models.ini Format

models.ini is an INI file passed straight to llama-server via --models-preset <path> (see backend/router_ctl.py start()). LlamaForge never translates it into a different format for the router — the dashboard reads and rewrites it directly (backend/config.py read_sections() / set_keys()), and llama-server parses it itself when the router starts. config.json's models_ini key points at the file (default: <repo root>/models.ini).

Format

One [section] per model. The section name is the model's id, used everywhere in the UI and API (/api/load, /api/unload, the model field in /v1/messages and /v1/chat/completions).
An optional [*] section holds global defaults applied to every model that doesn't override them.
Keys inside a section are key = value lines. A key name is the corresponding llama-server command-line flag with the leading -- stripped and remaining dashes kept — ctx-size is --ctx-size, n-cpu-moe is --n-cpu-moe.
; starts an inline or full-line comment; config.read_sections() strips it before returning values.
The file must not carry a BOM — _write() in backend/config.py always writes without one, and sections are read with encoding="utf-8-sig" so a BOM left by another editor is tolerated on read but never re-added on write.

Real example

From the project's own models.ini:

[*]
ctx-size = 150000

[qwen3.6-35b-a3b-ud-q4-k-xl]
model = D:/models/LlamaForge-downloads/unsloth--Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-MTP-GGUF/Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-UD-Q4_K_XL.gguf
mmproj = D:/models/LlamaForge-downloads/unsloth--Qwen3.6-35B-A3B-MTP-GGUF/mmproj-F16.gguf
n-cpu-moe = 37

[qwen3-coder-next-q4-k-m]
model = D:/models/lmstudio-community/Qwen3-Coder-Next-GGUF/Qwen3-Coder-Next-Q4_K_M.gguf

[gpt-oss-20b-mxfp4]
model = D:/models/lmstudio-community/gpt-oss-20b-GGUF/gpt-oss-20b-MXFP4.gguf
ctx-size = 100000

qwen3-coder-next-q4-k-m has no ctx-size override, so it inherits 150000 from [*]. gpt-oss-20b-mxfp4 sets its own ctx-size = 100000, overriding the global. qwen3.6-35b-a3b-ud-q4-k-xl adds mmproj (a multimodal projector file) and n-cpu-moe (MoE experts offloaded to CPU) on top of model.

Common keys

Key	Maps to	Purpose
`model`	`--model`	Path to the GGUF model file. Required per section.
`mmproj`	`--mmproj`	Path to a multimodal projector GGUF, for vision-capable models.
`ctx-size`	`--ctx-size`	Context window size, in tokens.
`n-cpu-moe`	`--n-cpu-moe`	Number of MoE expert layers offloaded to CPU (mixed CPU/GPU inference for MoE models).
`embeddings`	`--embeddings`	Set to `true` to mark/run the model in embeddings mode.

Beyond these, any llama-server flag can be set as a key — the dashboard's Advanced UI mode (ui_mode: "advanced" in config.json) exposes the full set (roughly 220 flags), discovered at runtime by parsing llama-server --help (backend/argspec.py build_schema()).

Automatic ctx-size defaults

config.apply_ctx_defaults() keeps ctx-size values sane across the file: it sets [*] ctx-size = 150000 (the gguf.CTX_FULL baseline), and for any model whose GGUF-reported trained context length is below that, writes an explicit per-model ctx-size override capped to what the model actually supports (never over-extending it). Models whose trained length can't be read are left untouched, and a model that already supports the full 150000 has any smaller per-model override removed so it falls back to the global. This runs on server startup and after scan/download operations that add new models.

Editing

Prefer the dashboard over hand-editing: POST /api/save (per-model knobs) and the scan/download flows call config.set_keys(), which updates or removes individual keys in place while preserving comments and the position of every other line. Hand edits are safe too — read_sections() is tolerant of blank lines, comments, and section order.

See also config.json Reference for the models_ini path setting, and HTTP API for the endpoints that read and mutate this file.