Skip to content

Meeting Notes

Jump to bottom
Ramakrishnan Sivakumar edited this page Jul 6, 2026 · 7 revisions

Lemonade Community Maintainers Meeting Notes

June 5, 2026

Attendees: (super)Mario, anditherobot, Anthony Mikinka (AMD), Bone, Daniel Holanda (AMD), fl0rianr, gavinbarnard, geramyl (mod), Jeremy Fowers (AMD), Kalin Ovtcharov (AMD), kenvandine, Krishna (AMD), mikkoph, Occam, Phoenix, primaL- (mod), sawan, TG95, Victoria (AMD)

Milestone for v10.7

  • LMX omni models exposed to external OpenAI-compatible apps (Open WebUI, etc.), not just the Lemonade app
  • Benchmarking tool ships with 10.7; early testers already finding non-optimal params on their machines
  • Action: Finalize external app exposure for LMX models before tag

CI Testing / Health

  • Hundreds of tests run on every PR; head of main is generally release-ready
  • AMD-sponsored hardware covers Strix Halo on Windows and Linux
  • Gap: no equivalent CI for Arm, Intel, CUDA
  • Robust CI is the gating factor for faster release cadence
  • Action: Ken to explore vendor donations of CI hardware via industry contacts

Release Cadence

  • Strong consensus to move faster with more predictability
  • Direction: weekly or bi-weekly stable tags on a fixed weekday (Wednesday preferred, avoid Friday)
  • Cherry-picked point releases for urgent fixes
  • Add a continuously refreshed "tip" channel (Ghostty-style) for developers wanting main builds
  • Snap already does this via edge channel; Debian PPAs similar
  • Windows signing capped daily, so signed Windows builds stay on stable cadence
  • Unsigned Windows, Docker, Fedora could update daily
  • Action: Continue discussion in Discord thread; Jeremy to share Ghostty link

Lemonade Working Groups

  • New structure: six working groups, each led by a maintainer with autonomy to merge PRs and drive roadmap within scope
  • Designed to unblock the ~80 open PR backlog and concentrate reviewer enthusiasm
  • Some groups have a discrete end state (cross vendor), others are open-ended (omni)
  • Separate maintainer table handles areas outside working groups (security, quality, distros, ROCm, etc.)
  • Open question: possible new working group for backend / plugin system; Geramyl volunteered to lead
  • Action: Leads to draft charters with scope and, where possible, completion criteria

Lemonade Omni Models

  • Led by Jeremy
  • Virtual omni via LMX router behind an OpenAI-style interface
  • Already shipped: LMX representation, image-gen perf improvements, GUI import/export
  • Next: expose to any OpenAI-compatible client (in 10.7)
  • Halo Tales reference RPG app is coded, pending release
  • Occam noted naming overlap with true omni research models; current design is intentional and gives per-model customization that single omni models lack
  • Action: Jeremy to release Halo Tales after 10.7 ships

Lemonade Auto Tune

  • Led by Michele
  • Splits machine-specific args (global to server) from model-specific args
  • Benchmarking tool layered on top to find optimized params
  • Goal: community-shared profiles for common archetypes (Strix Halo, dGPU configs)
  • Ships in 10.7, CLI only for now
  • Not using llama-bench (needs to work with FLM, vLLM and other backends; uses normal inference endpoint instead)
  • Custom scenarios supported: short, multiturn, long-context (32K, 64K), coding vs non-coding (relevant for MTP)
  • Action: Community help wanted on more benchmark scenarios; UI button for benchmarking to come later

Cross Vendor Support

  • Led by Ken Van Dine
  • Goal: Lemonade runs on all mass-market hardware so app developers can target Lemonade regardless of backend (AMD, NVIDIA RTX/Spark, Intel, Qualcomm, Arm64)
  • Discrete checkbox-style scope; dissolves when complete
  • Ken to leverage vendor relationships through day job, including potentially sourcing CI hardware
  • IoT and embedded (Canonical core devices) in scope; mobile may need Geramy
  • Action: Ken to draft the hardware matrix and pursue vendor partnerships

Cloud Local Hybrid

  • Led by Krishna
  • Open PR adds cloud backend: bring your own OpenAI-compatible API key, provider models appear in Lemonade, chat works seamlessly
  • Not about upselling to cloud
  • Intermediate step toward intelligent routing between cloud and local based on user-defined policy
  • Lemonade owns the platform and interface, not the policy
  • Policy format TBD (markdown file, separate HTTP service, etc.)
  • AMD research teams looking at this, plus alignment with vLLM Semantic Router
  • Geramyl and Sawan asked for an API to retrieve, manage, and secure policies; Krishna agreed
  • Action: Land scaffolding PR, then add basic router, then policy API

