diff --git a/modal/_model.py b/modal/_model.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..a6a1da47
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modal/_model.py
@@ -0,0 +1,202 @@
+"""
+Minimal standalone GPT model for Modal inference.
+Extracted from nanochat/gpt.py — only the forward-pass code needed for inference.
+No training, no DDP, no flash_attention dependency.
+"""
+
+from dataclasses import dataclass
+import torch
+import torch.nn as nn
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+import math
+
+
+@dataclass
+class GPTConfig:
+    sequence_len: int = 2048
+    vocab_size: int = 65536
+    n_layer: int = 20
+    n_head: int = 10
+    n_kv_head: int = 10
+    n_embd: int = 1280
+    window_pattern: str = "L"
+
+
+class RMSNorm(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, dim):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.dim = dim
+
+    def forward(self, x):
+        return x * torch.rsqrt(x.pow(2).mean(-1, keepdim=True) + 1e-6)
+
+
+class RotaryEmbedding(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, dim, max_seq_len=2048):
+        super().__init__()
+        inv_freq = 1.0 / (10000 ** (torch.arange(0, dim, 2).float() / dim))
+        self.register_buffer("inv_freq", inv_freq, persistent=False)
+        self.max_seq_len = max_seq_len
+
+    def forward(self, x, offset=0):
+        seq_len = x.shape[-2]
+        t = torch.arange(offset, offset + seq_len, device=x.device, dtype=self.inv_freq.dtype)
+        freqs = torch.outer(t, self.inv_freq)
+        emb = torch.cat((freqs, freqs), dim=-1)
+        return emb.cos(), emb.sin()
+
+
+def apply_rotary_pos_emb(q, k, cos, sin):
+    def rotate_half(x):
+        x1, x2 = x.chunk(2, dim=-1)
+        return torch.cat((-x2, x1), dim=-1)
+    q_embed = (q * cos) + (rotate_half(q) * sin)
+    k_embed = (k * cos) + (rotate_half(k) * sin)
+    return q_embed, k_embed
+
+
+class CausalSelfAttention(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config: GPTConfig, use_v_emb: bool = False):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.n_head = config.n_head
+        self.n_kv_head = config.n_kv_head
+        self.head_dim = config.n_embd // config.n_head
+        self.n_embd = config.n_embd
+        self.use_v_emb = use_v_emb
+
+        self.c_q = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, config.n_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_k = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, config.n_kv_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_v = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, config.n_kv_head * self.head_dim, bias=False)
+        self.c_proj = nn.Linear(config.n_head * self.head_dim, config.n_embd, bias=False)
+
+        self.q_norm = RMSNorm(self.head_dim)
+        self.k_norm = RMSNorm(self.head_dim)
+
+        if use_v_emb:
+            self.v_emb = nn.Parameter(torch.zeros(1, config.n_kv_head, config.sequence_len, self.head_dim))
+
+        self.rotary = RotaryEmbedding(self.head_dim, config.sequence_len)
+
+    def forward(self, x):
+        B, T, C = x.size()
+
+        q = self.c_q(x).view(B, T, self.n_head, self.head_dim).transpose(1, 2)
+        k = self.c_k(x).view(B, T, self.n_kv_head, self.head_dim).transpose(1, 2)
+        v = self.c_v(x).view(B, T, self.n_kv_head, self.head_dim).transpose(1, 2)
+
+        # QK norm
+        q = self.q_norm(q)
+        k = self.k_norm(k)
+
+        # Rotary embeddings
+        cos, sin = self.rotary(q)
+        q, k = apply_rotary_pos_emb(q, k, cos, sin)
+
+        # GQA: repeat k,v if n_kv_head < n_head
+        if self.n_kv_head < self.n_head:
+            rep = self.n_head // self.n_kv_head
+            k = k.repeat_interleave(rep, dim=1)
+            v = v.repeat_interleave(rep, dim=1)
+
+        # Value embeddings (if enabled)
+        if self.use_v_emb:
+            v = v + self.v_emb[:, :, :T, :]
+
+        # Scaled dot-product attention (PyTorch native, causal)
+        y = F.scaled_dot_product_attention(q, k, v, is_causal=True)
+
+        y = y.transpose(1, 2).contiguous().view(B, T, C)
+        return self.c_proj(y)
+
+
