diff --git a/serve/README.md b/serve/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9f204eb
--- /dev/null
+++ b/serve/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,45 @@
+# Serving DeepInfer + host prefix cache (local additions, not part of upstream)
+
+## Pieces
+
+- `serve/openai_server.py` — OpenAI-compatible `/v1/chat/completions` (streaming, `tools`, usage) on top of the
+  offline engine: one engine process per GPU (attention DP + MoE EP), prompts rendered with the checkpoint's own
+  `encoding.py`. `serve/server.sh start|stop` runs it as a process group (stop reaps the engine helpers, which
+  otherwise keep the GPUs).
+- `deepinfer/hicache/` — host-memory prefix cache (SGLang HiCache style): pinned host pools organized in pages
+  (one page = one 128-token KV block) plus SWA state slots, hash-chain index, LRU eviction, write-through at the
+  end of every prefill, "kernel" transfers (a CUDA kernel copying pages through UVA pointers on the engine
+  stream, `page_copy.cu`, JIT-built on first use). Needs the read-only `Sequence.block_table` binding added in
+  `csrc/engine/pybind_sequence.cpp` (rebuild `deepinfer._C` with `bash scripts/build.sh build`).
+- `tests/hicache/test_host_cache.py` — cache logic against a fake engine (needs one GPU).
+- `serve/check_prefix_cache.py` — A/B on a live server: each turn sent with `"prefix_cache": false` and with
+  the cache, greedy; compares outputs and TTFT.
+
+## Run
+
+```bash
+export DEEPINFER_ACCELERATOR=nvidia DEEPINFER_HF_MODEL_DIR=/path/to/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017
+serve/server.sh start --dp 4 --port 8888                       # cache on: 32 GiB pages + 4096 states per rank
+serve/server.sh start --dp 4 --port 8888 --hicache-size-gb 0   # cache off
+python serve/check_prefix_cache.py --port 8888 --turns 3
+curl -s localhost:8888/deepinfer/metrics | grep hicache         # per-rank hit/store counters
+serve/server.sh stop
+```
+
+Knobs: `--hicache-size-gb`, `--hicache-state-slots`, `--routing affinity|least-loaded` (affinity keeps a
+conversation's turns on one rank, keyed by the first user message; required for hits since the cache is
+per rank). The cache requires decoder bounded replay (`--yoco-keep-tokens > 0`, the default 140).
+
+## How a hit works
+
+A new prompt's page hashes are matched from the start; the match is capped so that at least `keep_tokens`
+tokens remain to be recomputed (the decoder SWA state is rebuilt from that suffix by bounded replay), then
+snapped down to the nearest 128-aligned position that has a stored SWA state. The sequence is allocated up
+front, pages and state are copied in on the engine stream, `num_cached_tokens` is set, and the sequence is
+enqueued; the scheduler prefills only the suffix. Generated tokens are not stored at decode end (they are
+stored when they come back as part of the next turn's prompt).
+
+## AgentX
+
+The server speaks what InferenceX's AgentX replay (aiperf, `--endpoint /v1/chat/completions --streaming
+--use-server-token-count`) needs; `prefill-any-interval` matters there, since a single lane keeps most ranks idle.
diff --git a/serve/check_prefix_cache.py b/serve/check_prefix_cache.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..bb8fae1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/serve/check_prefix_cache.py
@@ -0,0 +1,87 @@
+"""A/B check of the host prefix cache on a running serve/openai_server.py.
+
+Builds a multi-turn conversation with a long shared prefix, sends every turn twice (cache bypassed via
+"prefix_cache": false, then with the cache) with greedy sampling, and compares outputs and TTFT.
+
+    python serve/check_prefix_cache.py --port 8888 --turns 3 --prefix-tokens 6000
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import argparse
+import json
+import time
+
+import requests
+
+p = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+p.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=8888)
+p.add_argument("--model", default="deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017")
+p.add_argument("--turns", type=int, default=3)
+p.add_argument("--prefix-tokens", type=int, default=6000, help="approximate size of the shared document")
+p.add_argument("--max-tokens", type=int, default=64)
+args = p.parse_args()
+URL = f"http://localhost:{args.port}/v1/chat/completions"
+
+# A deterministic pseudo-document; ~1 token per word for this tokenizer is close enough.
