Open Your First Model
This walks through opening a checkpoint for the first time, from launching Tensormorph to seeing a populated model tree. By the end, you'll have a model loaded and ready to explore in Explore a Model Architecture.
What you'll need
Any model checkpoint Tensormorph reads - a local safetensors file is the simplest starting point, but a Hugging Face Hub model reference or an ONNX graph both work the same way.
Steps
- From the command palette (
Ctrl+P), run Open Model - or use File → Open Model from the menu. - Choose a local file, or paste a Hub-style reference (
org/modelororg/model@revision). - Tensormorph reads the checkpoint's header first - for a safetensors file, this is a single small read, so the model tree populates before any weight bytes are downloaded or loaded, even for a very large checkpoint.
- The Outliner on the left fills in with the model's structure, and the Architecture view opens showing the whole model at once.
If you can see your model's layers listed in the Outliner and a 3D structure in the Architecture view, you've opened your first model successfully.
What just happened
Opening a checkpoint reads it into the Semantic Model Graph using a ModelAdapter matched to its architecture (or the fallback adapter, if none matches) - this is what turns a flat file into a navigable, addressable tree rather than an opaque blob.
Next step
Continue to Explore a Model Architecture to navigate the model you just opened.
Related resources
- Safetensors - why the model tree appears before weights finish loading.
- Model, Architecture, Layer and Module - what the Outliner and Architecture view are actually showing you.