llamaR

R interface to llama.cpp for running local inference of large language models (LLMs) directly from R.

The package supports GPU acceleration via Vulkan, and automatically falls back to CPU when no GPU is available.

Key Features

• Load and unload models in GGUF format (llama_load_model, llama_free_model)
• Create and free contexts (llama_new_context, llama_free_context)
• Tokenization, detokenization and text generation (llama_tokenize, llama_detokenize, llama_generate)
• Embedding extraction: single (llama_embeddings), batch (llama_embed_batch), ragnar-compatible (embed_llamar)
• Hugging Face integration: download and cache models (llama_hf_download, llama_load_model_hf, etc.)
• Encoder-decoder model support (T5, BART) via llama_encode
• Explicit backend/device selection and multi-GPU split (llama_load_model(devices = ...))
• NUMA optimization (llama_numa_init)

GPU and CPU Support

The package uses ggmlR as the low-level backend. If ggmlR was built with Vulkan support enabled, llamaR automatically uses the GPU for computation. On systems without a GPU, all code runs on CPU with no additional configuration required.

How Vulkan linking works

Vulkan support is compiled entirely within ggmlR — llamaR does not compile any Vulkan code itself. However, since llamaR links against libggml.a (from ggmlR) using --whole-archive, the Vulkan symbols (e.g. vkCmdCopyBuffer, vkGetInstanceProcAddr) need to be resolved at link time.

The llamaR configure script handles this automatically:

• Linux: checks pkg-config --exists vulkan and adds -lvulkan to the linker flags
• Windows: checks for the VULKAN_SDK environment variable and adds -lvulkan-1

If Vulkan is not found on the system, the build proceeds without it — the Vulkan backend in libggml.a will simply remain unused, and inference runs on CPU only.

Installation

Dependencies

Requires ggmlR >= 0.5.4:

# Install ggmlR first
remotes::install_github("Zabis13/ggmlR")

# Then llamaR
remotes::install_github("Zabis13/llamaR")

System Requirements

• R >= 4.1.0
• C++17 compiler
• GNU make

Quick Start

library(llamaR)

# Load model
model <- llama_load_model("path/to/model.gguf")

# Create context
ctx <- llama_new_context(model, n_ctx = 2048L, n_threads = 8L)

# Generate text
result <- llama_generate(ctx, "Once upon a time", max_new_tokens = 100L)
cat(result)

# Free resources (optional, GC handles this automatically)
llama_free_context(ctx)
llama_free_model(model)

Downloading Models from Hugging Face

Download GGUF models directly from Hugging Face with automatic caching:

library(llamaR)

# List available GGUF files in a repository
files <- llama_hf_list("TheBloke/Llama-2-7B-GGUF")
print(files)

# Download a specific quantization
path <- llama_hf_download("TheBloke/Llama-2-7B-GGUF", pattern = "*q4_k_m*")

# Or download and load in one step
model <- llama_load_model_hf("TheBloke/Llama-2-7B-GGUF",
                              pattern = "*q4_k_m*",
                              n_gpu_layers = -1L)

# Manage cache
llama_hf_cache_info()
llama_hf_cache_clear()

For private repositories, set the HF_TOKEN environment variable or pass token directly.

Usage

Loading Models

# CPU only
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf")

# With GPU acceleration (all layers)
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", n_gpu_layers = -1L)

# Partial GPU offload (first 20 layers)
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", n_gpu_layers = 20L)

# Explicit device selection (see llama_backend_devices())
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", n_gpu_layers = -1L, devices = "Vulkan0")

# Check GPU availability
if (llama_supports_gpu()) {
  message("GPU available")
}

Model Information

info <- llama_model_info(model)
cat("Model:", info$desc, "\n")
cat("Layers:", info$n_layer, "\n")
cat("Context:", info$n_ctx_train, "\n")
cat("Embedding size:", info$n_embd, "\n")

