tandemn-tuna 0.0.1a6

Hybrid GPU Inference Orchestrator — serverless for cold starts, spot for scale

Tuna

Spot GPUs are 3-5x cheaper than on-demand, but they take minutes to start and can be interrupted at any time. Serverless GPUs start in seconds and never get interrupted, but you pay a premium for that convenience. What if you didn't have to choose?

Tuna is a smart router that combines both behind a single OpenAI-compatible endpoint. It serves requests from serverless while spot instances boot up, shifts traffic to spot once ready, and falls back to serverless if spot gets preempted. You only pay for the compute you actually use — spot rates for steady traffic, serverless only during cold starts and failover.

Serverless				Spot
Modal	RunPod	Cloud Run	Baseten	AWS via SkyPilot

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Prerequisites

• Python 3.11+
• AWS CLI — required for spot instances (all deployments use spot)
• At least one serverless provider account: Modal, RunPod, Google Cloud, or Baseten
• For gated models (Llama, Mistral, Gemma, etc.): a HuggingFace token with access to the model

Note: Tuna always deploys both a serverless backend and a spot backend. AWS credentials are required even if your serverless provider is Modal or RunPod, because spot instances run on AWS via SkyPilot.

Quick Start

1. Install

pip install tandemn-tuna[modal] --pre     # Modal as serverless provider
pip install tandemn-tuna[cloudrun] --pre  # Cloud Run as serverless provider
pip install tandemn-tuna[baseten] --pre   # Baseten as serverless provider
pip install tandemn-tuna --pre            # RunPod (no extra deps needed)
pip install tandemn-tuna[all] --pre       # everything

This project is under active development and experimental. For the latest version, install from source:

git clone https://github.com/Tandemn-Labs/tandemn-tuna.git
cd tandemn-tuna
pip install -e ".[all]"

2. Set up AWS (required for all deployments)

aws configure          # set up AWS credentials
sky check              # verify SkyPilot can see your AWS account

3. Set up your serverless provider (pick one)

Modal

modal token new

RunPod

export RUNPOD_API_KEY=<your-key>  # https://www.runpod.io/console/user/settings

Add this to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc to persist it.

Cloud Run

Requires the gcloud CLI.

gcloud auth login
gcloud auth application-default login    # required for the Python SDK
gcloud config set project <YOUR_PROJECT_ID>

You also need billing enabled and the Cloud Run API (run.googleapis.com) enabled on your project.

Baseten

Step 1: Create account — sign up at https://app.baseten.co/signup/

Step 2: Get API key — go to Settings > API Keys (https://app.baseten.co/settings/api_keys), create a key, copy it immediately

Step 3: Set the API key

export BASETEN_API_KEY=<your-api-key>

Add to ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc to persist.

Step 4: Install and authenticate the Truss CLI

pip install --upgrade truss
truss login --api-key $BASETEN_API_KEY

Step 5: (For gated models) Add HuggingFace token — go to Settings > Secrets (https://app.baseten.co/settings/secrets), add a secret named hf_access_token with your HF token.

4. (Optional) Set HuggingFace token for gated models

export HF_TOKEN=<your-token>  # https://huggingface.co/settings/tokens

Required for models like Llama, Mistral, Gemma, and other gated models. Not needed for open models like Qwen.

5. Validate your setup

tuna check --provider modal                          # check Modal credentials
tuna check --provider runpod                         # check RunPod API key
tuna check --provider cloudrun --gcp-project <id> --gcp-region us-central1  # check Cloud Run
tuna check --provider baseten                        # check Baseten API key + truss CLI

6. Deploy a model

tuna deploy --model Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B --gpu L4 --service-name my-first-deploy

Tuna auto-selects the cheapest serverless provider for your GPU, launches spot instances on AWS, and gives you a single endpoint. The router handles everything — serverless covers traffic immediately while spot boots up in the background.

7. Send requests (OpenAI-compatible)

curl http://<router-ip>:8080/v1/chat/completions \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"model": "Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B", "messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "Hello"}]}'

8. Monitor and manage

tuna status --service-name my-first-deploy    # check deployment status
tuna cost --service-name my-first-deploy      # real-time cost dashboard
tuna list                                     # list all deployments
tuna destroy --service-name my-first-deploy   # tear down everything

Tip: If you don't pass --service-name during deploy, Tuna auto-generates a name like tuna-a3f8c21b. Use tuna list to find it.

