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Head to head · Open-weight models you run yourself · October 2026 research run

Inkling 2 Small vs North Mini Code 1.0

North Mini Code 1.0 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Inkling 2 Small leads on risk and documentation and upkeep. Both do open-weight models you run yourself.

Best open-weight models you download and run yourself for AI agents · All 6472 open weights comparisons

Inkling 2 SmallThinking Machines Lab · Open-weight model C58.8/100#102 of 161 open-weight models North Mini Code 1.0Cohere · Open-weight model C61/100#80 of 161 open-weight models

Which one, for what

Inkling 2 Small C

Best for Teams with 512 GB or more of datacentre GPU memory who want Thinking Machines' newest open multimodal agent model and can run a runtime's pre-release image.

Ahead on

  • Risk, 65 against 60
  • Documentation and upkeep, 67 against 36

Watch for

The smaller checkpoint needs about 472 GB, and Thinking Machines says 500 GB of GPU memory

North Mini Code 1.0 C

Best for Developers who want a coding agent on their own GPU with a permissive licence

Ahead on

  • Reach, 85 against 40

Watch for

No limitations, safety results, languages or data description on the card

Why the edge

Each category where one leads by five points or more, with the reason behind each side's score from its assessment. The numbers are in the table below; this is what they stand for.

Reach North Mini Code 1.0 +45

Inkling 2 Small 40

Memory 0 of 30, the smallest build is Thinking Machines' NVFP4 checkpoint at 393.5 GB, about 472 GB with a fifth added, above the 256 GB line. Runtimes 0, no released version of the six runs it; vLLM and SGLang serve it from their own images and Transformers has it on its main branch only. Builds 15, two precisions from the publisher (NVFP4 and MXFP8). Terms 10, Apache 2.0 with a binding acceptable use policy on top, read as a custom licence. Download 10, no gate. Hosted 5, Thinking Machines' own Tinker serves it as beta serverless inference, and Together is live on Hugging Face. 0 + 0 + 15 + 10 + 10 + 5 = 40.

North Mini Code 1.0 85

Memory 25, the smallest build from Cohere is the w4a16 repository, 19.38 GB, and 19.38 GB × 1.2 = 23.3 GB, within 24 GB. Unsloth's GGUF isn't read for this line. Runtimes 20, Released vLLM 0.33.0, SGLang 0.5.23 and Transformers 5.22.2 have the cohere2_moe model, and llama.cpp b12242 has the cohere2moe architecture. Builds 15, Quantised builds from Cohere at two precisions, FP8 and 4-bit weights (w4a16), each in its own repository. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the metadata and on the card, an OSI licence with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for the model and its builds on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 0, Hugging Face maps no inference provider to it. 25 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 0 = 85.

Documentation and upkeep Inkling 2 Small +31

Inkling 2 Small 67

Model card 17 of 20, everything but a dated knowledge cut-off. Training data 15, an EU training-content summary with sources, mix, an October 2026 collection cut-off and filtering. Last change 20, the files were uploaded on 12 November 2026. Responsiveness 0, the repository has no questions yet, which reads as none answered. Version policy 5, a first release. File health 10, the files agree and no broken-file report waits. 17 + 15 + 20 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 67.

North Mini Code 1.0 36

Model card 11, Intended use, the architecture, the parameters and the context are on the card. Training data 0, the card gives the training method and nothing about the data. Last change 10, the main repository last changed on 15 June 2026 (outdated chat templates removed), 148 days before this check, and the draft model's repository on 29 July, 104 days. Responsiveness 0, none of the 11 most recent discussions that aren't pull requests (7 June to 6 November 2026) has a reply from a CohereLabs member, counted on 10 November by author flags and dates with a script, text not read. Version policy 5, A first release, with each build in its own repository. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture, and the June commit that removed broken templates says so. 11 + 0 + 10 + 0 + 5 + 10 = 36.

Risk Inkling 2 Small +5

Inkling 2 Small 65

File safety 25, safetensors only and no repository code to run. Provenance 15, the files are in the organisation Thinking Machines links to, with a SHA-256 on every LFS file. Safety evaluation 10, Thinking Machines' own StrongREJECT, FORTRESS, HoneyBench and DistressBench results and described outside red-teaming, but nothing an outside party published or a harness to rerun. Agent guidance 5, the card names safeguards to add but doesn't say what its refusals cover, with nothing on prompt injection. Licence risk 5, 10 off for a use policy that reaches beyond the law and that can change at any time. Security programme 5, a security.txt and a disclosure policy, with public advisories unchecked and scored as absent. 25 + 15 + 10 + 5 + 5 + 5 = 65.

