hermes/skills/mlops/obliteratus/SKILL.md

name, description, version, author, license, dependencies, metadata

name	description	version	author	license	dependencies	metadata
obliteratus	Remove refusal behaviors from open-weight LLMs using OBLITERATUS — mechanistic interpretability techniques (diff-in-means, SVD, whitened SVD, SAE decomposition, etc.) to excise guardrails while preserving reasoning. 9 CLI methods (+ 4 Python-API-only), 15 analysis modules, 116 model presets across 5 compute tiers. Use when a user wants to uncensor, abliterate, or remove refusal from an LLM.	1.0.0	Hermes Agent	MIT	obliteratus torch transformers bitsandbytes accelerate safetensors	hermes tags Abliteration Uncensoring Refusal-Removal LLM Weight-Projection SVD Mechanistic-Interpretability HuggingFace Model-Surgery

OBLITERATUS Skill

Remove refusal behaviors (guardrails) from open-weight LLMs without retraining or fine-tuning. Uses mechanistic interpretability techniques — including diff-in-means, SVD, whitened SVD, SAE decomposition, Bayesian kernel projection, and more — to identify and surgically excise refusal directions from model weights while preserving reasoning capabilities.

License warning: OBLITERATUS is AGPL-3.0. NEVER import it as a Python library. Always invoke via CLI (obliteratus command) or subprocess. This keeps Hermes Agent's MIT license clean.

When to Use This Skill

Trigger when the user:

• Wants to "uncensor" or "abliterate" an LLM
• Asks about removing refusal/guardrails from a model
• Wants to create an uncensored version of Llama, Qwen, Mistral, etc.
• Mentions "refusal removal", "abliteration", "weight projection"
• Wants to analyze how a model's refusal mechanism works
• References OBLITERATUS, FailSpy, abliterator, or refusal directions

Step 1: Installation

Check if already installed:

obliteratus --version 2>/dev/null && echo "INSTALLED" || echo "NOT INSTALLED"

If not installed, clone and install from GitHub:

Repository: https://github.com/elder-plinius/OBLITERATUS
Install: pip install -e . (from the cloned directory)
For Gradio UI: pip install -e ".[spaces]"

IMPORTANT: Confirm with user before installing. This pulls in ~5-10GB of dependencies (PyTorch, Transformers, bitsandbytes, etc.).

Step 2: Check Hardware

Before anything, check what GPU is available:

python3 -c "
import torch
if torch.cuda.is_available():
    gpu = torch.cuda.get_device_name(0)
    vram = torch.cuda.get_device_properties(0).total_mem / 1024**3
    print(f'GPU: {gpu}')
    print(f'VRAM: {vram:.1f} GB')
    if vram < 4: print('TIER: tiny (models under 1B)')
    elif vram < 8: print('TIER: small (models 1-4B)')
    elif vram < 16: print('TIER: medium (models 4-9B with 4bit quant)')
    elif vram < 32: print('TIER: large (models 8-32B with 4bit quant)')
    else: print('TIER: frontier (models 32B+)')
else:
    print('NO GPU - only tiny models (under 1B) on CPU')
"

VRAM Requirements (with 4-bit quantization)

VRAM	Max Model Size	Example Models
CPU only	~1B params	GPT-2, TinyLlama, SmolLM
4-8 GB	~4B params	Qwen2.5-1.5B, Phi-3.5 mini, Llama 3.2 3B
8-16 GB	~9B params	Llama 3.1 8B, Mistral 7B, Gemma 2 9B
24 GB	~32B params	Qwen3-32B, Llama 3.1 70B (tight), Command-R
48 GB+	~72B+ params	Qwen2.5-72B, DeepSeek-R1
Multi-GPU	200B+ params	Llama 3.1 405B, DeepSeek-V3 (685B MoE)

Step 3: Browse Available Models

# List models for your compute tier
obliteratus models --tier medium

# Get architecture info for a specific model
obliteratus info meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

Step 4: Choose a Method

Method Selection Guide

First time / unsure? Use informed. It auto-configures everything.

