Safetensors
File format for model weights designed to avoid arbitrary code execution.
Overview
Safetensors stores tensors in a format that can be memory-mapped and read without executing anything, unlike frameworks that deserialise weights by running code. It solves a security problem and a performance one: loading a checkpoint should not be able to run arbitrary code, and it should not require reading the whole file into memory first. It exists because model weights are now downloaded from public hubs at a volume where both matter.
Technology Graph
How Safetensors connects to the rest of the stack.
Applied to
- Inference concept Infrastructure Safetensors used for Inference High ✓ source
Tools
Software that implements or integrates with Safetensors.