North Mini Code 1.0 60

File safety 25, safetensors only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in the repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in Cohere's verified CohereLabs organisation, which cohere.com links to per our other Cohere listings (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 0, the card has no limitations or safety section, and nothing on prompt injection, instruction priority or what the model refuses. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 has no use policy, threshold or change clause. Security programme 5, Cohere's trust centre holds a responsible disclosure policy with a bug bounty, as recorded on our Cohere listings (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 0 + 15 + 5 = 60.

Score by category

CategoryWeight this runInkling 2 SmallNorth Mini Code 1.0Edge
Capability35%pendingpendingpendingnot scored in this run
Reach25%254085North Mini Code 1.0 +45
Risk20%206560Inkling 2 Small +5
Agent interface10%108585even
Documentation and upkeep10%106736Inkling 2 Small +31
Negative events≤1500
TotalC 58.8/100C 61/100

Facts side by side

FactInkling 2 SmallNorth Mini Code 1.0
KindOpen-weight modelOpen-weight model
VendorThinking Machines LabCohere
Hosted endpointno (local only)no (local only)
Transports
AuthNoneNone
PricingFreeFree
x402nono
LicenceApache-2.0Apache-2.0
Read-only variant documentednono
llms.txtnono
Last release2026-11-122026-07-29
Terms last updatedno document linkedno document linked
Privacy policy last updatedno document linkedno document linked

How the scores have moved

Inkling 2 Small

North Mini Code 1.0

No score change since it was listed.

Verdicts

Inkling 2 Small

Thinking Machines' newest open model, a 594B mixture-of-experts generalist with images in, several tool calls a turn and per-request thinking effort. The NVFP4 checkpoint needs about 472 GB, and no released runtime runs it yet, so today that means vLLM's or SGLang's own images, or Tinker and Together hosted. The use policy binds on download and can change.

North Mini Code 1.0

A coding agent model that fits one 24 GB GPU at 4 bits, trained for tool use, with a 256K context, Apache 2.0 and four released runtimes. It's a research release and reads like one: nothing on limitations, safety or data, the card's run instructions are out of date, and Cohere hasn't answered a question on the repository.

Before you call either

Inkling 2 Small

  1. No released runtime runs it yet. Serve the NVFP4 checkpoint from SGLang's dev-inkling-2-small image with the cookbook's recipe for your hardware, or from vLLM's vllm/vllm-openai:inkling-2-small image
  2. In vLLM pass --reasoning-parser inkling --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser inkling. In SGLang the tool-call parser is inkling2 and the reasoning parser inkling
  3. Transformers' main branch loads only thinkingmachines/Inkling-2-Small-MXFP8, the 622.8 GB checkpoint, and no release has the code yet
  4. Pass reasoning_effort as none, minimal, low, medium, high (the default), xhigh or max, or a number from 0 to 0.99
  5. Effort none conditions the model toward no reasoning but doesn't forbid it, and higher effort needs a larger max_tokens
  6. Tool call arguments must reach the template as an object, not a JSON string, or it raises an error
  7. Images should be 40 to 4096 px a side. The model takes no audio, and the template raises an error for an audio part
  8. Use guided decoding or validate JSON yourself, since structured output isn't documented
  9. Without the hardware, call it on Tinker's OpenAI-compatible endpoint with a Tinker key, at $0.30 input and $1.00 output per million tokens as read on 6 November 2026
  10. Read the Model Acceptable Use Policy before deploying, it binds on download and bars some uses that are legal

North Mini Code 1.0

  1. Serve it with vLLM 0.33.0 or later and --tool-call-parser cohere_command4 --reasoning-parser cohere_command4 --enable-auto-tool-choice, with cohere_melody installed
  2. Pass the model's thinking back with its tool calls on every turn. The card says results drop without it
  3. Describe tools in JSON schema and append tool results as a dictionary with the tool role
  4. Use temperature 1.0 and top_p 0.95
  5. For llama.cpp the GGUF files are Unsloth's or bartowski's conversions, not Cohere's
  6. It's text only. Don't send images

Questions

Which is better for AI agents, Inkling 2 Small or North Mini Code 1.0?

North Mini Code 1.0 scores 61 (C) on agent readiness against Inkling 2 Small's 58.8 (C), and leads in 1 of 4 scored categories. Inkling 2 Small leads on risk and documentation and upkeep.

Other comparisons with Inkling 2 Small or North Mini Code 1.0

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