Situation	Recommended Method	Why
First attempt, any model	informed	Auto-detects alignment type, auto-tunes
Quick test / prototyping	basic	Fast, simple, good enough to evaluate
Dense model (Llama, Mistral)	advanced	Multi-direction, norm-preserving
MoE model (DeepSeek, Mixtral)	nuclear	Expert-granular, handles MoE complexity
Reasoning model (R1 distills)	surgical	CoT-aware, preserves chain-of-thought
Stubborn refusals persist	aggressive	Whitened SVD + head surgery + jailbreak
Want reversible changes	Use steering vectors (see Analysis section)
Maximum quality, time no object	optimized	Bayesian search for best parameters

9 CLI Methods

These can be passed to --method on the command line:

• basic — Single refusal direction via diff-in-means. Fastest, simplest. (Arditi et al. 2024)
• advanced — Multiple SVD directions, norm-preserving projection. Good default.
• aggressive — Whitened SVD + jailbreak contrast + attention head surgery
• spectral_cascade — DCT frequency-domain decomposition
• informed — Runs analysis DURING abliteration to auto-configure. Detects DPO/RLHF/CAI, maps refusal geometry, compensates for self-repair. Best quality.
• surgical — SAE features + neuron masking + head surgery + per-expert. Maximum precision.
• optimized — Bayesian hyperparameter search (Optuna TPE). Slowest but optimal.
• inverted — Flips the refusal direction (model becomes eager to help, not just neutral)
• nuclear — Maximum force combo for stubborn MoE models.

4 Python-API-Only Methods

These reproduce prior community/academic work but are NOT available via CLI — only via the Python API (from obliteratus.abliterate import AbliterationPipeline). Do not use these in CLI commands.

• failspy — FailSpy/abliterator reproduction
• gabliteration — Gabliteration reproduction
• heretic — Heretic/p-e-w reproduction
• rdo — Refusal Direction Optimization (ICML 2025)

Step 5: Run Abliteration

Basic Usage

# Default (advanced method)
obliteratus obliterate meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct

# With the informed pipeline (recommended)
obliteratus obliterate meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct --method informed

# With 4-bit quantization to save VRAM
obliteratus obliterate meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct \
  --method informed \
  --quantization 4bit \
  --output-dir ./abliterated-models

# For large models (120B+), use conservative settings
obliteratus obliterate Qwen/Qwen2.5-72B-Instruct \
  --method advanced \
  --quantization 4bit \
  --large-model \
  --output-dir ./abliterated-models

Fine-Tuning Parameters

obliteratus obliterate <model> \
  --method advanced \
  --n-directions 8 \
  --regularization 0.1 \
  --refinement-passes 3 \
  --dtype bfloat16 \
  --device auto \
  --output-dir ./output

Parameter explanations:

• --n-directions N — How many refusal directions to remove (default: auto-detected)
• --regularization 0.0-1.0 — Fraction of original weights to preserve (higher = safer but less complete removal)
• --refinement-passes N — Iterative passes to catch self-repair (Ouroboros effect)
• --dtype — float16, bfloat16, or float32
• --quantization — 4bit or 8bit (saves VRAM, slight quality tradeoff)
• --large-model — Conservative defaults for 120B+ models (fewer directions, fewer passes)

Interactive Mode (Guided)

For users unsure about options:

obliteratus interactive

Web UI (Gradio)

obliteratus ui --port 7860

Step 6: Verify Results

After abliteration, check the output report for:

Metric	Good Value	Concerning Value	Meaning
Refusal rate	Near 0%	> 10%	Refusals still present, try harder method
Perplexity	Within 10% of orig	> 20% increase	Model coherence damaged, too aggressive
KL divergence	< 0.1	> 0.5	Large output distribution shift
Coherence	High	Low	Model generating nonsense

If perplexity spiked (too aggressive):

1. Increase --regularization (e.g., 0.2 or 0.3)
2. Decrease --n-directions (e.g., 4 instead of 8)
3. Use a less aggressive method (advanced instead of aggressive)

If refusal persists (not aggressive enough):

1. Use --method aggressive or --method nuclear
2. Add --refinement-passes 3 to catch self-repair
3. Use --method informed which auto-compensates

Step 7: Use the Abliterated Model

The output is a standard HuggingFace model directory. Use it like any other model:

