cpython/Doc/howto/free-threading-python.rst

.. _freethreading-python-howto:

*********************************
Python support for free threading
*********************************

Starting with the 3.13 release, CPython has support for a build of
Python called :term:`free threading` where the :term:`global interpreter lock`
(GIL) is disabled.  Free-threaded execution allows for full utilization of the
available processing power by running threads in parallel on available CPU cores.
While not all software will benefit from this automatically, programs
designed with threading in mind will run faster on multi-core hardware.

Some third-party packages, in particular ones
with an :term:`extension module`, may not be ready for use in a
free-threaded build, and will re-enable the :term:`GIL`.

This document describes the implications of free threading
for Python code.  See :ref:`freethreading-extensions-howto` for information on
how to write C extensions that support the free-threaded build.

.. seealso::

   :pep:`703` – Making the Global Interpreter Lock Optional in CPython for an
   overall description of free-threaded Python.


Installation
============

Starting with Python 3.13, the official macOS and Windows installers
optionally support installing free-threaded Python binaries.  The installers
are available at https://www.python.org/downloads/.

For information on other platforms, see the `Installing a Free-Threaded Python
<https://py-free-threading.github.io/installing-cpython/>`_, a
community-maintained installation guide for installing free-threaded Python.

When building CPython from source, the :option:`--disable-gil` configure option
should be used to build a free-threaded Python interpreter.


Identifying free-threaded Python
================================

To check if the current interpreter supports free-threading, :option:`python -VV <-V>`
and :data:`sys.version` contain "free-threading build".
The new :func:`sys._is_gil_enabled` function can be used to check whether
the GIL is actually disabled in the running process.

The ``sysconfig.get_config_var("Py_GIL_DISABLED")`` configuration variable can
be used to determine whether the build supports free threading.  If the variable
is set to ``1``, then the build supports free threading.  This is the recommended
mechanism for decisions related to the build configuration.


The global interpreter lock in free-threaded Python
===================================================

Free-threaded builds of CPython support optionally running with the GIL enabled
at runtime using the environment variable :envvar:`PYTHON_GIL` or
the command-line option :option:`-X gil`.

The GIL may also automatically be enabled when importing a C-API extension
module that is not explicitly marked as supporting free threading.  A warning
will be printed in this case.

In addition to individual package documentation, the following websites track
the status of popular packages support for free threading:

* https://py-free-threading.github.io/tracking/
* https://hugovk.github.io/free-threaded-wheels/


Thread safety
=============

The free-threaded build of CPython aims to provide similar thread-safety
behavior at the Python level to the default GIL-enabled build.  Built-in
types like :class:`dict`, :class:`list`, and :class:`set` use internal locks
to protect against concurrent modifications in ways that behave similarly to
the GIL.  However, Python has not historically guaranteed specific behavior for
concurrent modifications to these built-in types, so this should be treated
as a description of the current implementation, not a guarantee of current or
future behavior.

.. note::

   It's recommended to use the :class:`threading.Lock` or other synchronization
   primitives instead of relying on the internal locks of built-in types, when
   possible.


Known limitations
=================

This section describes known limitations of the free-threaded CPython build.

Immortalization
---------------

In the free-threaded build, some objects are :term:`immortal`.
Immortal objects are not deallocated and have reference counts that are
never modified.  This is done to avoid reference count contention that would
prevent efficient multi-threaded scaling.

As of the 3.14 release, immortalization is limited to:

* Code constants: numeric literals, string literals, and tuple literals
  composed of other constants.
* Strings interned by :func:`sys.intern`.


Frame objects
-------------

It is not safe to access :attr:`frame.f_locals` from a :ref:`frame <frame-objects>`
object if that frame is currently executing in another thread, and doing so may
crash the interpreter.


Iterators
---------

It is generally not thread-safe to access the same iterator object from
multiple threads concurrently, and threads may see duplicate or missing
elements.


Single-threaded performance
---------------------------

The free-threaded build has additional overhead when executing Python code
compared to the default GIL-enabled build.  The amount of overhead depends
on the workload and hardware.  On the pyperformance benchmark suite, the
average overhead ranges from about 1% on macOS aarch64 to 8% on x86-64 Linux
systems.


Behavioral changes
==================

This section describes CPython behavioural changes with the free-threaded
build.


