÿ”ง Configuration Profiles - Pre-configured and custom server profiles for different use cases
  • ๐Ÿ“Š Server Monitoring - Real-time monitoring of active vLLM servers
  • ๐Ÿ–ฅ๏ธ System Information - GPU, memory, and CUDA compatibility checking
  • ๐Ÿ“ Advanced Configuration - Full control over vLLM parameters with validation

Quick Links: ๐Ÿ“– Docs | ๐Ÿš€ Quick Start | ๐Ÿ“ธ Screenshots | ๐Ÿ“˜ Usage Guide | โ“ Troubleshooting | ๐Ÿ—บ๏ธ Roadmap

What's New in v0.2.5

Multi-Model Proxy Server (Experimental)

The Multi-Model Proxy is a new experimental feature that enables serving multiple LLMs through a single unified API endpoint. This feature is currently under active development and available for testing.

What It Does:

  • Single Endpoint - All your models accessible through one API
  • Live Management - Add or remove models without stopping the service
  • Dynamic GPU Management - Efficient GPU resource distribution through vLLM's sleep/wake functionality
  • Interactive Setup - User-friendly wizard guides you through configuration

Note: This is an experimental feature under active development. Your feedback helps us improve! Please share your experience through GitHub Issues.

For complete documentation, see the ๐ŸŒ Multi-Model Proxy Guide.

What's New in v0.2.4

๐Ÿš€ Hardware-Optimized Profiles for GPT-OSS Models

New built-in profiles specifically optimized for serving GPT-OSS models on different GPU architectures:

  • gpt_oss_ampere - Optimized for NVIDIA A100 GPUs
  • gpt_oss_hopper - Optimized for NVIDIA H100/H200 GPUs
  • gpt_oss_blackwell - Optimized for NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs

Based on official vLLM GPT recipes for maximum performance.

โšก Shortcuts System

Save and quickly launch your favorite model + profile combinations:

vllm-cli serve --shortcut my-gpt-server

๐Ÿฆ™ Full Ollama Integration

  • Automatic discovery of Ollama models
  • GGUF format support (experimental)
  • System and user directory scanning

๐Ÿ”ง Enhanced Configuration

  • Environment Variables - Universal and profile-specific environment variable management
  • GPU Selection - Choose specific GPUs for model serving (--device 0,1)
  • Enhanced System Info - vLLM feature detection with attention backend availability

See CHANGELOG.md for detailed release notes.

Quick Start

Important: vLLM Installation Notes

โš ๏ธ Binary Compatibility Warning: vLLM contains pre-compiled CUDA kernels that must match your PyTorch version exactly. Installing mismatched versions will cause errors.

vLLM-CLI will not install vLLM or Pytorch by default.

Installation

Option 1: Install vLLM seperately and then install vLLM CLI (Recommended)

# Install vLLM -- Skip this step if you have vllm installed in your environment
uv venv --python 3.12 --seed
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install vllm --torch-backend=auto
# Or specify a backend: uv pip install vllm --torch-backend=cu128

# Install vLLM CLI
uv pip install --upgrade vllm-cli
uv run vllm-cli

# If you are using conda:
# Activate the environment you have vllm installed in
pip install vllm-cli
vllm-cli

Option 2: Install vLLM CLI + vLLM

# Install vLLM CLI + vLLM
pip install vllm-cli[vllm]
vllm-cli

Option 3: Build from source (You still need to install vLLM seperately)

git clone https://github.com/Chen-zexi/vllm-cli.git
cd vllm-cli
pip install -e .

Option 4: For Isolated Installation (pipx/system packages)

โš ๏ธ Compatibility Note: pipx creates isolated environments which may have compatibility issues with vLLM's CUDA dependencies. Consider using uv or conda (see above) for better PyTorch/CUDA compatibility.

# If you do not want to use virtual environment and want to install vLLM along with vLLM CLI
pipx install "vllm-cli[vllm]"

# If you want to install pre-release version
pipx install --pip-args="--pre" "vllm-cli[vllm]"

Prerequisites

  • Python 3.9+
  • CUDA-compatible GPU (recommended)
  • vLLM package installed
  • For dependency issues, see Troubleshooting Guide

Basic Usage

# Interactive mode - menu-driven interface
vllm-cli
# Serve a model
vllm-cli serve --model openai/gpt-oss-20b

# Use a shortcut
vllm-cli serve --shortcut my-model

For detailed usage instructions, see the ๐Ÿ“˜ Usage Guide and ๐ŸŒ Multi-Model Proxy Guide.

Configuration

Built-in Profiles

vLLM CLI includes 7 optimized profiles for different use cases:

General Purpose:

  • standard - Minimal configuration with smart defaults
  • high_throughput - Maximum performance configuration
  • low_memory - Memory-constrained environments
  • moe_optimized - Optimized for Mixture of Experts models

Hardware-Specific (GPT-OSS):

  • gpt_oss_ampere - NVIDIA A100 GPUs
  • gpt_oss_hopper - NVIDIA H100/H200 GPUs
  • gpt_oss_blackwell - NVIDIA Blackwell GPUs

See ๐Ÿ“‹ Profiles Guide for detailed information.

