(automatic-prefix-caching)=

# Automatic Prefix Caching

## Introduction

Automatic Prefix Caching (APC in short) caches the KV cache of existing queries, so that a new query can directly reuse the KV cache if it shares the same prefix with one of the existing queries, allowing the new query to skip the computation of the shared part.

:::{note}
Technical details on how vLLM implements APC can be found [here](#design-automatic-prefix-caching).
:::

## Enabling APC in vLLM

Set `enable_prefix_caching=True` in vLLM engine to enable APC. Here is an example:

```python
import time
from vllm import LLM, SamplingParams


# A prompt containing a large markdown table. The table is randomly generated by GPT-4.
LONG_PROMPT = "You are a helpful assistant in recognizes the content of tables in markdown format. Here is a table as follows.\n# Table\n" + """
| ID  | Name          | Age | Occupation    | Country       | Email                  | Phone Number   | Address                       |
|-----|---------------|-----|---------------|---------------|------------------------|----------------|------------------------------|
| 1   | John Doe      | 29  | Engineer      | USA           | john.doe@example.com   | 555-1234       | 123 Elm St, Springfield, IL  |
| 2   | Jane Smith    | 34  | Doctor        | Canada        | jane.smith@example.com | 555-5678       | 456 Oak St, Toronto, ON      |
| 3   | Alice Johnson | 27  | Teacher       | UK            | alice.j@example.com    | 555-8765       | 789 Pine St, London, UK      |
| 4   | Bob Brown     | 45  | Artist        | Australia     | bob.b@example.com      | 555-4321       | 321 Maple St, Sydney, NSW    |
| 5   | Carol White   | 31  | Scientist     | New Zealand   | carol.w@example.com    | 555-6789       | 654 Birch St, Wellington, NZ |
| 6   | Dave Green    | 28  | Lawyer        | Ireland       | dave.g@example.com     | 555-3456       | 987 Cedar St, Dublin, IE     |
| 7   | Emma Black    | 40  | Musician      | USA           | emma.b@example.com     | 555-1111       | 246 Ash St, New York, NY     |
| 8   | Frank Blue    | 37  | Chef          | Canada        | frank.b@example.com    | 555-2222       | 135 Spruce St, Vancouver, BC |
| 9   | Grace Yellow  | 50  | Engineer      | UK            | grace.y@example.com    | 555-3333       | 864 Fir St, Manchester, UK   |
| 10  | Henry Violet  | 32  | Artist        | Australia     | henry.v@example.com    | 555-4444       | 753 Willow St, Melbourne, VIC|
| 11  | Irene Orange  | 26  | Scientist     | New Zealand   | irene.o@example.com    | 555-5555       | 912 Poplar St, Auckland, NZ  |
| 12  | Jack Indigo   | 38  | Teacher       | Ireland       | jack.i@example.com     | 555-6666       | 159 Elm St, Cork, IE         |
| 13  | Karen Red     | 41  | Lawyer        | USA           | karen.r@example.com    | 555-7777       | 357 Cedar St, Boston, MA     |
| 14  | Leo Brown     | 30  | Chef          | Canada        | leo.b@example.com      | 555-8888       | 246 Oak St, Calgary, AB      |
| 15  | Mia Green     | 33  | Musician      | UK            | mia.g@example.com      | 555-9999       | 975 Pine St, Edinburgh, UK   |
| 16  | Noah Yellow   | 29  | Doctor        | Australia     | noah.y@example.com     | 555-0000       | 864 Birch St, Brisbane, QLD  |
| 17  | Olivia Blue   | 35  | Engineer      | New Zealand   | olivia.b@example.com   | 555-1212       | 753 Maple St, Hamilton, NZ   |
| 18  | Peter Black   | 42  | Artist        | Ireland       | peter.b@example.com    | 555-3434       | 912 Fir St, Limerick, IE     |
| 19  | Quinn White   | 28  | Scientist     | USA           | quinn.w@example.com    | 555-5656       | 159 Willow St, Seattle, WA   |
| 20  | Rachel Red    | 31  | Teacher       | Canada        | rachel.r@example.com   | 555-7878       | 357 Poplar St, Ottawa, ON    |