+words = ["alpha", "beta", "gamma", "delta", "epsilon", "zeta", "eta", "theta", "iota", "kappa", "lambda", "mu"]
+doc = " ".join(f"{words[i % len(words)]}{i % 97}" for i in range(args.prefix_tokens))
+questions = [
+    "Which word appears right after 'gamma2'? Answer briefly.",
+    "How many distinct word stems are used in the document? Answer briefly.",
+    "Quote the first five words of the document.",
+    "What is the last word of the document?",
+]
+
+
+def ask(messages: list[dict], use_cache: bool) -> tuple[str, float, float, dict]:
+    body = {
+        "model": args.model,
+        "messages": messages,
+        "stream": True,
+        "stream_options": {"include_usage": True},
+        "temperature": 0,
+        "max_tokens": args.max_tokens,
+        "seed": 1,
+        "prefix_cache": use_cache,
+    }
+    t0 = time.perf_counter()
+    ttft = None
+    text, usage = [], {}
+    with requests.post(URL, json=body, stream=True, timeout=1800) as r:
+        r.raise_for_status()
+        for line in r.iter_lines():
+            if not line or not line.startswith(b"data: ") or line == b"data: [DONE]":
+                continue
+            obj = json.loads(line[6:])
+            if obj.get("usage"):
+                usage = obj["usage"]
+            for ch in obj.get("choices", []):
+                delta = ch["delta"].get("content")
+                if delta:
+                    if ttft is None:
+                        ttft = time.perf_counter() - t0
+                    text.append(delta)
+    return "".join(text), ttft or 0.0, time.perf_counter() - t0, usage
+
+
+messages = [{"role": "system", "content": "You answer questions about the document below.\n\n" + doc}]
+mismatches = 0
+for turn in range(args.turns):
+    messages.append({"role": "user", "content": questions[turn % len(questions)]})
+    base, ttft_b, tot_b, usage_b = ask(messages, use_cache=False)
+    cached, ttft_c, tot_c, usage_c = ask(messages, use_cache=True)
+    same = base == cached
+    mismatches += not same
+    print(
+        f"turn {turn + 1}: prompt {usage_c.get('prompt_tokens')} tok | TTFT no-cache {ttft_b * 1e3:7.0f} ms, cache {ttft_c * 1e3:7.0f} ms "
+        f"({ttft_b / max(ttft_c, 1e-6):.1f}x) | outputs {'identical' if same else 'DIFFER'}"
+    )
+    if not same:
+        print("   no-cache:", repr(base[:200]))
+        print("   cache   :", repr(cached[:200]))
+    messages.append({"role": "assistant", "content": base})
+
+stats = requests.get(f"http://localhost:{args.port}/deepinfer/metrics", timeout=30).text
+print("\n".join(line for line in stats.splitlines() if "hicache:hits" in line or "hicache:lookups" in line or "hit_rate" in line))
+raise SystemExit(1 if mismatches else 0)
diff --git a/serve/openai_server.py b/serve/openai_server.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d34acdc
--- /dev/null
+++ b/serve/openai_server.py
@@ -0,0 +1,518 @@
+"""Minimal OpenAI-compatible chat server on top of the DeepInfer offline engine.
+
+DeepInfer ships offline inference only. This wraps one `LLM` per data-parallel rank
+(attention DP + MoE EP, same layout as examples/benchmark.py) behind a FastAPI frontend
+so request-replay benchmarks such as InferenceX AgentX (aiperf) can drive it.
+
+    python serve/openai_server.py --model ~/models/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 --dp 4 --port 8888
+
+Limitations, by design of the open-source engine:
+- No cross-request prefix cache: every request prefills its full prompt.
+- Responses are streamed as plain `content`; DSML tool calls are not parsed into `tool_calls`.
+"""
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import argparse
+import asyncio
+import collections
+import hashlib
+import json
+import multiprocessing as mp
+import os
+import queue
+import sys
+import threading
+import time
+import uuid
+from pathlib import Path
+
+# Module level so FastAPI can resolve the string annotation `request: Request`.
