Mocker Trace Replay

This guide covers trace replay support for Mooncake-style JSONL traces via python -m dynamo.replay, which prints an AIPerf-style summary table, writes the full replay report JSON to disk, and exposes offline|online, round_robin|kv_router, arrival_speedup_ratio, closed-loop concurrency, and synthetic workload inputs directly.

Unlike normal dynamo.mocker usage, offline replay does not launch workers, register endpoints, or require NATS, etcd, or a frontend. Online replay does exercise the live mock-worker runtime path.

Use this when you want to:

• benchmark scheduler behavior from a saved trace
• compare timing and cache behavior across mocker configurations
• validate replay logic in CI without bringing up a distributed stack

Harness Overview

The replay harness wires a load driver (trace file or synthetic workload generator) into one or more mocker engine simulations and tees request/token timing into a trace collector.

The load driver is either a Mooncake-style JSONL trace (timestamps, ISL/OSL, hash_ids) or a synthetic generator parameterized by isl/osl/concurrency. Single-engine simulation (SES) is the fast path for num_workers == 1 with the vLLM engine; multi-engine simulation (MES) covers aggregated multi-worker replay, disaggregated prefill/decode replay, and KV-router replay. The trace collector produces the AIPerf-style summary table, the JSON report, and the per-request timing fields consumed by downstream analysis.

Each simulation composes a different set of components. SES drives the engine core directly (scheduler + forward-pass modeling). MES composes multiple engine cores with KV transfer/offloading, KV routing, and planner simulation layered on top:

See lib/mocker/src/replay/offline/README.md for offline-harness internals (logical clock, event queue, worker model) and docs/mocker/mocker.md for engine-core details (scheduler, KV block manager).

Quick Start

Run offline replay through the dedicated replay CLI:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --router-mode round_robin \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}' \
>
    --report-json /tmp/replay-report.json

Run synthetic replay through the same CLI when you want fixed request shapes without a trace file:

$
python -m dynamo.replay \
>
    --input-tokens 5000 \
>
    --output-tokens 500 \
>
    --request-count 1000 \
>
    --arrival-interval-ms 1.0 \
>
    --num-workers 1 \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --replay-concurrency 100 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":512}' \
>
    --report-json /tmp/replay-report.json

Run synthetic workload replay when you want shared-prefix or multi-turn structure without a trace file:

$
python -m dynamo.replay \
>
    --input-tokens 5000 \
>
    --output-tokens 500 \
>
    --request-count 200 \
>
    --turns-per-session 3 \
>
    --shared-prefix-ratio 0.5 \
>
    --num-prefix-groups 8 \
>
    --inter-turn-delay-ms 250 \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --replay-concurrency 32 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":512}' \
>
    --report-json /tmp/replay-report.json

python -m dynamo.replay prints an AIPerf-style summary table to stdout and writes the full replay report JSON to disk.

Input Format

The trace file must be Mooncake-style JSONL. Each line should contain:

• timestamp or created_time
• input_length or input_tokens
• output_length or output_tokens
• hash_ids

Example:

1
{"timestamp": 0, "input_length": 6755, "output_length": 500, "hash_ids": [0, 1, 2, 3]}
2
{"timestamp": 0, "input_length": 4096, "output_length": 128, "hash_ids": [9, 10, 11, 12]}

Rows without session_id are independent timestamped requests. Use this shape for wall-clock request traces, including agent-converted traces where parallel LLM calls should remain parallel.

Replay also supports multi-turn sessions. Use the same session_id on all turns in a session. Multi-turn sessions are closed-loop: turn n+1 waits until turn n completes plus either the explicit delay / delay_ms or the timestamp delta inferred from consecutive rows in the same session.

Example:

1
{"session_id":"session-a","timestamp":1000,"input_length":2048,"output_length":128,"hash_ids":[1,2,3,4]}
2
{"session_id":"session-a","delay_ms":50,"input_length":2560,"output_length":128,"hash_ids":[1,2,3,4,5]}
3
{"session_id":"session-b","timestamp":1010,"input_length":1024,"output_length":64,"hash_ids":[9,10]}
4
{"session_id":"session-b","timestamp":1060,"input_length":1536,"output_length":64,"hash_ids":[9,10,11]}

The second session-a row waits for the first turn to complete plus 50 ms. The second session-b row also waits for the first turn to complete plus the inferred 50 ms timestamp delta.

Replay uses two different block-size concepts for trace files:

• --trace-block-size: how many tokens each hash_id in the dataset represents
• engine block_size: the block size used by the replay engine and router when they re-chunk the synthesized tokens into sequence hashes

Public Mooncake/toolagent traces use 512 tokens per hash_id, so replaying them should normally use --trace-block-size 512. The engine block_size can still be smaller, for example the live vLLM benchmark setup uses block_size=64. For engine_type=sglang, replay still uses canonical block_size internally; sglang.page_size is accepted as a compatibility alias and is normalized into block_size before replay starts.