+class MLP(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config: GPTConfig, gated: bool = False):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.gated = gated
+        if gated:
+            hidden = int(config.n_embd * 8 / 3)
+            hidden = ((hidden + 63) // 64) * 64
+            self.c_fc = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, hidden, bias=False)
+            self.c_fc2 = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, hidden, bias=False)
+            self.c_proj = nn.Linear(hidden, config.n_embd, bias=False)
+        else:
+            hidden = 4 * config.n_embd
+            self.c_fc = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, hidden, bias=False)
+            self.c_proj = nn.Linear(hidden, config.n_embd, bias=False)
+
+    def forward(self, x):
+        if self.gated:
+            a = self.c_fc(x)
+            b = self.c_fc2(x)
+            return self.c_proj(F.relu(a).pow(2) * b)
+        else:
+            return self.c_proj(F.relu(self.c_fc(x)).pow(2))
+
+
+class Block(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config: GPTConfig, layer_idx: int, gated_mlp: bool = False, use_v_emb: bool = False):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.ln_1 = RMSNorm(config.n_embd)
+        self.attn = CausalSelfAttention(config, use_v_emb=use_v_emb)
+        self.ln_2 = RMSNorm(config.n_embd)
+        self.mlp = MLP(config, gated=gated_mlp)
+        self.layer_idx = layer_idx
+
+    def forward(self, x, resid_lambda=1.0, x0_lambda=0.0, x0=None):
+        h = x * resid_lambda + self.attn(self.ln_1(x))
+        if x0 is not None and x0_lambda != 0.0:
+            h = h + x0_lambda * x0
+        h2 = h * resid_lambda + self.mlp(self.ln_2(h))
+        if x0 is not None and x0_lambda != 0.0:
+            h2 = h2 + x0_lambda * x0
+        return h2
+
+
+class GPT(nn.Module):
+    def __init__(self, config: GPTConfig, gated_mlp: bool = False, use_v_emb: bool = False):
+        super().__init__()
+        self.config = config
+
+        self.transformer = nn.ModuleDict(dict(
+            wte=nn.Embedding(config.vocab_size, config.n_embd),
+            norm_emb=RMSNorm(config.n_embd),
+            h=nn.ModuleList([Block(config, i, gated_mlp=gated_mlp, use_v_emb=use_v_emb) for i in range(config.n_layer)]),
+            ln_f=RMSNorm(config.n_embd),
+        ))
+        self.lm_head = nn.Linear(config.n_embd, config.vocab_size, bias=False)
+
+        # Residual lambdas (per-layer scaling)
+        self.resid_lambdas = nn.Parameter(torch.ones(config.n_layer))
+        self.x0_lambdas = nn.Parameter(torch.zeros(config.n_layer))
+
+    @classmethod
+    def from_state_dict(cls, config: GPTConfig, state_dict: dict):
+        """Auto-detect architecture features from checkpoint keys."""
+        gated = any("c_fc2" in k for k in state_dict)
+        v_emb = any("v_emb" in k for k in state_dict)
+        model = cls(config, gated_mlp=gated, use_v_emb=v_emb)
+        return model
+
+    def init_weights(self):
+        """Initialize rotary embeddings and value embeddings."""
+        for module in self.modules():
+            if isinstance(module, RotaryEmbedding):
+                inv_freq = 1.0 / (10000 ** (torch.arange(0, module.inv_freq.shape[0] * 2, 2).float() / (module.inv_freq.shape[0] * 2)))
+                module.inv_freq.copy_(inv_freq)
+
+    def forward(self, idx):
+        B, T = idx.size()
+        assert T <= self.config.sequence_len, f"Input length {T} exceeds max {self.config.sequence_len}"
+
+        x = self.transformer.wte(idx)
+        x = self.transformer.norm_emb(x)
+        x0 = x  # save for residual connections
+
+        for i, block in enumerate(self.transformer.h):
+            rl = self.resid_lambdas[i].item()
+            xl = self.x0_lambdas[i].item()
+            x = block(x, resid_lambda=rl, x0_lambda=xl, x0=x0)
+
+        x = self.transformer.ln_f(x)
+        logits = self.lm_head(x)
+        return logits
diff --git a/modal/_tokenizer.py b/modal/_tokenizer.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..59fff2ba
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modal/_tokenizer.py
@@ -0,0 +1,79 @@
+"""
+Minimal standalone tokenizer for Modal inference.
