dragon_backend: Inference backends

In dragonfarm: Fine-Tune Small Language Models with LoRA from R

Inference backends

Description

Every function that generates text, dragon_generate(), dragon_chat(), the judge, teacher, and synthesis helpers, takes a backend. The default is the local worker; set options(dragonfarm.backend = ...) to change it for a session.

Usage

dragon_backend_local(keep_loaded = TRUE, device = "auto", dtype = "auto")

dragon_backend_server(url, model, api_key = NULL, headers = NULL)

dragon_backend_ollama(model, url = "http://localhost:11434")

dragon_backend()

Arguments

keep_loaded	Keep the worker and its models alive between calls.
device, dtype	Device and precision for the local worker. See dragon_hardware().
url	Base URL of the server, ending in ⁠/v1⁠.
model	Model name as the server knows it.
api_key	Bearer token, if the server needs one. Defaults to DRAGONFARM_API_KEY, then OPENAI_API_KEY.
headers	Extra HTTP headers as a named character vector.

Details

• dragon_backend_local(): a Python worker on this machine that keeps the last two models loaded, so repeated calls pay the model load once. keep_loaded = FALSE stops it after every call.

• dragon_backend_server(): any server that speaks the OpenAI chat completions protocol. url is the base that ends in ⁠/v1⁠. The model must already be available on that server; see dragon_serve_ollama() for the local case.

• dragon_backend_ollama(): a server backend for a model registered with Ollama on this machine.

• dragon_backend(): the session default.

Value

A dragon_backend object.

Examples

if (interactive()) {
options(dragonfarm.backend = dragon_backend_ollama("support-0.5b"))
dragon_generate(run, "My thermostat keeps dropping off Wi-Fi.")

vllm <- dragon_backend_server("https://my-pod.example.com/v1", model = "tejas/support-0.5b")
dragon_generate(run, "Hello", backend = vllm)
}

dragonfarm documentation built on Oct. 12, 2026, 5:07 p.m.