| 21  | Steve Green   | 44  | Lawyer        | UK            | steve.g@example.com    | 555-9090       | 753 Elm St, Birmingham, UK   |
| 22  | Tina Blue     | 36  | Musician      | Australia     | tina.b@example.com     | 555-1213       | 864 Cedar St, Perth, WA      |
| 23  | Umar Black    | 39  | Chef          | New Zealand   | umar.b@example.com     | 555-3435       | 975 Spruce St, Christchurch, NZ|
| 24  | Victor Yellow | 43  | Engineer      | Ireland       | victor.y@example.com   | 555-5657       | 246 Willow St, Galway, IE    |
| 25  | Wendy Orange  | 27  | Artist        | USA           | wendy.o@example.com    | 555-7879       | 135 Elm St, Denver, CO       |
| 26  | Xavier Green  | 34  | Scientist     | Canada        | xavier.g@example.com   | 555-9091       | 357 Oak St, Montreal, QC     |
| 27  | Yara Red      | 41  | Teacher       | UK            | yara.r@example.com     | 555-1214       | 975 Pine St, Leeds, UK       |
| 28  | Zack Blue     | 30  | Lawyer        | Australia     | zack.b@example.com     | 555-3436       | 135 Birch St, Adelaide, SA   |
| 29  | Amy White     | 33  | Musician      | New Zealand   | amy.w@example.com      | 555-5658       | 159 Maple St, Wellington, NZ |
| 30  | Ben Black     | 38  | Chef          | Ireland       | ben.b@example.com      | 555-7870       | 246 Fir St, Waterford, IE    |
"""


def get_generation_time(llm, sampling_params, prompts):
    # time the generation
    start_time = time.time()
    output = llm.generate(prompts, sampling_params=sampling_params)
    end_time = time.time()
    # print the output and generation time
    print(f"Output: {output[0].outputs[0].text}")
    print(f"Generation time: {end_time - start_time} seconds.")


# set enable_prefix_caching=True to enable APC
llm = LLM(
    model='lmsys/longchat-13b-16k',
    enable_prefix_caching=True
)

sampling_params = SamplingParams(temperature=0, max_tokens=100)

# Querying the age of John Doe
get_generation_time(
    llm,
    sampling_params,
    LONG_PROMPT + "Question: what is the age of John Doe? Your answer: The age of John Doe is ",
)

# Querying the age of Zack Blue
# This query will be faster since vllm avoids computing the KV cache of LONG_PROMPT again.
get_generation_time(
    llm,
    sampling_params,
    LONG_PROMPT + "Question: what is the age of Zack Blue? Your answer: The age of Zack Blue is ",
)
```

## Example workloads

We describe two example workloads, where APC can provide huge performance benefit:

- Long document query, where the user repeatedly queries the same long document (e.g. software manual or annual report) with different queries. In this case, instead of processing the long document again and again, APC allows vLLM to process this long document *only once*, and all future requests can avoid recomputing this long document by reusing its KV cache. This allows vLLM to serve future requests with much higher throughput and much lower latency.
- Multi-round conversation, where the user may chat with the application multiple times in the same chatting session. In this case, instead of processing the whole chatting history again and again, APC allows vLLM to reuse the processing results of the chat history across all future rounds of conversation, allowing vLLM to serve future requests with much higher throughput and much lower latency.

## Limits

APC in general does not reduce the performance of vLLM. With that being said, APC only reduces the time of processing the queries (the prefilling phase) and does not reduce the time of generating new tokens (the decoding phase). So APC does not bring performance gain when vLLM spends most of the time generating answers to the queries (e.g. when the length of the answer is long), or new queries do not share the same prefix with any of existing queries (so that the computation cannot be reused).
