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Release notes for SambaStack, including new features, enhancements, and fixes.

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SambaStack v0.5.17 Release

Release Date: April 8, 2026 This release introduces support for SambaRack SN40L-16 configuration with 4TB of DDR memory.

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New features and enhancements

Cluster-Level Memory Management Adds support for declaring cluster-wide DDR memory limits for SambaRack SN40L-16 via an environment variable in sambastack.yaml, enforced by the bundle validation tool.
  • The default memory limit is 12TB. Update this value to support SambaRack SN40L-16 with 4TB of DDR.
  • Set the DDR_PER_RDU_GB environment variable: default is 768 (12TB per-node), set to 256 for 4TB per-node. For more details, see the Sambastack.yaml reference
  • The memory limit applies to all SambaRack nodes in the cluster.
  • The bundle validation tool enforces the limit at runtime. Configurations exceeding the limit fail with an informative error and must be refactored by removing model configurations.

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Known issues

Inventory Check Shows Degraded Status for 4TB Memory Configurations Running snfadm inventory shows “degraded” status for RDUs that are in nodes with 4TB memory configurations.
  • Impact: Cosmetic only. Does not affect operation.
  • Resolution: Expected to be resolved in a future release.

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SambaStack v0.5.14 Release

Release Date: April 1, 2026 This release introduces simplified checkpoint discovery, new model support (MiniMax-M2.5, Agentic RAG bundle), enhanced installation verification tools, and multiple API enhancements for improved OpenAI compatibility.
For full deployment details, bundle configurations, and context length options for all models and bundles mentioned below, see Supported models and bundles.

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New features and enhancements

