KV cache layout and sampling inside an engine
How a real engine stores the KV cache (preallocated arrays, layout for sequential reads, slots per sequence), the memory formula and the cost of long contexts, then logits processing and sampling as a clean pipeline, with the design choices that affect speed.
16 min·Verified 2026-11Pro+50 XP
In the first lesson the cache was a Python list that grows by one entry per token. Real engines treat it as the central memory data structure.
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