+from fastapi import Request
+
+REPO_ROOT = Path(__file__).resolve().parent.parent
+sys.path.insert(0, str(REPO_ROOT / "examples"))
+
+
+def parse_args() -> argparse.Namespace:
+    p = argparse.ArgumentParser()
+    p.add_argument("--model", required=True, help="local HF checkpoint directory")
+    p.add_argument("--served-model-name", default=None)
+    p.add_argument("--dp", type=int, default=4, help="data-parallel ranks on this node (= EP size)")
+    p.add_argument("--host", default="0.0.0.0")
+    p.add_argument("--port", type=int, default=8888)
+    p.add_argument("--max-model-len", type=int, default=1 << 20)
+    p.add_argument("--max-num-seqs", type=int, default=128, help="per DP rank")
+    p.add_argument("--max-num-batched-tokens", type=int, default=32768, help="prefill chunk per DP rank")
+    p.add_argument("--gpu-memory-utilization", type=float, default=0.9)
+    p.add_argument("--yoco-keep-tokens", type=int, default=140, help="0 disables decoder SWA bounded replay")
+    p.add_argument("--thinking-mode", default="chat", choices=["chat", "thinking"])
+    p.add_argument("--log-interval-steps", type=int, default=200)
+    p.add_argument("--hicache-size-gb", type=float, default=32, help="pinned host KV page pool per DP rank; 0 disables the prefix cache")
+    p.add_argument("--hicache-state-slots", type=int, default=4096, help="host SWA state slots per DP rank")
+    p.add_argument(
+        "--routing",
+        default="affinity",
+        choices=["affinity", "least-loaded"],
+        help="affinity: a conversation's turns go to one rank (needed for cache hits)",
+    )
+    p.add_argument(
+        "--prefill-any-interval",
+        type=int,
+        default=2,
+        help="DEEPINFER_PREFILL_ANY_ATTEMPT_INTERVAL: a rank with a waiting prompt gets a prefill step at most this "
+        "many decode steps later even if other ranks are idle (engine default 100 => ~1.4 s TTFT floor)",
+    )
+    return p.parse_args()
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- engine side
+
+
+def worker_main(args: argparse.Namespace, dp_rank: int, in_q: mp.Queue, out_q: mp.Queue) -> None:
+    """One DP rank: owns an engine and steps it in lockstep with the other ranks."""
+    import ctypes
+    import signal
+
+    # Die with the frontend instead of lingering as an orphan that holds the GPU.
+    ctypes.CDLL("libc.so.6").prctl(1, signal.SIGKILL)  # PR_SET_PDEATHSIG
+
+    from _config import create_llm, setup_common_env
+
+    if args.yoco_keep_tokens > 0:
+        os.environ["DEEPINFER_YOCO_PREFILL_TRUNCATION_MODE"] = "compact"
+        os.environ["DEEPINFER_YOCO_PREFILL_KEEP_TOKENS"] = str(args.yoco_keep_tokens)
+        os.environ["DEEPINFER_PREFILL_STORE_EXTRA_STATE"] = "1"
+    if args.hicache_size_gb > 0:
+        # Keep more SWA history in the state ring so the prefix cache can store states at several
+        # 128-boundaries behind the end of a prompt (see HostPrefixCache.state_lookback_blocks).