Checkpoint Path Discovery via Model CRs Checkpoint paths are now discoverable through the Model Custom Resource (CR), eliminating the need for customers to manually locate checkpoint paths in configuration files. The following Kubernetes command can be used to view Model CRs, which now contain checkpoint paths: 
kubectl -n <namespace> describe model <model-name>
For example: 
kubectl describe model minimax-m2.5
  • Model CRs now include checkpoint path information for all supported models.
  • Supports multiple checkpoints for different model configurations.
  • Backwards compatible with existing bundle configurations - checkpoint paths in bundle CRs override Model CR paths if specified.
  • Works with on-prem and air-gapped deployments.
Improved Discovery of Available Models and Bundles All available models and bundles are now applied automatically by the SambaStack helm chart. No additional configuration is required.
  • Models can be discovered using kubectl -n <namespace> get models.
  • Bundles can be discovered using kubectl -n <namespace> get bundles.
Agentic RAG Bundle Added the us-agentic-rag-1-1 bundle, a multi-model bundle optimized for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) workflows. It contains the following model configs:
  • gpt-oss-120b
    • Seq Length: 32K, BS: 4
    • Seq Length: 64K, BS: 2
    • Seq Length: 128K, BS: 2
  • Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct
    • Seq Length: 8K, BS: 1
    • Seq Length: 16K, BS: 1
  • Meta-Llama-3.3-70B (Target) / Meta-Llama-3.2-1B (Draft)
    • Seq Length: 4K, BS: 1, 4, 8, 16, 32
    • Seq Length: 8K, BS: 1, 4, 8
    • Seq Length: 16K, BS: 1, 4
    • Seq Length: 32K, BS: 1, 4
    • Seq Length: 64K, BS: 1
    • Seq Length: 128K, BS: 1
  • Meta-Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct
    • Seq Length: 4K, BS: 1, 4, 16, 32
    • Seq Length: 8K, BS: 1, 4, 16, 32
    • Seq Length: 16K, BS: 1, 4, 8
  • E5-Mistral-7B-Instruct
    • Seq Length: 4K, BS: 1, 4, 8, 16, 32
MiniMax-M2.5 Model Support Added support for MiniMax-M2.5 model on SambaStack.
  • Checkpoint accessible via your artifact reader service account.
  • Customers can include MiniMax-M2.5 in bundles that pass bundle validation and deploy successfully.
  • Includes reasoning support.
Pre/Post-Install Verification Scripts New verification scripts help customers validate their SambaStack environment before and after installation.
  • Pre-install script: Validates all hardware, connectivity, and software prerequisites.
  • Post-install script: Confirms all SambaStack components are installed and running correctly.
  • Clear pass/fail reporting with actionable guidance on failures.
  • Scripts maintained and validated against the current SambaStack release.
  • Distributed via the sambastack-tools public GitHub repository with README instructions.
Per-Model Queue Depth Configuration Added support for configuring different queue depths based on context length, enabling optimized uptime for high-context-length requests.
  • Queue depths can now be configured per context length group using contextGroups in the Service Tier configuration.
  • Queue depth controls how many concurrent requests can be queued for a model configuration.
  • Lower queue depths for higher context lengths help prevent memory exhaustion and improve overall service stability.
  • SambaStack now validates queue depth configuration at request time. Misconfigured models with missing queue depth definitions will surface a clear error instead of failing silently.
  • The empty string "" in contextLengths matches requests to the base model name without a context length suffix (e.g., DeepSeek-R1-0528). Requests with explicit suffixes like -8k or -128k match their corresponding contextLengths values.
Context length suffixes (8k, 16k, 32k, etc.) are case-sensitive. Use lowercase k in all configurations. This applies to all models supported by SambaNova.
The contextGroups field is a sub-component of a model grouping within a service tier. Example configuration: 
free:
  - models:
      - DeepSeek-V3-0324
      - DeepSeek-R1-0528
    queueDepth: 10
    qos: free
    rates:
      - allowedRequests: 100
        periodSeconds: 60
example_service_tier:
  inherits: free
  overrides:
    - models:
        - DeepSeek-V3-0324
      queueDepth: 10
      qos: example
      rates:
        - allowedRequests: 100
          periodSeconds: 60
    - models:
        - DeepSeek-R1-0528
      queueDepth: 10
      qos: example
      contextGroups:
        - contextLengths: ["", "8k"]
          queueDepth: 2
        - contextLengths: ["16k", "32k", "64k", "128k"]
          queueDepth: 1
      rates:
        - allowedRequests: 100
          periodSeconds: 60
Helm Chart Configuration Update The substitutions field has moved from bundles to global in the SambaStack Helm chart.
This is a breaking change that affects air-gapped and NFS customers. Update your Helm values file before upgrading.
Before: 
bundles:
  substitutions:
    gs://<SAMBASTACK_ARTIFACTS_BUCKET>: nfs:///nfsdata
After: 
global:
  substitutions:
    gs://<SAMBASTACK_ARTIFACTS_BUCKET>: nfs:///nfsdata

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API improvements and fixes

Enhancements to improve OpenAI compatibility across the chat/completions endpoint and a new, non-standard feature to track usage in streaming chunks. Text Object Support in User Message Content
  • Expanded support for text objects in content arrays, matching OpenAI ChatCompletionsContentPartText specification.
  • Enabled for: DeepSeek-R1-0528, Llama-3.3-Swallow-70B-Instruct-v0.4, and MiniMax-M2.5.
Log Probabilities
  • Added logprobs field that, when set to true, returns the log probabilities for each generated token.
  • Added top_logprobs field that, when set to an integer n, returns the top n log probabilities for each generation.
Usage in Streaming Chunks
  • Added a non-standard feature to allow users to obtain partial usage statistics in chunks returned in streaming responses.
  • This feature is enabled by setting STREAM_USAGE_IN_CHUNKS: true in the replica group section of your custom bundle deployment.
Tool Choices Supported only for models that support function calling.
  • tool_choice: none ensures that the model will not see available tools.
Invalid Message Role Validation
  • The chat/completions endpoint now rejects invalid message roles. Only user, assistant, system, and tool are accepted.
Whisper Audio Error Response
  • The Whisper transcription endpoint now returns descriptive error messages when audio file processing fails, instead of a bare HTTP 400 status code.

