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Level Zero Validation Layer

Introduction

The Level Zero driver implementations by design do minimal error checking and do not guard against invalid API programming.

The Level Zero Validation layer is intended to be the primary Level Zero API error handling mechanism. The validation layer can be enabled at runtime with environment settings. When validation layer is enabled, L0 loader will inject calls to validation layer into L0 API DDI tables. When validation layer is not enabled, it is completely removed from the call path and has no performance cost.

Usage

The validation layer is built into a shared library named libze_validation_layer.so or ze_validation_layer.dll. This library must be in your library search path.

The validation layer can be enabled at runtime by setting ZE_ENABLE_VALIDATION_LAYER=1

Level Zero Loader will read this environment settings when either zeInit or zesInit is called and set up the DDI function pointer tables accordingly.

By default, no validation modes will be enabled. The individual validation modes must be enabled with the following environment settings:

  • ZE_ENABLE_PARAMETER_VALIDATION
  • ZE_ENABLE_HANDLE_LIFETIME
  • ZEL_ENABLE_EVENTS_CHECKER
  • ZEL_ENABLE_BASIC_LEAK_CHECKER
  • ZE_ENABLE_THREADING_VALIDATION (Not yet Implemented)
  • ZEL_ENABLE_CERTIFICATION_CHECKER
  • ZEL_ENABLE_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_TRACKER_CHECKER

Validation Modes

ZE_ENABLE_PARAMETER_VALIDATION

Parameter Validation mode maintains no internal state. It performs the following checks on each API before calling into driver:

  • Non-optional input pointers must not be nullptr
  • Non-optional input handles must not be 0
  • Input flags must only have valid flag values set
  • Input enums values must not be greater than max defined value
  • (Planned) stype must be set to a valid ze_structure_type_t for struct
  • (Planned) pNext must be nullptr or point to a valid extension struct

If a check fails, the appropriate error code is returned and the driver API is not called.

ZE_ENABLE_HANDLE_LIFETIME

This mode maintains an internal mapping of each handle type to a state structure.

  • When handle is created it is added to map
  • When handle is destroyed it is removed from map
  • When application inputs a handle it is validated
  • validates handles are properly destroyed
  • Additional per handle state checks added as needed
    • Example - Check ze_cmdlist_handle_t open or closed

ZEL_ENABLE_EVENTS_CHECKER

The Events Checker validates usage of events.

  • It is designed to detect potential deadlocks that might occur due to improper event usage in the Level Zero API. It prints out warning messages for user when it detects a potential deadlock.
  • In some cases it may also detect whether an event is being used more than once without being reset. Consider a case in which a single event is signaled from twice.

ZEL_ENABLE_BASIC_LEAK_CHECKER

Basic leak checker in the validation layer which tracks the Create and Destroy calls for a given handle type and reports if a create/destroy is missing.

    #### Sample Output

    ```
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
                   zeContextCreate = 1     \--->        zeContextDestroy = 1
              zeCommandQueueCreate = 1     \--->   zeCommandQueueDestroy = 1
                    zeModuleCreate = 1     \--->         zeModuleDestroy = 1
                    zeKernelCreate = 1     \--->         zeKernelDestroy = 1
                 zeEventPoolCreate = 1     \--->      zeEventPoolDestroy = 1
      zeCommandListCreateImmediate = 1     |
               zeCommandListCreate = 1     \--->    zeCommandListDestroy = 1  ---> LEAK = 1
                     zeEventCreate = 2     \--->          zeEventDestroy = 2
                     zeFenceCreate = 1     \--->          zeFenceDestroy = 1
                     zeImageCreate = 0     \--->          zeImageDestroy = 0
                   zeSamplerCreate = 0     \--->        zeSamplerDestroy = 0
                  zeMemAllocDevice = 0     |
                    zeMemAllocHost = 1     |
                  zeMemAllocShared = 0     \--->               zeMemFree = 1
    ```

ZE_ENABLE_THREADING_VALIDATION (Not yet Implemeneted)

Validates:

  • Objects are not concurrently reused in free-threaded API calls

ZEL_ENABLE_CERTIFICATION_CHECKER

When this mode is enabled, the certification checker validates API usage against the version supported by the driver or an explicitly specified version. If an API is used that was introduced in a version higher than the supported version, the checker will return ZE_RESULT_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_VERSION.

ZEL_ENABLE_PERFORMANCE_CHECKER

When this mode is enabled, the performance checker validates API usage against known performance best practices. It can be used to identify potential performance issues in an application and provide recommendations for improvement. To enable use following environment variable:

export ZEL_ENABLE_PERFORMANCE_CHECKER=1
export ZEL_ENABLE_LOADER_LOGGING=1
export ZE_ENABLE_VALIDATION_LAYER=1
export ZEL_LOADER_LOG_CONSOLE=1 # Optional: enable console logging for immediate feedback

Currently checked things:

  • check whether created immediate command lists are not synchrnous
  • check whether created immediate command lists are using in order queues
  • check whether in order command lists are using copy offload

ZEL_ENABLE_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_TRACKER_CHECKER (Linux Only)

The System Resource Tracker monitors both Level Zero API resources and system resources in real-time. It tracks:

  • L0 Resources: Contexts, command queues, modules, kernels, event pools, command lists, events, fences, images, samplers, and memory allocations
  • System Metrics: Virtual memory (VmSize, VmRSS, VmData, VmPeak), thread count, file descriptors
  • Deltas: Resource changes for each API call
  • Cumulative Totals: Running summaries of all resource types

The tracker can log to the Level Zero debug log and optionally export data to CSV for graphing and analysis:

export ZE_ENABLE_VALIDATION_LAYER=1
export ZEL_ENABLE_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_TRACKER_CHECKER=1
export ZEL_SYSTEM_RESOURCE_TRACKER_CSV=tracker_output.csv  # Optional: enable CSV export
export ZEL_ENABLE_LOADER_LOGGING=1
export ZEL_LOADER_LOGGING_LEVEL=debug

CSV Output Features:

  • Per-process unique filenames (PID appended automatically)
  • 22 columns of metrics including timestamps, system resources, L0 resource counts, and deltas
  • Atomic line writes for thread safety
  • Companion Python plotting script (scripts/plot_resource_tracker.py) for visualization

Use Cases:

  • Performance analysis and memory leak detection
  • Resource lifecycle tracking and optimization
  • Debugging and benchmarking
  • CI/CD integration for automated resource monitoring

Platform Support: This checker is Linux-only and uses /proc/self/status for system metrics. It is automatically excluded from Windows and macOS builds.

See System Resource Tracker documentation for detailed usage and CSV format.

Testing

There is a small set of negative test cases designed to test the validation layer in the level zero tests repo.

It is desired to add new unit tests directly into validation layer repo that executes with null driver and does not have additional dependencies. Help Wanted!

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING for more information.