+        os.environ.setdefault("DEEPINFER_PREFILL_STORE_EXTRA_SIZE", "512")
+    os.environ.setdefault("DEEPINFER_PREFILL_ANY_ATTEMPT_INTERVAL", str(args.prefill_any_interval))
+    setup_common_env(model_name=args.model, sampler_force_topk=1024, set_override_experts=True, enable_eplb=True)
+
+    llm = create_llm(
+        args.model,
+        dp_rank,
+        ep_size=args.dp,
+        env={"DEEPINFER_LOGGING_INTERVAL_STEP": str(args.log_interval_steps)},
+        data_parallel_size=args.dp,
+        max_num_seqs=args.max_num_seqs,
+        max_num_batched_tokens=args.max_num_batched_tokens,
+        max_model_len=args.max_model_len,
+        gpu_memory_utilization=args.gpu_memory_utilization,
+        lookahead_tokens=min(1, int(os.getenv("DEEPINFER_USE_NEXTN_DECODE", "5"))),
+    )
+
+    import numpy as np
+
+    from deepinfer._C.engine import RequestOutput  # pyright: ignore[reportMissingModuleSource]
+    from deepinfer.sampling_params import SamplingParams
+
+    engine = llm.llm_engine
+    cache = None
+    if args.hicache_size_gb > 0:
+        try:
+            from deepinfer.hicache import HostPrefixCache
+        except ImportError:  # tree without the host prefix cache: serve without it
+            print(f"[server] deepinfer.hicache not available, prefix cache disabled (rank {dp_rank})", flush=True)
+        else:
+            cache = HostPrefixCache(engine, size_bytes=int(args.hicache_size_gb * 2**30), num_state_slots=args.hicache_state_slots)
+            engine.pe_do_save_kvcache = cache.on_prefill_step  # write-through at the end of every prefill
+    out_q.put(("ready", dp_rank, None))
+
+    def mm_data():
+        return dict(image_bytes=[], image_sizes=[]) if engine.multi_modal_processor is not None else None
+
+    def enqueue(rid, seq, num_cached_tokens):
+        # Same as LLMEngine.add_request's _enqueue: the processor must get the sequence's own multimodal dict
+        # (overwrite_prompt wrote the text/image segments into it), plus the cached prefix length.
+        engine.scheduler.add_sequence(seq)
+        if engine.multi_modal_processor is not None:
+            engine.multi_modal_processor.add(rid, seq.multi_modal_data, num_cached_tokens)
+
+    pending = collections.deque()  # (rid, seq, prompt_ids, use_cache): created, waiting for a cache decision
+    inflight = False
+    last_stats = time.monotonic()
+    last_logged_lookups = 0
+    while True:
+        # Requests must be enqueued before the DP-wide has_unfinished_requests all-reduce,
+        # so every rank takes the same step / flush / idle branch in the same iteration.
+        while True:
+            try:
+                kind, rid, payload = in_q.get_nowait()
+            except queue.Empty:
+                break
+            if kind == "add":
+                try:
+                    prompt_ids = np.asarray(payload["prompt_token_ids"], dtype=np.int32)
+                    seq = engine.add_request(
+                        user_id="0",
+                        request_id=rid,
+                        sampling_params=SamplingParams(**payload["sampling"]),
+                        prompt_token_ids=prompt_ids,
+                        multi_modal_data=mm_data(),
+                        enqueue=cache is None,
+                    )
+                    if cache is not None:
+                        if seq is None:
+                            out_q.put(("error", rid, "request dropped: invalid prompt tokens"))
+                        else:
+                            pending.append((rid, seq, prompt_ids, payload.get("use_cache", True)))
+                except Exception as e:  # noqa: BLE001 - surface to the client, keep the rank alive
+                    out_q.put(("error", rid, repr(e)))
+            elif kind == "abort":
+                if any(p[0] == rid for p in pending):
+                    pending = collections.deque(p for p in pending if p[0] != rid)
+                else:
+                    engine.abort_request(rid)
+                if cache is not None:
+                    cache.forget(rid)
+
+        # Cache decisions, in arrival order. A hit pre-allocates the sequence's blocks and fills them from the
+        # host; if the GPU cannot allocate yet, wait (while something is running that will free memory).
+        while pending:
+            rid, seq, prompt_ids, use_cache = pending[0]
+            hit = cache.try_resume(seq, rid, prompt_ids) if use_cache else 0
+            if hit < 0 and (engine.scheduler.get_num_unfinished_seqs() > 0 or inflight):
+                break
+            pending.popleft()
+            enqueue(rid, seq, max(hit, 0))
+        if cache is not None:
+            cache.poll()
+            if time.monotonic() - last_stats > 5:
+                last_stats = time.monotonic()
+                st = cache.stats_dict()
+                out_q.put(("stats", dp_rank, st))
+                if st["lookups"] != last_logged_lookups:
+                    last_logged_lookups = st["lookups"]
+                    print(
+                        f"[hicache rank {dp_rank}] lookups {st['lookups']} hits {st['hits']} "
+                        f"token hit rate {st['hit_rate_tokens']:.1%} deferred {st['deferred']} stores {st['stores']} "
+                        f"pages {st['pages_used']}/{st['pages_total']} states {st['states_used']}/{st['states_total']} "
+                        f"evicted {st['evicted_pages']}",
+                        flush=True,
+                    )
+
+        if engine.has_unfinished_requests():
+            outputs = engine.step()
+            inflight = True
+        elif inflight:
+            outputs = engine.flush_inflight_reqs()
+            inflight = False
+        else:
+            time.sleep(0.001)
+            continue
+
+        if len(outputs):
+            # Pointers are recycled on the next step, so read the fields now.
