feat: support ring attention with arbitrary KV sequence lengths

[songh11]

What does this PR do?

Adds a new "Ring Anything" context-parallel attention mode that supports arbitrary
(non-evenly divisible) KV sequence lengths across ring-degree workers.

Motivation

Existing TemplatedRingAttention requires KV to be equipartitioned across ranks,
which is impractical for real-world workloads where per-rank sequence lengths can
differ (e.g., variable-length prompts, packed batches, token pruning). This PR
mirrors the existing ulysses_anything design but applies it to the ring path.

Changes

• ContextParallelConfig: add ring_anything flag with validation
  (ring_degree > 1 and ulysses_degree == 1).
• TemplatedRingAnythingAttention: new autograd Function that
  • all-gathers per-rank KV sequence lengths,
  • pads local KV to the global max length,
  • all-gathers padded KV and slices back to each rank's true length,
  • runs online-softmax merging as in ring attention.
• _templated_context_parallel_attention: dispatch to the new class when
  ring_anything is enabled.
• ContextParallelSplitHook: route through PartitionAnythingSharder.shard_anything
  when ring_anything is set.

Reproducible example

import argparse

import torch
import torch.distributed as dist
from diffusers import QwenImagePipeline
from diffusers.models._modeling_parallel import ContextParallelConfig


model_name = "Qwen/Qwen-Image-2512/"

# Generate image
prompt = '''A 20-year-old East Asian girl with delicate, charming features and large, bright brown eyes—expressive and lively, with a cheerful or subtly smiling expression. Her naturally wavy long hair is either loose or tied in twin ponytails. She has fair skin and light makeup accentuating her youthful freshness. She wears a modern, cute dress or relaxed outfit in bright, soft colors—lightweight fabric, minimalist cut. She stands indoors at an anime convention, surrounded by banners, posters, or stalls. Lighting is typical indoor illumination—no staged lighting—and the image resembles a casual iPhone snapshot: unpretentious composition, yet brimming with vivid, fresh, youthful charm.'''
negative_prompt = "低分辨率，低画质，肢体畸形，手指畸形，画面过饱和，蜡像感，人脸无细节，过度光滑，画面具有AI感。构图混乱。文字模糊，扭曲。"

# Generate with different aspect ratios
aspect_ratios = {
    "1:1": (1328, 1328),
    "16:9": (1664, 928),
    "9:16": (928, 1664),
    "4:3": (1472, 1104),
    "3:4": (1104, 1472),
    "3:2": (1584, 1056),
    "2:3": (1056, 1584),
}

def main():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument("--ring",    type=int, default=1)
    parser.add_argument("--ulysses", type=int, default=2)
    args = parser.parse_args()

    # 1. init dist — torchrun injects RANK / LOCAL_RANK / WORLD_SIZE automatically
    dist.init_process_group(backend="nccl")
    local_rank = dist.get_rank() % torch.cuda.device_count()
    torch.cuda.set_device(local_rank)

    # 2. load model
    pipe = QwenImagePipeline.from_pretrained(model_name, torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16)
    pipe.to(f"cuda:{local_rank}")

    # 3. attn backend
    if args.ring > 1:
        pipe.transformer.set_attention_backend("_native_cudnn")
        print("enable _native_cudnn backend")

    # 4. build parallel config via optkit and enable CP on the transformer
    parallelism_config = ContextParallelConfig(
        ring_degree=args.ring,
        ulysses_degree=args.ulysses,
        ulysses_anything=False,
        ring_anything=True,
    )
    pipe.transformer.enable_parallelism(config=parallelism_config)

    # 5. inference — all ranks must enter together for collectives to align
    width, height = aspect_ratios["16:9"]
    image = pipe(
        prompt=prompt,
        negative_prompt=negative_prompt,
        width=width,
        height=height,
        num_inference_steps=50,
        true_cfg_scale=1.0,
        generator=torch.Generator(device="cuda").manual_seed(42)
    ).images[0]

    # 6. save on rank 0 only
    if dist.get_rank() == 0:
        image.save(f"qwen_image_cp_ring_{args.ring}_ulysses_{args.ulysses}.png")
        print(f"Saved qwen_image_cp_ring_{args.ring}_ulysses_{args.ulysses}.png")

    dist.destroy_process_group()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

Launch

torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 demo.py --ulysses 1 --ring 4

Before submitting

• This PR fixes a typo or improves the docs (you can dismiss the other checks if that's the case).
• Did you read the contributor guideline?
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  documentation guidelines, and
  here are tips on formatting docstrings.
• Did you write any new necessary tests?

