Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B

# Fix list: Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B

From Anchor Terminal's listing at https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/nemotron-3-nano-30b-a3b, the October 2026 research run, assessed 21 October 2026. Grade B, 67.1 out of 100.

This is everything the published grade says the listing lacks, the biggest possible gain to the total first. It comes from the reason given for each score, the checklist each category was scored against (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist), the provenance checks, the deductions, what we couldn't check and what the review panel asked for. A fix counts at the next check, once it's public.

For a coding agent working on Nemotron 3 Nano 30B A3B: work through the items below in the product, its docs and its public pages. Each category gives the reason for its score, with the points each checklist item earned, and the checklist itself, so the gap is the items that earned less than their points. Change the product, not the wording, and keep a note of what you changed and where it's published.

## 1. Capability, 46 out of 100, up to 18.9 more on the total

Why it scored 46: From 12 independent benchmark results in 5 areas, each scored as its share of the way from the benchmark's floor to the best result any model has on the same leaderboard. By area, Instruction following 86, Coding 63, Reasoning and knowledge 49, Long context 43, Tool calling and agent tasks 18. Publisher-submitted results count at half weight, and numbers that appear only on the publisher's card don't count.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-capability):

How well the model does on the benchmarks that matter to an agent. We don't average a publisher's own numbers into a grade. A result counts in full when we ran it on our reference machine, or when an independent party ran it and published the method (the Berkeley Function Calling Leaderboard, Artificial Analysis, Epoch AI's Benchmarking Hub, the SWE-bench and Terminal-Bench leaderboards, the Open ASR Leaderboard and others that run models themselves). A result the publisher submitted to such a leaderboard counts at half weight. A number that appears only on the publisher's card is shown on the listing as the publisher's claim and doesn't count.

Each result is scored as its share of the way from the benchmark's floor (chance for multiple choice, zero for a pass rate) to the best result any model, open or closed, has on the same leaderboard and setting on the day we read it. A model that matches the best model anywhere scores 100 on that benchmark. For an error rate such as word error rate, lower is better and the scale runs the other way, and where the leaderboard gives no floor the rate is read against the best model's, so twice the best model's error rate scores 50. Speed as a multiple of real time (RTFx) runs from about 1 to over 20,000, so it's read on a log scale from real time to the fastest model. On the MTEB leaderboard, where most models score between 0.5 and 0.75, the floor is the median of every model the same tab lists, and its results count at half weight because MTEB doesn't say who ran them and most are submitted with the model. An arena rating (Elo) isn't a ratio, so its floor is 400 points below the best model on that arena, the gap at which the better model wins about ten games in eleven. Where a model has results at several settings (reasoning effort, say), its best one counts, because that's the setting an agent would run.

The results group into areas, each weighted within the category.

- Tool calling and agent tasks, 35 (BFCL, τ²-bench, Terminal-Bench and agent suites like them)
- Coding, 20 (SWE-bench Verified, LiveCodeBench, Aider Polyglot)
- Reasoning and knowledge, 20 (GPQA Diamond, MMLU-Pro, Humanity's Last Exam, composite indexes that publish their components)
- Instruction following, 15 (IFEval, IFBench)
- Long context, 10 (RULER, LongBench and long-context retrieval tests)

A speech model is read on its own areas, recognition accuracy (word error rate on the Open ASR Leaderboard's sets, 60) and speed (real-time factor, 40) for speech to text, and intelligibility and speaker similarity (Seed-TTS-eval, the Open TTS Leaderboard, 70) and speed (30) for text to speech. A publisher's own converted copy of the same weights (Qwen's -hf builds, say) counts as the same checkpoint. An embedding model is read on retrieval (60) and the other MTEB task types, classification, clustering, reranking and similarity among them (40), from the MTEB leaderboard. A vision model adds an image area (MMMU, ChartQA, DocVQA or OCRBench) at 20, and the others shrink to fit.

Capability is the weighted mean of the areas with results, and needs results in at least two areas (one for a speech or embedding model). With less than that it's pending for that listing, its weight is shared across the other four, and the total is capped at 61, so a model nobody has benchmarked independently can't reach B, and every model with results ranked B or better stays above it. The listing says so. Until 21 October 2026 the cap was 69, which put models nobody had benchmarked above ones that had been.

## 2. Risk, 60 out of 100, up to 8 more on the total

Why it scored 60: File safety earns 15, safetensors only but with the documented serving path passing trust-remote-code and loading a reasoning parser file from the repository. Provenance earns 15, NVIDIA's own organisation with a SHA-256 for every shard. Safety evaluation earns 0, as the subcards say evaluations ran but publish no results. Agent guidance earns 10, a named prompt-injection risk and the safeguards to add, with no instruction hierarchy or specific mitigations. Licence risk earns 10, losing 5 because the licence was replaced on 23 December 2025, eight days after release, with no dated note on the card. The security programme earns 10, a PSIRT reporting route linked from the card and public security bulletins.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-risk):

What could go wrong when you run it, and what the publisher has done about it. A higher score means less risk.