Text Generation

ctx <- llama_new_context(model, n_ctx = 4096L)

# Basic generation
result <- llama_generate(ctx, "The meaning of life is")

# Greedy decoding (deterministic)
result <- llama_generate(ctx, "2 + 2 =", temp = 0)

# Creative output
result <- llama_generate(ctx,
  prompt = "Write a haiku about R:",
  max_new_tokens = 50L,
  temp = 1.0,
  top_p = 0.95,
  top_k = 40L
)

Chat Models

model <- llama_load_model("llama-3.2-instruct.gguf", n_gpu_layers = -1L)
ctx <- llama_new_context(model)

# Get template from model
tmpl <- llama_chat_template(model)

# Build conversation
messages <- list(
  list(role = "system", content = "You are a helpful assistant."),
  list(role = "user", content = "What is R?")
)

# Apply template
prompt <- llama_chat_apply_template(messages, template = tmpl)

# Generate response
response <- llama_generate(ctx, prompt, max_new_tokens = 200L)
cat(response)

Tokenization

# Text -> tokens
tokens <- llama_tokenize(ctx, "Hello, world!")

# Tokens -> text
text <- llama_detokenize(ctx, tokens)

Embeddings

# Single text embedding
emb1 <- llama_embeddings(ctx, "machine learning")
emb2 <- llama_embeddings(ctx, "artificial intelligence")

# Cosine similarity
similarity <- sum(emb1 * emb2) / (sqrt(sum(emb1^2)) * sqrt(sum(emb2^2)))
cat("Similarity:", similarity, "\n")

# Batch embeddings (matrix output)
ctx <- llama_new_context(model, n_ctx = 512L, embedding = TRUE)
mat <- llama_embed_batch(ctx, c("hello world", "foo bar", "test"))
# mat is a 3 x n_embd matrix

ragnar Integration

Use embed_llamar() as an embedding provider for ragnar:

library(ragnar)

# Create store with local embedding model
store <- ragnar_store_create(
  "my_store",
  embed = embed_llamar(
    model = "nomic-embed-text-v1.5.Q8_0.gguf",
    n_gpu_layers = -1,
    embedding = TRUE
  )
)

# Insert and retrieve documents as usual
ragnar_store_insert(store, documents)
ragnar_retrieve(store, "search query")

Backend and Device Selection

# List available devices
llama_backend_devices()
#>         name           description  type
#> 1 CPU        CPU (threads: 16)      cpu
#> 2 Vulkan0    NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 gpu

# Load model on specific device
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", n_gpu_layers = -1, devices = "Vulkan0")

# CPU-only (even if GPU is available)
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", devices = "cpu")

# Multi-GPU split
model <- llama_load_model("model.gguf", n_gpu_layers = -1,
                          devices = c("Vulkan0", "Vulkan1"))

LoRA Adapters

model <- llama_load_model("base-model.gguf")
ctx <- llama_new_context(model)

# Load and apply adapter
lora <- llama_lora_load(model, "fine-tuned.gguf")
llama_lora_apply(ctx, lora, scale = 1.0)

# Generate with LoRA
result <- llama_generate(ctx, "prompt")

# Remove all LoRA adapters
llama_lora_clear(ctx)

Verbosity Control

# Levels: 0 = silent, 1 = errors only, 2 = normal, 3 = verbose
llama_set_verbosity(0)  # Suppress all output
llama_set_verbosity(3)  # Debug mode

Supported Models

Supports all llama.cpp compatible architectures (100+), including:

• LLaMA 1/2/3
• Mistral / Mixtral
• Qwen / Qwen2
• Gemma / Gemma 2
• Phi-2 / Phi-3
• DeepSeek
• Command-R
• and many more

Models must be in GGUF format. Convert models using llama.cpp tools.

License

MIT

Author

Yuri Baramykov

Links

• GitHub
• Bug Reports
• ggmlR - tensor operations dependency
• llama.cpp - inference backend