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Anyone in the community is free to review the PR once the tests have passed. Feel free to tag
members/contributors who may be interested in your PR.

@yiyixuxu @asomoza @sayakpaul

[sayakpaul]

Thanks for your PR. Could you also provide some visual output examples and comparison with other backends we support (latency, memory overhead, etc.)?

[songh11]

Thanks for your PR. Could you also provide some visual output examples and comparison with other backends we support (latency, memory overhead, etc.)?

@sayakpaul Thanks for the review! I just pushed two follow-up commits:

• 894e289 — fix: align ring_anything with the ulysses_anything path (use shared gather_size_by_comm, handle ring_anything in unshard hook).
• 09b3995 — docs: add ### Ring Anything Attention section in distributed_inference.md with config example, gloo TIP, current limitations, and the benchmark below.

FLUX.1-dev benchmarks on 4 × RTX 4090 (48GB)

CP Backend	Time / Iter (ms)	Steps / Sec	Peak Memory (GB)	Shape (HxW)
ulysses	259.07	3.86	33.83	1024x1024
ring	338.98	2.95	33.83	1024x1024
unified_balanced	321.54	3.11	33.83	1024x1024
ulysses_anything	259.07	3.86	33.83	1024x1024
ring_anything	340.14	2.94	33.83	1024x1024
ulysses	failed	failed	failed	1008x1008
ring	failed	failed	failed	1008x1008
unified_balanced	failed	failed	failed	1008x1008
ulysses_anything	253.16	3.95	33.75	1008x1008
ring_anything	335.57	2.98	33.75	1008x1008

ring_anything matches ring within ~0.4% latency and identical peak memory at evenly-divisible shapes, while it is the only ring path that works at non-divisible shapes such as 1008×1008. Full table is in the docs.

Visual outputs

I'll attach side-by-side generated images (same prompt + seed: single-GPU baseline vs. ring_anything) in a follow-up comment shortly.

[songh11]

Here are the visual outputs across all backends (same prompt, same seed).

Outputs

Comparison of generated images across different context-parallel backends.

resolution	ulysses	ring	unified_balanced	ulysses_anything	ring_anything
1024×1024
1008×1008	failed	failed	failed

Reproduction

demo script

import os
import time
import argparse
from typing import Any, Dict, List, Optional, Tuple

import torch
from torch import distributed as dist
from diffusers import DiffusionPipeline, ContextParallelConfig


def make_step_timing_callback() -> Tuple[Any, List[float]]:
    step_times: List[float] = []
    last_time: Optional[float] = None

    def callback(pipe, step: int, timestep: int, callback_kwargs: Dict[str, Any]):
        nonlocal last_time
        if torch.cuda.is_available():
            torch.cuda.synchronize()
        now = time.perf_counter()
        if last_time is not None:
            step_times.append(now - last_time)
        last_time = now
        return callback_kwargs

    return callback, step_times


def measure_memory():
    """Measure current GPU memory usage"""
    allocated = torch.cuda.memory_allocated() / 1024**3  # GB
    reserved = torch.cuda.memory_reserved() / 1024**3  # GB
    max_allocated = torch.cuda.max_memory_allocated() / 1024**3  # GB
    return {
        "allocated_gb": allocated,
        "reserved_gb": reserved,
        "max_allocated_gb": max_allocated,
    }

def parse_args():
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()
    parser.add_argument(
        "--cp-backend",
        type=str,
        choices=["ring", "ulysses", "unified", 'ulysses_anything', 'ring_anything'],
        default="ulysses",
        help="Context parallel backend to use.",
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--height",
        type=int,
        default=1024,
        help="Height of the generated image.",
    )
    parser.add_argument(
        "--width",
        type=int,
        default=1024,
        help="Width of the generated image.",
    )
    return parser.parse_args()


def setup_distributed():
    if not dist.is_initialized():
        dist.init_process_group(backend="cpu:gloo,cuda:nccl")
    rank = dist.get_rank()
    device = torch.device(f"cuda:{rank}")
    torch.cuda.set_device(device)
    return device


def main():
    args = parse_args()

    device = setup_distributed()
    world_size = dist.get_world_size()

    pipeline = DiffusionPipeline.from_pretrained(
        os.environ.get(
            "FLUX_DIR",
            "black-forest-labs/FLUX.1-dev",
        ),
        torch_dtype=torch.bfloat16,
    ).to(device)

    torch.cuda.reset_peak_memory_stats()
    torch.cuda.empty_cache()