- 0 to 25, file safety. 25 for weights in safetensors or GGUF only, 15 when pickle files (.bin, .pt, .pth) sit beside them, 0 for pickle only. 10 off when the documented way to load it or to build its prompts runs code from the repository (`trust_remote_code`, or the publisher's scripts in place of a template).
- 0 to 15, provenance. 10 when the files come from the publisher's own organisation, the one its site or docs link to, and 5 for a checksum on every file.
- 0 to 20, safety evaluation. 20 when results are published and someone other than the publisher ran them or can rerun them, 10 for the publisher's own results, 0 for none.
- 0 to 15, guidance for agent use. 15 for documented prompt-injection guidance or an instruction hierarchy the model was trained to follow, 10 for a statement of what its trained refusals cover and the safeguards to add around it, 5 for general cautions, 0 for none.
- 0 to 15, licence risk. 15 to start, 5 off for each of these, a use policy or field-of-use limits beyond the law, terms the licensor can change or revoke, a revenue or user threshold, and a licence that changed without a dated note or whose link is broken. Not below 0.
- 0 to 10, a security programme. 5 for a way to report a flaw (security.txt, a disclosure policy or a security contact), 5 for advisories handled in public.

When our reference-machine runs start, measured robustness (prompt injection with AgentDojo, over-refusal with XSTest) joins Risk.

## 3. Reach, 90 out of 100, up to 2.5 more on the total

Why it scored 90: Memory earns 25 because the smallest 4-bit build is Ollama's NVFP4 MLX build at 18 GB, 21.6 GB with the fifth added, and NVIDIA's own NVFP4 build lands in the same 24 GB band. Runtimes earn the full 25, with released llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang, LM Studio and Transformers all running it. Builds earn 15 for NVIDIA's own FP8 and NVFP4 builds. Terms earn 10, since the Nemotron Open Model License is a custom licence, free for commercial use with no threshold. Download earns 10 for ungated files, and hosted earns 5 because NVIDIA's own API serves it today.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-reach):

Whether an agent can run it, and where.

- 0 to 30, memory. The smallest build from the publisher or a runtime's own library that keeps 4-bit precision or better, at its file size plus a fifth for the runtime and a working context. 30 for 16 GB or less, 25 for 24 GB, 20 for 32 GB, 15 for 64 GB, 10 for what fits our reference machine (the GPU share of 128 GB of unified memory), 5 for 256 GB, 0 above.
- 0 to 25, runtimes. 5 for each of llama.cpp, Ollama, vLLM, SGLang, LM Studio and Hugging Face Transformers that runs the architecture in a released version, from the runtime's own code, library or documentation. A publisher's fork or an unreleased branch doesn't count. 25 at most.
- 0 to 15, builds from the publisher. 15 for quantised builds at two precisions or more (FP8, 4-bit, GGUF), 10 for one, 0 when only other people's quantisations exist.
- 0 to 15, terms of use. 15 for an OSI-approved licence with nothing added, 10 for a custom licence that lets anyone use it commercially for free below a threshold or under a use policy, 5 for research or non-commercial use only, 0 for no licence or unclear terms.
- 0 to 10, download. 10 when the files download with no account and no terms to accept, 5 for a click-through that needs an account, 0 when a person approves each request.
- 5, hosted too. The publisher's own API serves it, or at least two inference providers do, so an agent without the hardware can still call it.

When our reference-machine runs start, speed on that machine (tokens per second and time to first token at the build that fits) joins Reach.

## 4. Documentation and upkeep, 75 out of 100, up to 2.5 more on the total

Why it scored 75: The model card earns 20, with all seven items on the card and its subcards. Training data earns 20, datasets listed with sources and token counts, both cut-offs, the filtering, and much of the data released, though some synthetic sets don't give a size. The last change earns 15, a README edit on 24 August 2026, 58 days ago. Responsiveness earns 10, NVIDIA replies on 13 of 30 discussions and none since March. Version policy earns 5 for a first release with no dated notes. File health earns 5, the files agree but reports on the template with tools and the cache wait for a reply.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-upkeep):

- 0 to 20, the model card. Intended use, limitations, architecture, parameters, context length, languages and knowledge cut-off. 20 for all seven, 3 off for each that's missing.
- 0 to 20, training data. 20 for the data published or listed with sources and sizes, 15 for a data card that names the sources or the mix, the cut-off and the filtering, 10 for a general description with a cut-off, 5 without one, 0 for none.
- 0 to 20, the last change to the files, the template or the reference code. 20 within 30 days, 15 within 90, 10 within 180, 5 within a year, 0 older.
- 0 to 20, responsiveness. The publisher's replies to the 40 most recent questions and reports in the repository's discussions or issues. 20 for most, 10 for some, 5 for a few, 0 for none.
- 0 to 10, version policy. 10 for earlier versions kept in their own repositories with a dated note when one is replaced, 5 for earlier versions kept without notes or a first release, 0 when files were replaced in place without a note.
- 0 to 10, file health. 10 when config, tokenizer, template and card agree and no report of a broken file waits without a reply, 5 when one does, 0 when the files contradict the card.