Lemonade UI

  • Led by Kyle
  • Stack stays React plus Tauri to avoid framework-change debate
  • New capabilities:
    • Self-configuration (LLM loads model and builds recipe)
    • Pulls recommended settings from HuggingFace
    • Multiple-choice question tool for agent interactions
    • Markdown rendering
  • Roughly a month from release-ready
  • Florian helping; more contributors needed
  • Time to market is the differentiator now, not the features themselves
  • Action: Kyle to bring a roadmap to next Friday's meeting; testers and UI contributors wanted

Networking

  • Led by Geramy, with Nathan (kg95) on attestation
  • Mesh network vision: install Lemonade and reach your nodes from anywhere; add servers and mobile devices to a private mesh
  • Tier 1 nodes require TPM 2.0 hardware attestation
  • VMs require TEE; otherwise capped at Tier 2 or lower
  • Security model includes ban plus master key rotation on detected abuse (self-healing)
  • Router demoed: token-based API, delegates by occupancy and TPS across two Strix Halos plus two Thunderbolt 5 R9700s (over 110 TPS)
  • Pulls existing Lemonade collections; supports new ones
  • Open proposal: subscription or credits model so mobile users without high-end hardware can use community-donated inference, with a percentage flowing back to Lemonade
  • Raises broader question about commercial ventures built on Lemonade and how close they sit to the project itself
  • Action: Dedicated discussion next week or later; Geramy to organize separate call for interested parties

July 1, 2026

Release Highlights

  • Non-Apple device support landed (Ken, Mario, Florian); big platform expansion
  • New website with embedded SDK docs published; improves discoverability and adoption

Merge Process (Rebase Merges)

  • Squash-only workflow breaks release-branch tagging; enabling rebase merges alongside squash as a fix
  • Default stays squash; rebase reserved for clean, logically-split commits
  • Action: Enable rebase merges as a trial next cycle (Mario has admin); maintainers check squash-vs-rebase before merging, don't blindly click

Versioning System

  • Proposal to move from semver to date-based versioning (e.g. 2026.07.01) to avoid confusion and breaking-change flak
  • Trade-off: loses marketing pop and semver signal, but less mental load given weekly releases
  • Action: Mario to post a Discord poll (date-based vs semver), asking voters to justify their choice

PR Backlog

  • Open PRs up to 90–100; limited reviewer bandwidth, plus duplicate issues/PRs, missing issue-links, and stale PRs (oldest ~4 months)
  • Direction: automate cross-linking, auto-close on merge, flag large/new-contributor PRs, auto-tag maintainers, "stand down" tag for intentionally-open PRs; direct complex feature PRs to Discord
  • Action: Krishna to expand the issue-labeling framework to handle these cases; issue-linking becomes part of review criteria

Backend Refactor & Policy

  • Merged ~7000-line refactor cutting backend touch points from ~30 to ~5; enables adding ~10 more backends quickly
  • Inclusion criteria now needed: value, usability, reachability, maintainability
  • Action: Apply value/reach/maintainability basis for backend inclusion; formalize later

Beta Backends / Channels

  • Consensus on one source tree with a beta toggle (disabled by default, own folder) instead of forks, which tend to die
  • New backends land as beta, get bumped to stable later
  • Action: Jeremy to open a PR integrating MLX behind a beta toggle; coordinate with Florian's existing MLX PR

Cross-Vendor / Edge Expansion

  • Kyle wiring stable CDNA on Hot Aisle so Lemonade scales Strix Halo → CDNA and runs large models (GLM 5.2)
  • Exploring Lemonade as a LiteRT stand-in and an Android backend for edge/telecom developers
  • Action: Kyle to hand CDNA/Hot Aisle wiring to agents (targeting Thursday); chat offline with Krishna on VLLM + CDNA

CLI / TUI (Launch, Run, Pull)

  • Building terminal UI for launch/run/pull; wants design feedback; heavy config should go through a dedicated onboard flow, not launch
  • Mesh integration into the TUI requested as first-class
  • Action: Open draft PRs for run and pull; gather feedback; coordinate with networking on mesh onboarding

GUI 3 (Merge Readiness)

  • Strong baseline but scope creep risk (database, user accounts, auto-optimization)
  • Strategy: define core launch feature set, disable/hide immature features rather than delay, land MVP sooner; defer database until mesh lands (local JSON for now)
  • User accounts debated as arguably Open Web UI's lane; not freezing existing UI yet
  • Action: Race GUI 3 to merge readiness; Florian to hide auto-optimization work until it functions; circle back on landing the MVP

Clone this wiki locally