Configuration Files

  • Main Config: ~/.config/vllm-cli/config.yaml
  • User Profiles: ~/.config/vllm-cli/user_profiles.json
  • Shortcuts: ~/.config/vllm-cli/shortcuts.json

Documentation

Integration with hf-model-tool

vLLM CLI uses hf-model-tool for model discovery:

  • Comprehensive model scanning
  • Ollama model support
  • Shared configuration

Development

Project Structure

src/vllm_cli/
โ”œโ”€โ”€ cli/           # CLI command handling
โ”œโ”€โ”€ config/        # Configuration management
โ”œโ”€โ”€ models/        # Model management
โ”œโ”€โ”€ server/        # Server lifecycle
โ”œโ”€โ”€ ui/            # Terminal interface
โ””โ”€โ”€ schemas/       # JSON schemas

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.

License

MIT License - see LICENSE file for details.

Release History

VersionChangesUrgencyDate
v0.2.5### Added - **Multi-Model Proxy Server (Experimental)**: Enabling multiple LLMs through a single unified API endpoint - Single OpenAI-compatible endpoint for all models - Request routing based on model name - Save and reuse proxy configurations - **Dynamic Model Management**: Add or remove models at runtime without restarting the proxy - Live model registration and unregistration - Pre-registration with verification lifecycle - Graceful handling of model failures without affeLow8/25/2025
v0.2.5rc2### Multi-Model Proxy Server (Experimental) The Multi-Model Proxy is a new experimental feature that enables serving multiple LLMs through a single unified API endpoint. This feature is currently under active development and available for testing. **What It Does:** - **Single Endpoint** - All your models accessible through one API - **Live Management** - Add or remove models without stopping the service - **Dynamic GPU Management** - Efficient GPU resource distribution through vLLM's slLow8/24/2025
v0.2.5rc1Added multi model support through proxyLow8/22/2025
v0.2.4### Added - **Hardware-Optimized Profiles for GPT-OSS Models**: New built-in profiles optimized for different GPU architectures - `gpt_oss_ampere`: Optimized for NVIDIA A100 GPUs - `gpt_oss_hopper`: Optimized for NVIDIA H100/H200 GPUs - `gpt_oss_blackwell`: Optimized for NVIDIA Blackwell (B100/B200) GPUs - Based on official [vLLM GPT recipes](https://docs.vllm.ai/projects/recipes/en/latest/OpenAI/GPT-OSS.html) - **Shortcuts System**: Save and quickly launch model + profile combinatLow8/20/2025
v0.2.4rc2**Full Changelog**: https://github.com/Chen-zexi/vllm-cli/compare/v0.2.4rc1...v0.2.4rc2Low8/19/2025
v0.2.4rc1### Added - **Ollama Model Support**: Full integration with Ollama-downloaded models through hf-model-tool - Automatic discovery of Ollama models in user (`~/.ollama`) and system (`/usr/share/ollama`) directories - GGUF format detection and experimental serving support ### Changed - Model cache refresh properly respects TTL settings (>60s) - Improved path display in model management UI for better clarity ### Fixed - Fixed duplicate Ollama models appearing in model list - Fixed mLow8/19/2025
v0.2.3### Fixed - **Critical**: Fixed missing built-in profiles when installing from PyPI - JSON schema files are now properly included in the package distributionLow8/18/2025
v0.2.2### Added - **Model Manifest Support**: Introduced `models_manifest.json` for mapping custom models in vLLM CLI native way - **Documentation**: Added [custom-model-serving.md](docs/custom-model-serving.md) for custom model serving guide ### Fixed - Serving models from custom directories now works as expected - Fixed some UI issuesLow8/18/2025
0.2.1- **Critical**: Fixed package installation issue - setuptools now correctly includes all sub-packagesLow8/17/2025
0.2.0## [0.2.0] - 2025-08-17 ### Added - **LoRA Adapter Support**: Serve models with LoRA adapters - select base model and multiple LoRA adapters for serving - **Enhanced Model List Display**: Comprehensive model listing showing HuggingFace models, LoRA adapters, and datasets with size information - **Model Directory Management**: Configure and manage custom model directories for automatic model discovery - **Model Caching**: Performance optimization through intelligent caching with TTL for moLow8/17/2025
0.1.1-Display complete log when startup failed -Small UI fixLow8/16/2025
0.1.0# Initial Release - Complete vLLM CLI implementation with interactive and command-line modes - Model management with automatic discovery and caching - Configuration profiles with dynamic hardware optimization - Server management with process monitoring and cleanup - Rich terminal UI with menu-driven navigationLow8/16/2025

Dependencies & License Audit

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