## 5. Agent interface, 90 out of 100, up to 1 more on the total

Why it scored 90: The chat template earns 20 as a Jinja file in the repository. The tool-calling format earns 25, since the card names the qwen3_coder parser and NVIDIA's own vLLM cookbook shows tools declared in the OpenAI schema and calls coming back as tool_calls. Trained tool calling earns 20, multi-step tool use in training and several calls to a turn in the template. Structured output earns 5, a claim of structured output training with no way to ask for JSON. Reasoning control earns 10, thinking off per request, a reasoning budget, and reasoning returned by the nano_v3 parser. Context earns 10 for 1M tokens with no scaling.

The checklist (https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/#checklist-interface):

What a model and a developer need to talk to it. Speech, image and other models with no chat interface read the tool-calling and structured-output lines for what the model takes and returns (voices, timestamps, streaming, typed outputs), and the note says how.

- 0 to 20, the chat template. 20 for a template in the repository (Jinja, in the tokenizer config or its own file), 10 when the prompt format is only given as code you run.
- 0 to 25, the tool-calling format. 25 when the publisher documents how tools are declared and how calls come back, with the parser to use in a named runtime, 10 when only the template or a runtime's own recipe says it.
- 0 to 20, tool calling the model was trained for. 20 with several calls in one turn, 10 for one call at a time.
- 0 to 15, structured output. 15 when JSON or JSON Schema output is documented for the model with how to ask for it, 5 when the card claims it without saying how.
- 10, reasoning control. Thinking that can be turned off or budgeted per request, with where the reasoning text comes back.
- 0 to 10, context. 10 for 128K tokens or more trained, 5 for 32K to 127K. Context reached only by scaling the position encoding counts one band down.

## What we couldn't check

What we couldn't read counted as absent. Publishing it on a page a plain HTTP fetch can read (not only in a browser) lets the next check count it.

- Responsiveness rests on the research agent's count of 30 discussions on 21 October 2026. Discussion 70 (24 August 2026) is the newest, so the count wasn't redone
- Last change counts a README edit on 24 August 2026. If card edits didn't count, the last change to the files or model code would be 20 February 2026 and the line would drop to 5
- Training data is read at 20 because much of the data is released, though several synthetic sets give no size. A stricter reader could give 15
- Agent guidance sits between 10 and 15, a named prompt-injection risk with safeguards to add but no instruction hierarchy or concrete mitigations
- Unchecked, whether a released SGLang accepts the card's --reasoning-parser nano_v3; its main branch registers nemotron_3
- NVIDIA's API serves it as nvidia/nemotron-nano-3-30b-a3b, but there is no listing for NVIDIA's API catalogue, so no sameModel is set

## Weaknesses

- The documented vLLM, SGLang and TensorRT-LLM commands pass trust-remote-code and load a parser file from the repository
- No safety or bias results published, though the subcards say both were run
- No NVIDIA reply on any of the 10 discussions opened since 1 March 2026, including a chat-template report
- Licence replaced eight days after release with no dated note, and the subcards still link the old one
- Structured output isn't documented, and the custom licence isn't OSI-approved

## What costs an agent a turn today

The notes we give agents before they call it. Each one is a workaround an agent shouldn't need.

- Start it with `ollama run nemotron-3-nano:30b` (18 GB MLX on a Mac, 24 GB q4_K_M elsewhere)
- On the reference machine use BF16 with vLLM, after `wget https://huggingface.co/nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-BF16/resolve/main/nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py`, then `vllm serve nvidia/NVIDIA-Nemotron-3-Nano-30B-A3B-BF16 --max-model-len 262144 --trust-remote-code --enable-auto-tool-choice --tool-call-parser qwen3_coder --reasoning-parser-plugin nano_v3_reasoning_parser.py --reasoning-parser nano_v3`
- NVFP4 needs an NVIDIA Blackwell GPU, and FP8 isn't documented on gfx1151
- Without the qwen3_coder tool parser and the nano_v3 reasoning parser, tool calls and reasoning come back as plain text
- Card sampling is temperature 0.6 and top_p 0.95 for tool calling, temperature 1.0 and top_p 1.0 for reasoning
- Thinking is on by default, so pass enable_thinking as false in chat_template_kwargs for short tasks
- Set VLLM_ALLOW_LONG_MAX_MODEL_LEN=1 and raise --max-model-len only when you need more than 262,144 tokens
- In SGLang the main branch names the reasoning parser nemotron_3, not the card's nano_v3
- Filter untrusted tool results before they reach the model, as NVIDIA warns prompt injection can lead to code execution
- Validate JSON output yourself or use the runtime's guided decoding, since none is documented for the model

## What the review panel asked for

- update the parser name
- dated release notes
- memory figures per build
- a JSON Schema output example
- publish content-safety results
- a parser in released vLLM

## When it's done

Send what changed and where it's published as a dispute (https://www.anchorterminal.com/builders/#disputes, or `POST https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/contact` with `"kind": "dispute"`). Disputes are answered in public, and the listing is checked again by the same checklist. Paying for an audit or a listing claim changes nothing here.