+            batch = [
+                (
+                    RequestOutput.get_request_id(p),
+                    RequestOutput.get_token_id(p),
+                    RequestOutput.get_finished(p),
+                    RequestOutput.get_finish_reason(p),
+                    RequestOutput.get_prompt_len(p),
+                )
+                for p in outputs
+            ]
+            if cache is not None:
+                for rid, _, finished, _, _ in batch:
+                    if finished:
+                        cache.forget(rid)
+            out_q.put(("tokens", None, batch))
+
+
+# --------------------------------------------------------------------------- HTTP side
+
+
+class IncrementalDetokenizer:
+    """vLLM-style prefix/read offsets so each delta decodes only a short tail."""
+
+    def __init__(self, tokenizer) -> None:
+        self.tok = tokenizer
+        self.ids: list[int] = []
+        self.num_tokens = 0
+        self.prefix_offset = 0
+        self.read_offset = 0
+
+    def add(self, token_id: int) -> str:
+        self.num_tokens += 1
+        if token_id == self.tok.eos_token_id:
+            return ""
+        self.ids.append(token_id)
+        prefix = self.tok.decode(self.ids[self.prefix_offset : self.read_offset], skip_special_tokens=False)
+        full = self.tok.decode(self.ids[self.prefix_offset :], skip_special_tokens=False)
+        if len(full) > len(prefix) and not full.endswith("�"):
+            self.prefix_offset, self.read_offset = self.read_offset, len(self.ids)
+            return full[len(prefix) :]
+        return ""
+
+
+class Frontend:
+    def __init__(self, args: argparse.Namespace) -> None:
+        from transformers import AutoTokenizer
+
+        sys.path.insert(0, str(Path(args.model) / "encoding"))
+        from encoding import encode_messages  # the checkpoint's own prompt-format reference
+
+        self.args = args
+        self.model_name = args.served_model_name or args.model
+        self.encode_messages = encode_messages
+        self.tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(args.model)
+        ctx = mp.get_context("spawn")
+        self.out_q: mp.Queue = ctx.Queue()
+        self.in_qs: list[mp.Queue] = [ctx.Queue() for _ in range(args.dp)]
+        # Not daemonic: the engine forks its own helper processes (as examples/_launch.py allows).
+        self.procs = [ctx.Process(target=worker_main, args=(args, r, self.in_qs[r], self.out_q), daemon=False) for r in range(args.dp)]
+        self.load = [0] * args.dp
+        self.owner: dict[str, int] = {}
+        self.streams: dict[str, asyncio.Queue] = {}
+        self.ready = 0
+        self.stats = dict(requests=0, finished=0, aborted=0, errors=0, prompt_tokens=0, completion_tokens=0, encode_fallbacks=0)
+        self.cache_stats: dict[int, dict] = {}
+        self.loop: asyncio.AbstractEventLoop | None = None
+
+    def start(self) -> None:
+        for p in self.procs:
+            p.start()
+
+    def dispatch_forever(self) -> None:
+        """Thread: fan engine outputs out to the per-request asyncio queues."""
