Practical overview
When it fits
Use it when working in JAX and Penzai to inspect or study supported Gemma models, especially Gemma 3 vision and multimodal components, through the provided notebook examples.
Who it is for
- Researchers investigating the internal behavior of Gemma models.
- Developers building notebook-based interpretability workflows for documented Gemma vision and multimodal components.
Documented uses
- Visualize and manipulate supported Gemma model structures.
- Explore Gemma 3 vision transformers, vision encoders and language-model backbones.
- Follow notebook tutorials on attention sinks, logit lens and Gemma Scope.
- Experiment with the documented multimodal attention-mask implementation and decoding algorithms.
Requirements & limits
The repository is public and licensed under Apache-2.0. Its setup instructions require installing JAX with TPU support before installing the package.
- The toolkit is built around JAX and Penzai, so it suits workflows using that ecosystem.
- The README documents Gemma support, including Gemma 3 vision and multimodal extensions; support for other model families is not established.
- The repository includes notebooks for basic Gemma 3 use and selected interpretability topics.
Check current requirements in the official documentation. Source-based guidance does not mean OpenViST has run or independently tested this project.
Install Gemma Penzai for notebook exploration
Prepare the package and its documented imports for use in a Colab or IPython notebook.
Before you start
- JAX installed with TPU support; installation instructions depend on platform.
- A Python environment for installing the package.
- Colab or IPython if following the optional interactive Treescope setup.
Steps
Install JAX with TPU support using the JAX documentation for your platform.
Clone the Gemma Penzai repository and change into its directory.
Upgrade pip, then install the package in editable mode.
Import Penzai and the package's mllm and vision modules; in Colab or IPython, optionally configure Treescope with basic_interactive_setup(autovisualize_arrays=True).
Expected outcome
The package and its documented modules are installed for notebook-based work, with optional interactive array visualization configured.
Guide limitations
- JAX installation steps vary by platform.
- Installation alone does not establish model execution or compatibility beyond the Gemma support described in the README.
Explore the provided Gemma and interpretability notebooks
Use the repository's notebooks as a starting point for examining supported Gemma 3 and multimodal components.
Before you start
- The Gemma Penzai repository and its notebooks.
- A notebook environment prepared for the package.
Steps
Open notebooks in the repository's notebooks directory for basic Gemma 3 usage, including the multimodal case.
Use the notebooks in notebooks/mech_interp to follow the provided attention-sink or logit-lens tutorials.
Consult the included Gemma Scope 1 and 2 tutorials for the documented interpretability material.
Expected outcome
A guided starting point for exploring Gemma 3, multimodal usage and selected mechanistic interpretability topics.
Guide limitations
- The README identifies tutorials and notebook topics but does not establish compatibility with models beyond those documented.
Sources & review
Source record details
- Source availability
- Active
- Sources checked
- 15 October 2026
- Original website title
- google-deepmind/gemma_penzai · Official homepage title · retained in its source language