Quick test

python3 << 'EOF'
from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM, AutoTokenizer
model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained("./abliterated-models/model-name")
tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("./abliterated-models/model-name")
inputs = tokenizer("Write a story about:", return_tensors="pt").to(model.device)
outputs = model.generate(**inputs, max_new_tokens=200)
print(tokenizer.decode(outputs[0], skip_special_tokens=True))
EOF

Upload to HuggingFace Hub

huggingface-cli login  # if not already logged in
huggingface-cli upload your-username/model-name-abliterated ./abliterated-models/model-name

Serve with vLLM

vllm serve ./abliterated-models/model-name --port 8000

Analysis Modules (15 Modules, Pre-Abliteration, Optional)

For understanding refusal geometry before committing to abliteration.

Run a Study

obliteratus run study-config.yaml --preset jailbreak

Study Presets

Preset	Purpose	Time
quick	Sanity check, basic metrics	~5 min
jailbreak	Refusal circuit localization	~20 min
guardrail	Guardrail robustness evaluation	~30 min
attention	Attention head contributions	~30 min
knowledge	FFN importance mapping	~30 min
full	Complete analysis, all strategies	~1 hr

Key Analysis Modules

• Alignment Imprint Detection — Fingerprints DPO vs RLHF vs CAI vs SFT from subspace geometry
• Concept Cone Geometry — Is refusal one linear direction or a polyhedral cone (many directions)?
• Refusal Logit Lens — Which transformer layer makes the refusal decision?
• Ouroboros Detection — Will the model self-repair its refusal after removal?
• Causal Tracing — Which attention heads and MLP layers are causally necessary for refusal?
• Cross-Model Transfer — Can refusal directions from one model architecture work on another?
• Residual Stream Decomposition — Attention vs MLP contribution to refusal behavior
• SAE-based Analysis — Sparse Autoencoder feature decomposition of refusal circuits

Steering Vectors (Reversible Alternative)

For testing refusal removal without permanent weight changes:

Steering vectors apply activation hooks at inference time. Model weights stay unchanged. Generated during the PROBE/DISTILL stages and can be saved/applied/removed at will. Useful for A/B testing before committing to permanent abliteration.

YAML Config for Reproducible Studies

For complex or reproducible workflows, use YAML configs. See templates/ for examples:

obliteratus run my_study.yaml

Telemetry Notice

• CLI usage (local installs): Telemetry is OFF by default. Must explicitly opt in via OBLITERATUS_TELEMETRY=1 env var or --contribute flag.
• HuggingFace Spaces: Telemetry is ON by default (auto-enabled when SPACE_ID env var is detected).
• Collected: model ID, method, benchmark scores, hardware info, timing (anonymous)
• NOT collected: IP addresses, user identity, prompt content
• Force off: export OBLITERATUS_TELEMETRY=0

Common Pitfalls

1. OOM (Out of Memory) — Use --quantization 4bit and --large-model for big models
2. Perplexity spike — Too aggressive. Increase --regularization or reduce --n-directions
3. Refusal persists — Try --method aggressive or --refinement-passes 3
4. MoE models resist — Use --method nuclear for DeepSeek, Mixtral, DBRX
5. Gated models fail — Run huggingface-cli login and accept model terms on HF website first
6. Self-repair (Ouroboros) — Some models reconstruct refusal. Use --method informed which auto-compensates
7. CoT damage — Reasoning models lose chain-of-thought. Use --method surgical (CoT-aware)
8. Disk space — Output is full model copy. 8B fp16 = ~16GB, 70B fp16 = ~140GB
9. Slow on CPU — CPU-only is viable only for tiny models (<1B). Anything bigger needs GPU.

Complementary Hermes Skills

After abliteration:

• axolotl / unsloth — Fine-tune the abliterated model further
• serving-llms-vllm — Serve the model as an OpenAI-compatible API
• sparse-autoencoder-training — Train SAEs for deeper interpretability work

Resources

• OBLITERATUS GitHub (AGPL-3.0)
• HuggingFace Spaces Demo
• Arditi et al. 2024 — Refusal in LMs Is Mediated by a Single Direction
• Refusal Direction Optimization — ICML 2025