+        while True:
+            try:
+                kind, rid, payload = self.out_q.get(timeout=1.0)
+            except queue.Empty:
+                dead = [r for r, p in enumerate(self.procs) if not p.is_alive()]
+                if dead:
+                    print(f"[server] engine rank(s) {dead} died; failing open requests and exiting", flush=True)
+                    for rid in list(self.streams):
+                        self.loop.call_soon_threadsafe(self._deliver, rid, ("error", f"engine rank died: {dead}"))
+                    time.sleep(2)
+                    os._exit(1)
+                continue
+            if kind == "ready":
+                self.ready += 1
+                print(f"[server] DP rank {rid} ready ({self.ready}/{self.args.dp})", flush=True)
+            elif kind == "error":
+                self.loop.call_soon_threadsafe(self._deliver, rid, ("error", payload))
+            elif kind == "stats":
+                self.cache_stats[rid] = payload
+            else:
+                self.loop.call_soon_threadsafe(self._deliver_batch, payload)
+
+    def _deliver(self, rid: str, item) -> None:
+        q = self.streams.get(rid)
+        if q is not None:
+            q.put_nowait(item)
+
+    def _deliver_batch(self, batch) -> None:
+        for rid, token_id, finished, reason, prompt_len in batch:
+            q = self.streams.get(rid)
+            if q is not None:
+                q.put_nowait(("token", token_id, finished, reason, prompt_len))
+
+    def render_prompt(self, body: dict) -> list[int]:
+        messages = [dict(m) for m in body["messages"]]
+        if body.get("tools"):
+            if not messages or messages[0].get("role") != "system":
+                messages.insert(0, {"role": "system", "content": ""})
+            messages[0]["tools"] = body["tools"]
+        try:
+            prompt = self.encode_messages(messages, thinking_mode=self.args.thinking_mode)
+        except Exception:  # noqa: BLE001 - trace messages the reference encoder rejects
+            # Keep the request (and its prompt length) instead of failing the benchmark.
+            self.stats["encode_fallbacks"] += 1
+            parts = ["<｜begin▁of▁sentence｜>"]
+            for m in messages:
+                content = m.get("content") or ""
+                if isinstance(content, list):
+                    content = "".join(b.get("text", "") for b in content if isinstance(b, dict))
+                if m.get("tool_calls"):
+                    content += json.dumps(m["tool_calls"], ensure_ascii=False)
+                tag = {"user": "<｜User｜>", "assistant": "<｜Assistant｜>", "tool": "<｜User｜>"}.get(m.get("role"), "")
+                parts.append(tag + content)
+            if body.get("tools"):
+                parts.insert(1, json.dumps(body["tools"], ensure_ascii=False))
+            prompt = "".join(parts) + "<｜Assistant｜></think>"
+        return self.tokenizer.encode(prompt, add_special_tokens=False)
+
+    @staticmethod
+    def affinity_key(body: dict) -> bytes | None:
+        """Stable per-conversation key: the first user message (AgentX's cache-bust marker lives there and is
+        constant across a trajectory's turns, and forked subagents inherit it)."""
+        for m in body.get("messages", []):
+            if m.get("role") == "user":
+                content = m.get("content") or ""
+                if isinstance(content, list):
+                    content = "".join(b.get("text", "") for b in content if isinstance(b, dict))
+                return hashlib.sha1(content[:4096].encode("utf-8", "ignore")).digest()
+        return None
+
+    def submit(self, prompt_ids: list[int], sampling: dict, key: bytes | None = None, use_cache: bool = True) -> tuple[str, asyncio.Queue]:
+        rid = uuid.uuid4().hex
+        if self.args.routing == "affinity" and key is not None:
+            rank = int.from_bytes(key[:4], "little") % self.args.dp
+        else:
+            rank = min(range(self.args.dp), key=lambda r: self.load[r])
+        self.load[rank] += 1
+        self.owner[rid] = rank
+        q: asyncio.Queue = asyncio.Queue()
+        self.streams[rid] = q
+        self.stats["requests"] += 1
+        self.in_qs[rank].put(("add", rid, {"prompt_token_ids": prompt_ids, "sampling": sampling, "use_cache": use_cache}))
+        return rid, q
+
+    def release(self, rid: str, aborted: bool) -> None:
+        rank = self.owner.pop(rid, None)
+        self.streams.pop(rid, None)
+        if rank is None:
+            return
+        self.load[rank] -= 1
+        if aborted:
+            self.stats["aborted"] += 1
+            self.in_qs[rank].put(("abort", rid, None))
+        else:
+            self.stats["finished"] += 1
+
+
+def build_app(fe: Frontend):
+    from fastapi import FastAPI
+    from fastapi.responses import JSONResponse, PlainTextResponse, StreamingResponse
+
+    app = FastAPI()
+
+    @app.on_event("startup")
+    async def _startup() -> None:
+        fe.loop = asyncio.get_running_loop()
+        threading.Thread(target=fe.dispatch_forever, daemon=True).start()
+
+    @app.get("/health")
+    async def health():
+        ok = fe.ready == fe.args.dp
+        return JSONResponse({"status": "ok" if ok else "loading", "ready_ranks": fe.ready}, status_code=200 if ok else 503)
+
+    @app.get("/v1/models")
+    async def models():
+        return {"object": "list", "data": [{"id": fe.model_name, "object": "model", "owned_by": "deepinfer"}]}
+
+    # Not at /metrics: aiperf scrapes that path automatically and InferenceX's aggregator
+    # rejects metric families it has no backend adapter for.