Replay Surfaces

python -m dynamo.replay

The dedicated replay CLI exposes:

• either a positional trace_file, or all of --input-tokens, --output-tokens, and --request-count
• --replay-mode offline|online
• --router-mode round_robin|kv_router
• --num-workers
• --num-prefill-workers
• --num-decode-workers
• --replay-concurrency
• --arrival-interval-ms
• --arrival-speedup-ratio
• --trace-block-size
• --turns-per-session
• --shared-prefix-ratio
• --num-prefix-groups
• --inter-turn-delay-ms
• --extra-engine-args (JSON string)
• --prefill-engine-args (JSON string)
• --decode-engine-args (JSON string)
• --router-config (JSON string)
• --aic-backend
• --aic-system
• --aic-backend-version
• --aic-tp-size
• --aic-model-path
• --report-json

Defaults:

• --replay-mode offline
• --router-mode round_robin

Example:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode online \
>
    --router-mode kv_router \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --arrival-speedup-ratio 10 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}' \
>
    --router-config '{"router_queue_policy":"fcfs","router_temperature":0.0}' \
>
    --report-json /tmp/replay-report.json

SGLang replay uses the same CLI surface. A minimal extra-engine-args file can use either block_size directly or the compatibility alias sglang.page_size:

1
{
2
  "engine_type": "sglang",
3
  "num_gpu_blocks": 512,
4
  "sglang": {
5
    "page_size": 2
6
  }
7
}

Both --extra-engine-args and --router-config accept partial JSON objects. Engine settings such as block_size, engine_type, dp_size, speedup_ratio, and decode_speedup_ratio belong in --extra-engine-args, not as top-level replay CLI flags. --trace-block-size is separate and is used only for trace-file replay. Unspecified fields fall back to the same defaults used by MockEngineArgs::default() and KvRouterConfig::default().

Replay has two independent AIC surfaces:

• engine timing AIC via --extra-engine-args / staged engine JSON
• router-side prompt-load AIC via top-level --aic-* flags together with router_prefill_load_model: "aic" in --router-config

Offline disagg replay uses staged engine args instead of --extra-engine-args:

• --prefill-engine-args for the prefill worker config
• --decode-engine-args for the decode worker config
• --num-prefill-workers and --num-decode-workers for pool sizes

For offline disagg replay, the staged JSON must set worker_type explicitly:

• --prefill-engine-args must use worker_type: "prefill"
• --decode-engine-args must use worker_type: "decode"

The staged configs must also use the same engine block_size. --trace-block-size remains a separate trace-file input knob.

Synthetic Replay

Synthetic replay bypasses trace loading and generates in-memory requests with fixed input/output lengths and optional synthetic arrival spacing:

$
python -m dynamo.replay \
>
    --input-tokens 5000 \
>
    --output-tokens 500 \
>
    --request-count 200 \
>
    --arrival-interval-ms 0.5 \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --replay-concurrency 50 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":512}'

This is useful for parameter sweeps where Mooncake-style prefix structure is not required.

When --turns-per-session > 1, --request-count is interpreted as the number of sessions rather than the total number of emitted turns. The total completed request count becomes:

• request_count * turns_per_session

Synthetic workload options:

• --turns-per-session: number of turns in each synthetic session
• --shared-prefix-ratio: fraction of prompt blocks shared inside a prefix group
• --num-prefix-groups: number of shared-prefix groups; 0 disables grouping
• --inter-turn-delay-ms: constant delay applied after each completed turn before the next turn in the same session becomes eligible

Modes

Fixed-Schedule Replay

Default trace replay preserves the timestamps from the trace and simulates arrivals according to those timestamps:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}'

This is the right mode when you want deterministic replay of the original request-arrival pattern. For wall-clock request traces, omit session_id so each row is scheduled independently by timestamp. Rows that share a session_id are replayed as a closed-loop session, where each later turn waits for the previous turn to complete.

Closed-Loop Concurrency Replay

Use --replay-concurrency to ignore first-turn trace arrival timing and keep a fixed number of requests in flight:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --replay-concurrency 16

This mode is useful when you want to compare scheduler behavior under a fixed offered concurrency rather than the original trace schedule.

For multi-turn sessions, concurrency mode still enforces session order and inter-turn delays:

• first-turn timestamps are ignored
• turn n+1 is not eligible until turn n completes
• delay / delay_ms / synthetic --inter-turn-delay-ms are still applied after completion
• TTFT is measured from actual dispatch under the cap, not from the ignored trace timestamp

Online Replay

Online replay launches the mock workers and replays the trace against the live runtime path. This is useful when you want the replay to include live request dispatch, live output handling, and the same async KV-event propagation model used by the current router integration.

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode online \
>
    --router-mode kv_router \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --arrival-speedup-ratio 10 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}'

Arrival Speedup

Use --arrival-speedup-ratio to compress or stretch the trace arrival process without changing the mocker compute model. Larger values make arrivals happen sooner relative to the original trace.