    # Always using it because `ring` doesn't support default. This helps ensure a fair comparison.
    pipeline.transformer.set_attention_backend("_native_cudnn")

    if args.cp_backend == "ring":
        cp_config = ContextParallelConfig(ring_degree=world_size)
    elif args.cp_backend == "unified":
        cp_config = ContextParallelConfig(ring_degree=world_size // 2, ulysses_degree=world_size // 2)
    elif args.cp_backend == "ulysses":
        cp_config = ContextParallelConfig(ulysses_degree=world_size)
    elif args.cp_backend == "ulysses_anything":
        cp_config = ContextParallelConfig(ulysses_degree=world_size, ulysses_anything=True)
    elif args.cp_backend == "ring_anything":
        cp_config = ContextParallelConfig(ring_degree=world_size, ring_anything=True)
    else:
        raise ValueError(f"Unsupported cp_backend: {args.cp_backend}")

    pipeline.transformer.enable_parallelism(config=cp_config)

    prompt = """
    cinematic film still of a cat sipping a margarita in a pool in Palm Springs, California
    highly detailed, high budget hollywood movie, cinemascope, moody, epic, gorgeous, film grain
    """

    def run_pipe(pipeline, steps=50, callback=None):
        image = pipeline(
            prompt,
            guidance_scale=3.5,
            num_inference_steps=steps,
            generator=torch.Generator().manual_seed(42),
            height=args.height,
            width=args.width,
            callback_on_step_end=callback,
        ).images[0]
        return image

    # warmup
    _ = run_pipe(pipeline, steps=10)

    callback, step_times = make_step_timing_callback()

    if torch.cuda.is_available():
        torch.cuda.synchronize()
    start = time.perf_counter()
    image = run_pipe(pipeline, steps=50, callback=callback)
    if torch.cuda.is_available():
        torch.cuda.synchronize()
    end = time.perf_counter()

    if dist.get_rank() == 0:
        print(f"{args.cp_backend=}")
        save_path = f"output_{args.height}x{args.width}_{args.cp_backend}.png"
        image.save(save_path)
        print(f"Saved image to {save_path}, time taken: {end - start:.2f} seconds")
        total_time = sum(step_times)
        iters = len(step_times)
        time_per_iter = (total_time / iters) * 1000  # in milliseconds
        steps_per_sec = iters / total_time
        print(f"Time per Iter: {time_per_iter:.2f} ms, Steps per Sec: {steps_per_sec:.2f}")

        max_allocated_gb = measure_memory()["max_allocated_gb"]
        print(f"{max_allocated_gb=}")


    if dist.is_initialized():
        dist.destroy_process_group()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    main()

# Example usage:
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --cp-backend ring # success
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --cp-backend ulysses # success
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --cp-backend unified # success
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --cp-backend ulysses_anything # success
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --cp-backend ring_anything # success

# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --height 1008 --width 1008 --cp-backend ring # failed
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --height 1008 --width 1008 --cp-backend ulysses # failed
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --height 1008 --width 1008 --cp-backend unified # failed
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --height 1008 --width 1008 --cp-backend ulysses_anything # success
# torchrun --nproc_per_node=4 check_ulysses_anything.py --height 1008 --width 1008 --cp-backend ring_anything # success

[sayakpaul]

Thanks for the updates -- they are very comprehensive. It seems like ulysses_anything is still the best but users who might prefer ring would want to use ring_anything for non-divisible shapes? Is that the motivation here?

[songh11]

Thanks for the updates -- they are very comprehensive. It seems like ulysses_anything is still the best but users who might prefer ring would want to use ring_anything for non-divisible shapes? Is that the motivation here?

Thanks for the review!

You're spot on — the primary motivation is to provide a seamless path for users on a ring topology to handle non-divisible sequence lengths, similar to how ulysses_anything works.