+    @app.get("/deepinfer/metrics")
+    async def metrics():
+        lines = [f"deepinfer:{k}_total {v}" for k, v in fe.stats.items()]
+        lines += [f'deepinfer:num_requests_running{{dp_rank="{r}"}} {n}' for r, n in enumerate(fe.load)]
+        for r, st in sorted(fe.cache_stats.items()):
+            lines += [f'deepinfer_hicache:{k}{{dp_rank="{r}"}} {v}' for k, v in st.items()]
+        return PlainTextResponse("\n".join(lines) + "\n")
+
+    @app.post("/v1/chat/completions")
+    async def chat(request: Request):
+        if fe.ready != fe.args.dp:
+            return JSONResponse({"error": {"message": "engine loading"}}, status_code=503)
+        body = await request.json()
+        prompt_ids = await asyncio.to_thread(fe.render_prompt, body)
+        max_tokens = body.get("max_completion_tokens") or body.get("max_tokens") or 4096
+        if len(prompt_ids) + 1 > fe.args.max_model_len:
+            return JSONResponse({"error": {"message": f"prompt has {len(prompt_ids)} tokens > max_model_len"}}, status_code=400)
+        max_tokens = max(1, min(int(max_tokens), fe.args.max_model_len - len(prompt_ids)))
+        sampling = dict(
+            temperature=float(body.get("temperature", 1.0)),
+            top_p=float(body.get("top_p", 1.0)),
+            ignore_eos=bool(body.get("ignore_eos", False)),
+            max_tokens=max_tokens,
+        )
+        if body.get("seed") is not None:
+            sampling["seq_seed"] = int(body["seed"])
+        fe.stats["prompt_tokens"] += len(prompt_ids)
+        include_usage = bool((body.get("stream_options") or {}).get("include_usage"))
+        # Non-standard request field: "prefix_cache": false bypasses the host prefix cache lookup (A/B checks).
+        rid, q = fe.submit(prompt_ids, sampling, fe.affinity_key(body), use_cache=bool(body.get("prefix_cache", True)))
+        created = int(time.time())
+        cid = f"chatcmpl-{rid}"
+        detok = IncrementalDetokenizer(fe.tokenizer)
+
+        def chunk(delta: dict, finish: str | None = None, usage: dict | None = None) -> str:
+            obj = {
+                "id": cid,
+                "object": "chat.completion.chunk",
+                "created": created,
+                "model": fe.model_name,
+                "choices": [] if usage else [{"index": 0, "delta": delta, "finish_reason": finish}],
+            }
+            if usage:
+                obj["usage"] = usage
+            return f"data: {json.dumps(obj, ensure_ascii=False)}\n\n"
+
+        async def tokens():
+            """Yield (text_delta, finish_reason) until the request finishes."""