+Uses tiktoken for fast encoding/decoding with nanochat's special tokens.
+"""
+
+import os
+import pickle
+import tiktoken
+
+
+# nanochat special tokens
+SPECIAL_TOKENS = {
+    "<|bos|>": 0,
+    "<|user_start|>": 1,
+    "<|user_end|>": 2,
+    "<|assistant_start|>": 3,
+    "<|assistant_end|>": 4,
+    "<|python_start|>": 5,
+    "<|python_end|>": 6,
+    "<|output_start|>": 7,
+    "<|output_end|>": 8,
+}
+
+# GPT-4 split pattern
+SPLIT_PATTERN = r"(?i:[sdmt]|ll|ve|re)|[^\r\n\p{L}\p{N}]?+\p{L}+|\p{N}{1,2}| ?[^\s\p{L}\p{N}]++[\r\n]*|\s*[\r\n]|\s+(?!\S)|\s+"
+
+
+class NanochatTokenizer:
+    def __init__(self, model_dir: str):
+        token_bytes_path = os.path.join(model_dir, "token_bytes.pt")
+        tokenizer_pkl_path = os.path.join(model_dir, "tokenizer.pkl")
+
+        if os.path.exists(tokenizer_pkl_path):
+            with open(tokenizer_pkl_path, "rb") as f:
+                loaded = pickle.load(f)
+            # Handle different pickle formats
+            if isinstance(loaded, dict):
+                mergeable_ranks = loaded
+            elif hasattr(loaded, '_mergeable_ranks'):
+                # It's a tiktoken Encoding object
+                mergeable_ranks = loaded._mergeable_ranks
+            else:
+                # Try to use it as a pre-built encoder
+                self._enc = loaded
+                return
+        elif os.path.exists(token_bytes_path):
+            import torch
+            token_bytes = torch.load(token_bytes_path, weights_only=True)
+            mergeable_ranks = {bytes(token_bytes[i].tolist()): i for i in range(len(token_bytes))}
+        else:
+            from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download
+            path = hf_hub_download("karpathy/nanochat-d32", "tokenizer.pkl")
+            with open(path, "rb") as f:
+                mergeable_ranks = pickle.load(f)
+
+        self._enc = tiktoken.Encoding(
+            name="nanochat",
+            pat_str=SPLIT_PATTERN,
+            mergeable_ranks=mergeable_ranks,
+            special_tokens=SPECIAL_TOKENS,
+        )
+
+    def encode(self, text: str) -> list[int]:
+        return self._enc.encode(text, allowed_special=set())
+
+    def decode(self, tokens: list[int]) -> str:
+        return self._enc.decode(tokens)
+
+    def encode_special(self, token_name: str) -> list[int]:
+        return self._enc.encode(token_name, allowed_special="all")
+
+    def get_vocab_size(self) -> int:
+        return self._enc.n_vocab
+
+
+def get_tokenizer(model_dir: str | None = None) -> NanochatTokenizer:
+    if model_dir is None:
+        model_dir = "/weights/d20"
+    return NanochatTokenizer(model_dir)
diff --git a/modal/serve.py b/modal/serve.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..86ef15c4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/modal/serve.py
@@ -0,0 +1,273 @@
+"""
+samosaChaat — Modal GPU inference endpoint.
+
+Downloads nanochat model weights from HuggingFace into a Modal Volume,
+loads them on a GPU, and exposes an SSE streaming endpoint compatible
+with the samosaChaat chat-api service.