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Bug fixes

Function Calling Routing Fix
  • Fixed an issue where function calling routing did not apply the model name prefix check correctly, causing some models to skip tool routing.
Air-Gap Inventory Fix
  • Fixed the air-gap inventory to include the correct cloudnative-pg image configuration, preventing missing image errors during offline installation.

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Known issues

SambaRack Manager Does Not Support 2 PDU Configurations SambaRack Manager does not currently support configurations with 2 PDUs. Customers using 2 PDU setups should contact SambaNova Support for guidance on alternative configurations.

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SambaStack v0.4.8 Release

Release Date: March 10, 2026 This release introduces air-gapped deployment support, custom checkpoint management with NFS storage, swappable model configurations, and multiple API enhancements for improved OpenAI compatibility.

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New features and enhancements

SambaStack Air-gapped Support Added support for air-gapped mode of operation, enabling secure, isolated deployments.
  • Install, upgrade, and setup for air-gapped configurations is performed in conjunction with SambaNova support.
  • Ongoing administration (Auth, User Management, Custom DB) is designed for self-service and follows the same workflows as on-prem deployments.
Install, setup, port forwarding to access Keycloak UI, and upgrade steps are not documented for air-gapped deployments due to varying customer network configurations. Please work with SambaNova support for these workflows.
Custom Checkpoints with NFS Storage Added the ability to reference custom checkpoints from customer-provided NFS storage in deployments. Swappable Models in Bundles Added configurable model swapping behavior to optimize high-bandwidth memory (HBM) utilization.
  • By default, all models in bundles can be swapped out of HBM and replaced with other models in DDR memory.
  • Use the swappable: <boolean> field in the bundle YAML definition to enable or disable this behavior.
  • Default value is true. When set to false, the model remains in HBM and cannot be swapped out, ensuring zero switching time for requests to that model.

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API improvements and fixes

Enhancements to improve OpenAI compatibility across the chat/completions endpoint. Text Object Support in User Message Content
  • Added support for text objects in content arrays, matching OpenAI ChatCompletionsContentPartText specification.
  • Enabled for: gpt-oss-120b, DeepSeek-V3.1, DeepSeek-V3.1-Terminus, DeepSeek-V3.2, DeepSeek-V3-0324, Qwen3-32B, Qwen3-235B.
Response Format Text Option
  • Fixed an issue where response_format=text would throw an error.
  • The endpoint now supports all OpenAI formats: text, json_object, json_schema.
Extended Temperature Range
  • Expanded temperature range from 0.0–1.0 to 0.0–2.0, matching OpenAI specification.
Tool Calling Number Type Fix Parallel Tool Calls Support
  • Added parallel_tool_calls parameter support.
  • When set to false, the model will make at most one tool call per response, matching OpenAI specification.
Streaming Token Usage Reporting
  • Added support for token usage reporting in each chunk of stream.

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Known issues

  • Parallel Tool Calls with Constrained Decoding.
  • The following models return null for logprobs even when logprobs=true or top_logprobs is set. The parameters are accepted without error but have no effect:
    • Llama-4-Maverick-17B-128E-Instruct
    • Whisper-Large-v3

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SambaStack initial release

Release Date: September 19, 2025 This release introduces the comprehensive SambaStack documentation suite.

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New features and enhancements

SambaStack Guide Added the SambaStack Guide, providing step-by-step instructions for deploying, configuring, and managing SambaStack.
  • Setup, installation, and environment configuration.
  • User and authentication management (Keycloak, OIDC).
  • Monitoring, logging, and artifact management.
  • Bundle and model deployment workflows.
  • Common command reference.
SambaStack Models Added the SambaStack models and bundles page to help customers understand which models are available on SambaStack and how to configure them.
  • Lists all supported models (e.g., Llama 3.3, Llama 4 Maverick, DeepSeek).
  • Shows context length, batch size options, and supported features.
  • Instructions for using the Model list API to check availability in your environment.