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --arrival-speedup-ratio 5 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}'

Router Modes

Replay currently supports:

• round_robin
• kv_router

kv_router uses the shared local scheduler and an in-process KV indexer. Router policy tuning is provided through --router-config, not a dedicated top-level replay flag. In offline replay:

• kv_router is supported only when num_workers > 1
• router queueing is enabled and uses simulation time rather than wall-clock time
• KV visibility is delayed slightly relative to request lifecycle events
• queue admission is driven by router lifecycle edges (add_request, mark_prefill_completed, and free)
• transient in-pass prefill occupancy is still approximated at the router level rather than modeled exactly
• when router_prefill_load_model is "aic", replay predicts one expected prefill duration per admitted request and decays only the oldest active prefill request on each worker

To compare queue policies manually, keep the same trace and engine args fixed and swap only router_queue_policy inside --router-config:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --router-mode kv_router \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}' \
>
    --router-config '{"router_queue_policy":"fcfs"}'
$
$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --router-mode kv_router \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}' \
>
    --router-config '{"router_queue_policy":"lcfs"}'

lcfs is intentionally a worse comparison policy under saturation; use it for experiments, not as an expected production default.

To enable router-side AIC prefill-load modeling during replay:

$
python -m dynamo.replay /path/to/mooncake_trace.jsonl \
>
    --replay-mode offline \
>
    --router-mode kv_router \
>
    --num-workers 4 \
>
    --trace-block-size 512 \
>
    --extra-engine-args '{"block_size":64}' \
>
    --router-config '{"router_track_prefill_tokens":true,"router_prefill_load_model":"aic"}' \
>
    --aic-backend vllm \
>
    --aic-system h200_sxm \
>
    --aic-model-path nvidia/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct-FP8 \
>
    --aic-tp-size 1

For offline disagg replay, the same top-level --aic-* flags are supported, but the estimator is applied only to the prefill-stage router.

Output

The report contains:

• request counts
• input and output token totals
• virtual duration and wall-clock runtime
• request and token throughput
• prefix cache reuse ratio
• TTFT, TTST, TPOT, ITL, and end-to-end latency summaries
• output-token-throughput-per-user summaries

The dedicated replay CLI returns the same report schema as the Python APIs dynamo.replay.run_trace_replay(...) and dynamo.replay.run_synthetic_trace_replay(...).

If --report-json is not provided, python -m dynamo.replay writes a timestamped dynamo_replay_report_*.json file in the current working directory.

Replay Constraints

Shared replay constraints:

• extra_engine_args.engine_type must be vllm or sglang
• aggregated replay requires the existing aggregated args path
• disagg replay requires both prefill_engine_args and decode_engine_args
• disagg replay requires router_mode=kv_router
• replay dp_size must be 1
• disagg replay requires matching block_size in prefill_engine_args and decode_engine_args

Additional offline constraints:

• offline kv_router requires num_workers > 1
• single-worker offline replay is still a dedicated fast path for vllm, but it now supports both flat request replay and workload-driven multi-turn replay
• sglang still goes through the shared multi-worker replay runtime even when num_workers=1
• offline disagg replay is a separate two-stage runtime with prefill and decode worker pools

Additional online constraints:

• the current live replay path is also limited to aggregated workers

If you violate those constraints, replay fails immediately with a validation error.

Practical Notes

• python -m dynamo.replay requires exactly one of: either a trace file, or all of --input-tokens, --output-tokens, and --request-count
• --replay-concurrency works with both trace replay and synthetic replay
• mocker compute-speed knobs such as speedup_ratio still affect simulated timing when passed via the engine-args JSON for the chosen replay mode
• --arrival-speedup-ratio affects trace timestamps, not worker compute speed
• --trace-block-size affects only how trace hash_ids expand into tokens
• --arrival-interval-ms only applies to synthetic replay
• --turns-per-session, --shared-prefix-ratio, --num-prefix-groups, and --inter-turn-delay-ms only apply to synthetic replay
• --extra-engine-args, --prefill-engine-args, --decode-engine-args, and --router-config are JSON strings on the standalone replay CLI
• top-level --aic-* flags are used only for router-side prompt-load modeling; engine timing AIC still belongs in the engine-args JSON
• offline replay does not need planner runtime setup, router registration, or external event transport
• trace-file replay can use different values for --trace-block-size and engine block_size
• Mooncake/toolagent traces typically use --trace-block-size 512, while engine block_size often stays 64

When To Use This vs AIPerf

Use offline replay when:

• you want a fast scheduler-only simulation
• you want deterministic CI coverage of replay behavior
• you do not need HTTP serving, frontend behavior, or network effects

Use Dynamo Benchmarking when:

• you want end-to-end benchmarking against a live endpoint
• you need frontend, transport, or cluster-level behavior
• you want AIPerf dashboards and endpoint-facing metrics