+
+Deploy:  modal deploy modal/serve.py
+Dev:     modal serve modal/serve.py
+"""
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+import json
+import os
+import time
+
+import modal
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Configuration
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+MODEL_REPO = "nanochat-students/base-d20"   # 1 GB, native nanochat format
+MODEL_PT   = "model_021400.pt"
+META_JSON  = "meta_021400.json"
+MODEL_TAG  = "d20"
+GPU_TYPE   = "T4"                           # cheapest, 16 GB VRAM — plenty for 1 GB model
+VOLUME_NAME = "samosachaat-weights"
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Modal app + image
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+app = modal.App("samosachaat-inference")
+
+# Build the container image with all dependencies
+inference_image = (
+    modal.Image.debian_slim(python_version="3.12")
+    .pip_install(
+        "torch==2.5.1",
+        "tiktoken>=0.11.0",
+        "tokenizers>=0.22.0",
+        "huggingface_hub>=0.25.0",
+        "fastapi>=0.115.0",
+        "uvicorn>=0.30.0",
+        extra_index_url="https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu124",
+    )
+    .add_local_file("modal/_model.py", "/root/_model.py")
+    .add_local_file("modal/_tokenizer.py", "/root/_tokenizer.py")
+)
+
+# Persistent volume for model weights
+volume = modal.Volume.from_name(VOLUME_NAME, create_if_missing=True)
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Download weights into the volume (runs once)
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+@app.function(
+    image=inference_image,
+    volumes={"/weights": volume},
+    timeout=600,
+)
+def download_weights():
+    """Download model weights from HuggingFace into the Modal volume."""
+    from huggingface_hub import hf_hub_download
+
+    model_dir = f"/weights/{MODEL_TAG}"
+    os.makedirs(model_dir, exist_ok=True)
+
+    for filename in [MODEL_PT, META_JSON, "token_bytes.pt", "tokenizer.pkl"]:
+        dest = os.path.join(model_dir, filename)
+        if os.path.exists(dest):
+            print(f"  Already exists: {dest}")
+            continue
+        print(f"  Downloading {filename} from {MODEL_REPO}...")
+        path = hf_hub_download(MODEL_REPO, filename)
+        # Copy to volume
+        import shutil
+        shutil.copy2(path, dest)
+        print(f"  Saved to {dest}")
+
+    volume.commit()
+    print("Weights downloaded and committed to volume.")
+
+
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# Inference class — GPU singleton
+# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
+@app.cls(
+    image=inference_image,
+    volumes={"/weights": volume},
+    gpu=GPU_TYPE,
+    scaledown_window=300,            # keep warm for 5 min after last request
+    # concurrency handled by @modal.concurrent below
+    timeout=120,
+)
+class Inference:
+    model: object
+    tokenizer: object
+    engine: object
+    device: object
+
+    @modal.enter()
+    def load_model(self):
+        """Called once when the container starts — loads model onto GPU."""
+        import torch
+        import sys
+
+        # Add the nanochat engine code path
+        # We inline the minimal loading logic here to avoid importing the full
+        # nanochat package (which has heavy deps we don't need on Modal).
+        print("Loading model...")
+        t0 = time.time()
+
+        device = torch.device("cuda" if torch.cuda.is_available() else "cpu")
+        self.device = device
+
+        model_dir = f"/weights/{MODEL_TAG}"
+        meta_path = os.path.join(model_dir, META_JSON)
+        model_path = os.path.join(model_dir, MODEL_PT)
+
+        # Load meta
+        with open(meta_path) as f:
+            meta = json.load(f)
+        model_config = meta if "model_config" not in meta else meta["model_config"]
+
+        # Patch missing config keys
+        model_config.setdefault("window_pattern", "L")
+
+        print(f"  Config: {model_config}")
+
+        # Build model
+        # We need the GPT class — download it from the repo itself
+        # For simplicity, we define a minimal inline version that matches nanochat
+        from _model import GPT, GPTConfig
+
+        config = GPTConfig(**model_config)
+        model_data = torch.load(model_path, map_location=device, weights_only=False)
+
+        # Fix torch compile prefix
+        model_data = {k.removeprefix("_orig_mod."): v for k, v in model_data.items()}
+
+        # Patch missing keys
+        n_layer = config.n_layer
+        if "resid_lambdas" not in model_data:
+            model_data["resid_lambdas"] = torch.ones(n_layer)
+        if "x0_lambdas" not in model_data:
+            model_data["x0_lambdas"] = torch.zeros(n_layer)
+
+        # Auto-detect architecture from checkpoint
+        # Convert bfloat16 weights to float32 for compatibility
+        model_data = {
+            k: v.float() if v.dtype == torch.bfloat16 else v
+            for k, v in model_data.items()
+        }
+
+        # Auto-detect architecture from checkpoint
+        model = GPT.from_state_dict(config, model_data)
+        model.to(device)
+        model.init_weights()
+        model.load_state_dict(model_data, strict=True, assign=True)
+        model.eval()
+
+        self.model = model
+        self.config = config
+
+        # Load tokenizer
+        from _tokenizer import get_tokenizer
+        self.tokenizer = get_tokenizer(model_dir)
+
+        dt = time.time() - t0
+        print(f"Model loaded in {dt:.1f}s on {device}")
+
+    @modal.fastapi_endpoint(method="POST", docs=True)
+    async def generate(self, request: dict):
+        """
+        Streaming chat endpoint — SSE compatible with samosaChaat format.