+            while True:
+                item = await q.get()
+                if item[0] == "error":
+                    raise RuntimeError(item[1])
+                _, token_id, finished, reason, _ = item
+                text = detok.add(token_id)
+                fe.stats["completion_tokens"] += 1
+                if finished:
+                    yield text, ("length" if detok.num_tokens >= max_tokens else "stop")
+                    return
+                yield text, None
+
+        usage = lambda: {
+            "prompt_tokens": len(prompt_ids),
+            "completion_tokens": detok.num_tokens,  # noqa: E731
+            "total_tokens": len(prompt_ids) + detok.num_tokens,
+        }
+
+        if body.get("stream"):
+
+            async def sse():
+                done = False
+                try:
+                    yield chunk({"role": "assistant", "content": ""})
+                    async for text, finish in tokens():
+                        if text or finish:
+                            yield chunk({"content": text} if text else {}, finish)
+                    done = True
+                    if include_usage:
+                        yield chunk({}, usage=usage())
+                    yield "data: [DONE]\n\n"
+                finally:
+                    fe.release(rid, aborted=not done)
+
+            return StreamingResponse(sse(), media_type="text/event-stream")
+
+        done = False
+        try:
+            parts, finish = [], None
+            async for text, finish in tokens():
+                parts.append(text)
+            done = True
+        finally:
+            fe.release(rid, aborted=not done)
+        return {
+            "id": cid,
+            "object": "chat.completion",
+            "created": created,
+            "model": fe.model_name,
+            "choices": [{"index": 0, "message": {"role": "assistant", "content": "".join(parts)}, "finish_reason": finish}],
+            "usage": usage(),
+        }
+
+    return app
+
+
+def main() -> None:
+    args = parse_args()
+    args.model = str(Path(args.model).expanduser().resolve())
+    os.environ.setdefault("WORLD_SIZE", "1")
+    os.environ.setdefault("RANK", "0")
+    fe = Frontend(args)
+    fe.start()
+
+    import uvicorn
+
+    uvicorn.run(build_app(fe), host=args.host, port=args.port, log_level="warning", timeout_keep_alive=900)
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()
diff --git a/serve/server.sh b/serve/server.sh
new file mode 100755
index 0000000..b612fd2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/serve/server.sh
@@ -0,0 +1,41 @@
+#!/bin/bash
+# Start/stop serve/openai_server.py as one process group, so stopping it also reaps the
+# engine's helper processes (otherwise they outlive the frontend and keep the GPUs).
+#
+#   serve/server.sh start [openai_server.py args...]
+#   serve/server.sh stop
+set -euo pipefail
+ROOT=$(cd "$(dirname "$0")/.." && pwd)
+PIDFILE="$ROOT/serve/server.pgid"
+LOG="${LOG:-$ROOT/serve.log}"
+
+case "${1:-}" in
+    start)
+        shift
+        [ -s "$PIDFILE" ] && kill -0 -- "-$(cat "$PIDFILE")" 2>/dev/null && { echo "already running (pgid $(cat "$PIDFILE"))" >&2; exit 1; }
+        [ -f "$ROOT/env.sh" ] && source "$ROOT/env.sh"  # optional local environment (venv, DEEPINFER_* vars)
+        : "${DEEPINFER_HF_MODEL_DIR:?set DEEPINFER_HF_MODEL_DIR to the local checkpoint directory}"
+        export CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES="${CUDA_VISIBLE_DEVICES:-0,1,2,3}"
+        setsid python -u "$ROOT/serve/openai_server.py" --model "$DEEPINFER_HF_MODEL_DIR" \
+            --served-model-name deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash-1017 "$@" > "$LOG" 2>&1 < /dev/null &
+        echo $! > "$PIDFILE"
+        port=8888 prev=
+        for a in "$@"; do [[ "$prev" == --port ]] && port=$a; prev=$a; done
+        until curl -fs "localhost:$port/health" >/dev/null 2>&1; do
+            kill -0 "$(cat "$PIDFILE")" 2>/dev/null || { echo "server died; see $LOG" >&2; exit 1; }
+            sleep 3
+        done
+        echo "ready (pgid $(cat "$PIDFILE"), log $LOG)"
+        ;;
+    stop)
+        [ -s "$PIDFILE" ] || { echo "not running"; exit 0; }
+        pgid=$(cat "$PIDFILE")
+        kill -TERM -- "-$pgid" 2>/dev/null || true
+        for _ in $(seq 30); do kill -0 -- "-$pgid" 2>/dev/null || break; sleep 1; done
+        kill -KILL -- "-$pgid" 2>/dev/null || true
+        rm -f "$PIDFILE"
+        echo "stopped"
+        ;;
+    *)
+        echo "usage: $0 start|stop" >&2; exit 2 ;;
+esac