Probing the Prompt KV Cache: Where It Becomes Dispensable
Prior KV cache compression schemes empirically demonstrate that the prompt cache is partially redundant during decoding, dropping or summarising entries with little accuracy loss. We ask when and what kind of redundancy: at which layers, after how many decoding steps, and in what form can the prompt span KV cache be replaced without breaking the task. A controlled splice intervention swept over layer cutoff and decoding steps shows this redundancy is about form (chat template scaffolding) rather than content. Replacing the upper layer prompt span KV cache with KV cache from a chat template scaffold whose user content is a neutral filler recovers near clean accuracy, while zeroing the same...
| Authors | Vinayshekhar Bannihatti Kumar, Manoj Ghuhan Arivazhagan, Disha Makhija et al. |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CL |
| Published | 28 May 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 28 May 2026 |
Silytics shows public metadata from arXiv and links to the original. Information may be incomplete or out of date. Last refreshed 17 October 2026. Licenses and terms of the original apply to the work itself. Not financial, legal or professional advice.