Conversion pipeline

What this page covers

This page maps the end-to-end conversion paths from original Qwen3.5 VLM checkpoints:

• Path A for BNB text-only training targets,
• Path B for f16 text-only + GGUF export targets.

When to use

• You are deciding which artifact format to produce first.
• You need a high-level sequence before running command pages.
• You want to see where verification and upload happen in each path.

Input -> Output

Input	Output
unsloth/Qwen3.5-{size} f16 source	BNB text-only model for training (Path A)
unsloth/Qwen3.5-{size} f16 source	bf16/f16 text-only + GGUF quants for inference/export (Path B)

Diagram

Steps

1. Choose path by target artifact:
   • Path A for BNB text-only training input.
   • Path B for GGUF export/inference flow.
2. Run strip/verify checkpoints in sequence.
3. Upload validated artifacts to Hub.

Path selection guide

Use Path A when:

• target is QLoRA training input,
• you need text-only BNB (Qwen3.5-text-*-bnb-4bit).

Use Path B when:

• target is standalone inference/export artifacts,
• you need GGUF quants (Q4_K_M, Q5_K_M, Q6_K, Q8_0),
• you need a merge/export base in text-only f16/bf16.

Phase gates

Gate 1 — Artifact gate (after convert/strip):
  - Expected directory exists.
  - Expected format matches target path (bnb text-only or f16/bf16 text-only).

Gate 2 — Verification gate:
  - Structural checks pass.
  - Inference checks pass.

Gate 3 — Quantization gate (Path B):
  - GGUF f16 exists.
  - Target quant files exist (`Q4_K_M`, optional others).

Gate 4 — Publish gate:
  - Dry-run sync (`check`/`fetch`) shows expected delta.
  - No unexpected delete/remove actions.

Why it matters: this prevents publishing partially converted or unverified artifacts.

Command map

Step	Command	Docs
Quantize f16 -> BNB 4-bit	qwen35-convert	Convert
Strip visual tower (BNB/f16)	qwen35-strip	Strip
Verify VLM model	qwen35-verify-qwen35	Verify
Verify text-only model	qwen35-verify	Verify
Convert to GGUF	convert_hf_to_gguf.py	GGUF
Quantize GGUF	llama-quantize	GGUF
Upload to Hub	qwen35-upload	Upload

Related

• Quickstart
• Hardware
• Verify