+
+        Input: {"messages": [{"role": "user", "content": "..."}], "temperature": 0.8, "max_tokens": 512, "top_k": 50}
+        Output: SSE stream of data: {"token": "...", "gpu": 0} then data: {"done": true}
+        """
+        import torch
+        from fastapi.responses import StreamingResponse
+
+        messages = request.get("messages", [])
+        temperature = min(max(request.get("temperature", 0.8), 0.0), 2.0)
+        max_tokens = min(max(request.get("max_tokens", 512), 1), 2048)
+        top_k = min(max(request.get("top_k", 50), 0), 200)
+
+        # Build token sequence from messages
+        tokens = []
+        bos = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|bos|>")
+        user_start = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|user_start|>")
+        user_end = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|user_end|>")
+        assistant_start = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|assistant_start|>")
+        assistant_end = self.tokenizer.encode_special("<|assistant_end|>")
+
+        tokens.extend(bos)
+        for msg in messages:
+            if msg["role"] == "user":
+                tokens.extend(user_start)
+                tokens.extend(self.tokenizer.encode(msg["content"]))
+                tokens.extend(user_end)
+            elif msg["role"] == "assistant":
+                tokens.extend(assistant_start)
+                tokens.extend(self.tokenizer.encode(msg["content"]))
+                tokens.extend(assistant_end)
+        # Prompt the model to generate an assistant response
+        tokens.extend(assistant_start)
+
+        # Truncate to fit context
+        max_context = self.config.sequence_len - max_tokens
+        if len(tokens) > max_context:
+            tokens = tokens[-max_context:]
+
+        async def stream():
+            input_ids = torch.tensor([tokens], dtype=torch.long, device=self.device)
+
+            with torch.no_grad():
+                generated = []
+                for _ in range(max_tokens):
+                    # Forward pass
+                    logits = self.model(input_ids)
+                    next_logits = logits[:, -1, :]
+
+                    # Temperature
+                    if temperature > 0:
+                        next_logits = next_logits / temperature
+
+                    # Top-k filtering
+                    if top_k > 0:
+                        v, _ = torch.topk(next_logits, min(top_k, next_logits.size(-1)))
+                        next_logits[next_logits < v[:, [-1]]] = float('-inf')
+
+                    # Sample
+                    probs = torch.softmax(next_logits, dim=-1)
+                    next_token = torch.multinomial(probs, num_samples=1)
+
+                    token_id = next_token.item()
+
+                    # Check for stop tokens
+                    if token_id in [t[0] for t in [assistant_end, bos]]:
+                        break
+
+                    # Decode and yield
+                    token_text = self.tokenizer.decode([token_id])
+                    yield f"data: {json.dumps({'token': token_text, 'gpu': 0})}\n\n"
+
+                    # Append for next iteration
+                    input_ids = torch.cat([input_ids, next_token], dim=1)
+
+                    # Truncate if exceeding sequence length
+                    if input_ids.size(1) > self.config.sequence_len:
+                        input_ids = input_ids[:, -self.config.sequence_len:]
+
+            yield f"data: {json.dumps({'done': True})}\n\n"
+
+        return StreamingResponse(
+            stream(),
+            media_type="text/event-stream",
+            headers={
+                "Cache-Control": "no-cache",
+                "Connection": "keep-alive",
+                "X-Accel-Buffering": "no",
+            },
+        )
+
+    @modal.fastapi_endpoint(method="GET", docs=True)
+    def health(self):
+        return {
+            "status": "ok",
+            "model": MODEL_TAG,
+            "gpu": GPU_TYPE,
+            "ready": self.model is not None,
+        }