Keural Cortex Foundation Model (8B) — v1.0

Keural Cortex is MKD's local-first Korean-English language-model program for Keural applications. This release is an 8B-parameter, instruction- and preference-aligned checkpoint with a structured tool-calling layer for enterprise workflows.

It is designed to run in customer-controlled infrastructure through an OpenAI-compatible vLLM endpoint. The host application—not the model—executes tools, enforces permissions, retrieves live data, and owns user data handling.

Release status: Public v1.0. Evaluate on your own data, workflows, safety requirements, and target serving configuration before production deployment.

introduction

English. Keural Cortex is a locally deployable AI foundation-model capability built for Korean-English enterprise interaction. It combines efficient 8B-scale inference, controllable OpenAI-compatible serving, and structured tool-call generation so that Keural can connect users to approved enterprise workflows while retaining application-level control of data, permissions, and execution.

한국어. Keural Cortex는 한국어·영어 기반의 엔터프라이즈 AI 상호작용을 위해 설계된 로컬 배포형 파운데이션 모델 역량입니다. 8B 규모의 효율적인 추론, OpenAI 호환 서빙, 구조화된 Tool Call 생성을 결합하여 Keural이 승인된 업무 워크플로와 연동할 수 있도록 지원합니다. 데이터·권한·실행 통제는 모델이 아닌 Keural 애플리케이션 계층에서 관리합니다.

Key strengths

Model details

Verified serving smoke tests

The following were verified through vLLM's OpenAI-compatible API in the release environment:

• Plain Korean chat returned a direct answer without emitting a tool call.
• A current-information request generated a structured search_web call.
• An exhaustive document request generated retrieve_documents with exhaustive: true.
• An underspecified revision request generated ask_clarification with a question and checklist.

These are smoke tests, not a substitute for domain-specific benchmarking or safety evaluation.

Quick start: vLLM

vllm serve <MODEL_PATH> \
  --served-model-name keural-cortex-8b-v1.0 \
  --tool-call-parser hermes \
  --enable-auto-tool-choice

For text-only chat, send a normal OpenAI Chat Completions request without tools or tool_choice. For agent workflows, provide only the tools your application authorizes, validate all tool arguments server-side, and execute calls outside the model process.

Example tool contract

{
  "type": "function",
  "function": {
    "name": "retrieve_documents",
    "description": "Search content in the user's available documents.",
    "parameters": {
      "type": "object",
      "properties": {
        "query": {"type": "string"},
        "file_ids": {"type": "array", "items": {"type": "string"}},
        "exhaustive": {"type": "boolean"}
      },
      "required": ["query"]
    }
  }
}

Limitations and responsible use

• Outputs can be inaccurate, incomplete, or inconsistent across prompts and serving configurations. Verify important information.
• The model has no inherent live-web access, private-document access, or authority to take external actions. These capabilities must be supplied and governed by the host application.
• Tool calls are model suggestions. Validate schemas, authorization, user intent, and side effects before execution.
• Do not use this preview as the sole basis for high-stakes medical, legal, financial, safety, employment, credit, or access-control decisions.

Certification, license, and attribution

Certification note. Keural Cortex Foundation Model (8B) v1.0 is based on Qwen3-8B-Base and is released under Apache-2.0. Please retain applicable upstream notices and comply with the license terms.

Citation

@misc{keural-cortex-8b-v1.0,
  title={Keural Cortex Foundation Model (8B) — v1.0},
  author={MKD AI},
  year={2026},
  publisher={Hugging Face}
}