9. Browse GPU pricing

tuna show-gpus                     # compare serverless pricing across providers
tuna show-gpus --spot              # include AWS spot prices
tuna show-gpus --gpu H100          # detailed pricing for a specific GPU
tuna show-gpus --provider runpod   # filter to one provider

Architecture

                ┌──────────────────────┐
                │    User Traffic      │
                │ (OpenAI-compatible)  │
                └──────────┬───────────┘
                           │
                  ┌────────▼────────┐
                  │  Smart Router   │
                  │  (meta_lb)      │
                  └────────┬────────┘
                           │
              ┌────────────┴────────────┐
              │                         │
     ┌────────▼─────────┐    ┌─────────▼─────────┐
     │ Serverless        │    │ Spot GPUs          │
     │ Modal / RunPod /  │    │ AWS via SkyPilot   │
     │ Cloud Run         │    │                    │
     │                   │    │ • 3-5x cheaper     │
     │ • Fast cold start │    │ • Slower cold start│
     │ • Per-second bill │    │ • Auto-failover    │
     │ • Always ready    │    │ • Scale to zero    │
     └───────────────────┘    └────────────────────┘

The router:

• Routes to serverless while spot instances are starting up
• Shifts traffic to spot once ready (cheaper)
• Falls back to serverless if spot has issues or high latency
• Scales serverless down to zero when spot is serving

CLI Reference

Command	Description
deploy	Deploy a model across serverless + spot
destroy	Tear down a deployment
status	Check deployment status
cost	Show cost dashboard (requires running deployment)
list	List all deployments (filter with --status active|destroyed|failed)
show-gpus	GPU pricing across providers (filter with --provider, --gpu, --spot)
check	Validate provider credentials and setup

deploy flags

Flag	Default	Description
--model	(required)	HuggingFace model ID (e.g. Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B)
--gpu	(required)	GPU type (e.g. L4, L40S, A100, H100)
--gpu-count	1	Number of GPUs
--serverless-provider	auto (cheapest for GPU)	modal, runpod, cloudrun, or baseten
--spots-cloud	aws	Cloud provider for spot GPUs
--region	—	Cloud region for spot instances
--tp-size	1	Tensor parallelism degree
--max-model-len	4096	Maximum sequence length (context window)
--concurrency	—	Override serverless concurrency limit
--workers-max	—	Max serverless workers (RunPod only)
--cold-start-mode	fast_boot	fast_boot (uses --enforce-eager, faster startup but lower throughput) or no_fast_boot
--no-scale-to-zero	off	Keep minimum 1 spot replica running
--scaling-policy	—	Path to scaling YAML (see below)
--service-name	auto-generated	Custom service name (recommended — makes status/destroy easier)
--public	off	Make service publicly accessible (no auth)
--use-different-vm-for-lb	off	Launch router on a separate VM instead of colocating on controller
--gcp-project	—	Google Cloud project ID
--gcp-region	—	Google Cloud region (e.g. us-central1)

Use -v / --verbose with any command for debug logging.

Scaling Policy

All autoscaling parameters can be configured via a YAML file passed with --scaling-policy. If omitted, sane defaults apply.

spot:
  min_replicas: 0        # 0 = scale to zero (default)
  max_replicas: 5
  target_qps: 10         # per-replica QPS target
  upscale_delay: 5       # seconds before adding replicas
  downscale_delay: 300   # seconds before removing replicas

serverless:
  concurrency: 32        # max concurrent requests per container
  scaledown_window: 60   # seconds idle before scaling down
  timeout: 600           # request timeout in seconds
  workers_min: 0         # min workers (RunPod only)
  workers_max: 1         # max workers (RunPod only)
  scaler_value: 4        # queue delay scaler threshold (RunPod only)

Precedence: defaults <- YAML file <- CLI flags. For example, --concurrency 64 overrides serverless.concurrency from the YAML. --no-scale-to-zero forces spot.min_replicas to at least 1 and sets serverless.scaledown_window to 300s.

Unknown keys in the YAML will error immediately (catches typos).

Troubleshooting

Setup issues

Start with the built-in diagnostic tool:

tuna check --provider runpod
tuna check --provider modal
tuna check --provider cloudrun --gcp-project <id> --gcp-region us-central1
tuna check --provider baseten

This validates credentials, API access, project configuration, and GPU region availability.

Endpoint not responding

# Check your deployment status
tuna status --service-name <name>

# Check router health directly
curl http://<router-ip>:8080/router/health

# Check SkyServe status
sky status --refresh

High latency

Check which backend is serving traffic:

curl http://<router-ip>:8080/router/health

If skyserve_ready is false, spot instances are still booting — requests are going through serverless (which is working correctly). Once spot boots, traffic shifts automatically.

Gated model fails to load

If the deployment succeeds but the model fails to start, you likely need a HuggingFace token:

export HF_TOKEN=<your-token>

Then redeploy.

Contact

• Hetarth — [e-mail]
• Mankeerat — [e-mail]

License

MIT

This project depends on SkyPilot (Apache License 2.0).