While ulysses/ulysses_anything is often the go-to, I believe ring_anything is a valuable addition for a few key reasons:

1. Zero Head-count Constraints: Unlike Ulysses, Ring doesn't require num_heads to be divisible by the degree. For models with irregular or small head counts, this provides a much-needed "fallthrough" option.
2. Performance on PCIe/P2P: In my experiments with dual-GPU PCIe setups, P2P ring communication can be more efficient than Ulysses' all-to-all due to reduced bandwidth contention across the PCIe switch.
3. Future work: This PR focuses on ensuring correctness and supporting general shapes. I plan to follow up with another PR to introduce a proper P2P implementation to fully unlock the computation-communication overlap benefits.

So while ulysses/ulysses_anything remains the recommended choice for most, while ring_anything covers head-constrained or ring-first setups—focusing on correctness today, with clear headroom for P2P overlap in the next step.

[sayakpaul]

Your reasoning is spot on! Let's include them in the docs too.

[sayakpaul]

@claude could you do a review here?

[github-actions]

Claude finished @sayakpaul's task in 2m 29s —— View job

---

Review of PR #13545: Ring Anything Attention

• Read repository guidelines (AGENTS.md, models.md, modular.md)
• Read changed files and understand the implementation
• Compare with existing ulysses_anything and TemplatedRingAttention patterns
• Post detailed review feedback

---

Overall this is a well-structured PR that cleanly mirrors the existing patterns. The core algorithm (pad → all-gather → slice → online-softmax merge) is correct, and the config validation + hook routing are consistent with ulysses_anything. A few items below.

---

Duplicate hook branches should be merged

src/diffusers/hooks/context_parallel.py — both _prepare_cp_input (lines 213–220) and post_forward (lines 246–253) now have two identical branches:

if self.parallel_config.ulysses_anything:
    return PartitionAnythingSharder.shard_anything(...)
elif self.parallel_config.ring_anything:
    return PartitionAnythingSharder.shard_anything(...)

Since the bodies are identical, these should be merged:

if self.parallel_config.ulysses_anything or self.parallel_config.ring_anything:
    return PartitionAnythingSharder.shard_anything(...)

Same for the unshard_anything path in post_forward. This reduces duplication and makes it clearer that both modes use the same shard/unshard strategy.

Fix this →

---

Incomplete docstring comment for ring_anything field

src/diffusers/models/_modeling_parallel.py:88:

# Whether to enable ring anything attention to support sequence lengths.

This should read "to support arbitrary sequence lengths" (matching the docstring at line 68 which already says "arbitrary sequence lengths"). Minor, but worth keeping the inline comment consistent.

---

Memory considerations worth documenting

The current implementation pads all local KV to s_max before the all-gather. When sequence lengths are highly uneven across ranks, this communicates and allocates extra zeros. This is fine for a correctness-first approach (and the benchmarks confirm negligible overhead for near-uniform splits), but it would be good to add a brief inline comment noting this trade-off, especially since the PR description mentions a follow-up P2P implementation.

---

Minor: validation could be more explicit about mutual exclusivity

The current constraints in __post_init__ (lines 117–126) implicitly prevent ulysses_anything and ring_anything from being enabled simultaneously (since ulysses_anything requires ring_degree == 1 while ring_anything requires ulysses_degree == 1). Consider adding an explicit check:

if self.ulysses_anything and self.ring_anything:
    raise ValueError("ulysses_anything and ring_anything cannot both be enabled.")

This makes the constraint immediately obvious to readers without requiring them to reason through the degree constraints. It's also more robust against future changes to the degree validation.

---

Overall assessment

The core attention logic is correct:

• Pad → all-gather → slice correctly reconstructs each rank's true KV before calling the attention op (zeros never enter attention).
• The online-softmax merging loop is identical to TemplatedRingAttention and handles the variable-length chunks correctly.
• Config validation prevents invalid combinations.
• The hook routing through PartitionAnythingSharder correctly handles non-uniform splits.
• Backward raising NotImplementedError is consistent with TemplatedUlyssesAnythingAttention.

The benchmarks are thorough and confirm that ring_anything matches ring at divisible shapes (~0.4% overhead) while being the only ring-based mode that works at non-divisible shapes. The motivation (head-count constraints, PCIe/P2P topology advantages) is compelling.

The main actionable items are: (1) merging the duplicate hook branches, and (2) adding the explicit mutual-exclusivity check. The rest are minor polish.

---

[songh11]

@sayakpaul Thanks! Addressed the feedback by merging duplicate hooks, adding the exclusivity check, and polishing comments. Pushed in the latest commit.