Context variables
-----------------

In the free-threaded build, the flag :data:`~sys.flags.thread_inherit_context`
is set to true by default which causes threads created with
:class:`threading.Thread` to start with a copy of the
:class:`~contextvars.Context()` of the caller of
:meth:`~threading.Thread.start`.  In the default GIL-enabled build, the flag
defaults to false so threads start with an
empty :class:`~contextvars.Context()`.


Warning filters
---------------

In the free-threaded build, the flag :data:`~sys.flags.context_aware_warnings`
is set to true by default.  In the default GIL-enabled build, the flag defaults
to false.  If the flag is true then the :class:`warnings.catch_warnings`
context manager uses a context variable for warning filters.  If the flag is
false then :class:`~warnings.catch_warnings` modifies the global filters list,
which is not thread-safe.  See the :mod:`warnings` module for more details.


Increased memory usage
----------------------

The free-threaded build will typically use more memory compared to the default
build.  There are multiple reasons for this, mostly due to design decisions.


All interned strings are immortal
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

For modern Python versions (since version 2.3), interning a string (e.g. with
:func:`sys.intern`) does not cause it to become immortal.  Instead, if the last
reference to that string disappears, it will be removed from the interned
string table.  This is not the case for the free-threaded build and any interned
string will become immortal, surviving until interpreter shutdown.


Non-GC objects have a larger object header
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The free-threaded build uses a different :c:type:`PyObject` structure.  Instead
of having the GC related information allocated before the :c:type:`PyObject`
structure, like in the default build, the GC related info is part of the normal
object header.  For example, on the AMD64 platform, ``None`` uses 32 bytes on
the free-threaded build vs 16 bytes for the default build.  GC objects (such as
dicts and lists) are the same size for both builds since the free-threaded
build does not use additional space for the GC info.


QSBR can delay freeing of memory
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In order to safely implement lock-free data structures, a safe memory
reclamation (SMR) scheme is used, known as quiescent state-based reclamation
(QSBR).  This means that the memory backing data structures allowing lock-free
access will use QSBR, which defers the free operation, rather than immediately
freeing the memory.  Two examples of these data structures are the list object
and the dictionary keys object.  See ``InternalDocs/qsbr.md`` in the CPython
source tree for more details on how QSBR is implemented.  Running
:func:`gc.collect` should cause all memory being held by QSBR to be actually
freed.  Note that even when QSBR frees the memory, the underlying memory
allocator may not immediately return that memory to the OS and so the resident
set size (RSS) of the process might not decrease.


mimalloc allocator vs pymalloc
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

The default build will normally use the "pymalloc" memory allocator for small
allocations (512 bytes or smaller).  The free-threaded build does not use
pymalloc and allocates all Python objects using the "mimalloc" allocator.  The
pymalloc allocator has the following properties that help keep memory usage
low: small per-allocated-block overhead, effective memory fragmentation
prevention, and quick return of free memory to the operating system.  The
mimalloc allocator does quite well in these respects as well but can have some
more overhead.

In the free-threaded build, mimalloc manages memory in a number of separate
heaps (currently five).  For example, all GC supporting objects are allocated
from their own heap.  Using separate heaps means that free memory in one heap
cannot be used for an allocation that uses another heap.  Also, some heaps are
configured to use QSBR (quiescent-state based reclamation) when freeing the
memory that backs up the heap (known as "pages" in mimalloc terminology).  The
use of QSBR creates a delay between all memory blocks for a page being freed
and the memory page being released, either for new allocations or back to the
OS.

The mimalloc allocator also defers returning freed memory back to the OS.  You
can reduce that delay by setting the environment variable
:envvar:`!MIMALLOC_PURGE_DELAY` to ``0``.  Note that this will likely reduce
the performance of the allocator.


Free-threaded reference counting can cause objects to live longer
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

In the default build, when an object's reference count reaches zero, it is
normally deallocated.  The free-threaded build uses "biased reference
counting", with a fast-path for objects "owned" by the current thread and a
slow path for other objects.  See :pep:`703` for additional details.  Any time
an object's reference count ends up in a "queued" state, deallocation can be
deferred.  The queued state is cleared from the "eval breaker" section of the
bytecode evaluator.

The free-threaded build also allows a different mode of reference counting,
known as "deferred reference counting".  This mode is enabled by setting a flag
on a per-object basis.  Deferred reference counting is enabled for the
following types:

* module objects
* module top-level functions
* class methods defined in the class scope
* descriptor objects
* thread-local objects, created by :class:`threading.local`

When deferred reference counting is enabled, references from Python function
stacks are not added to the reference count.  This scheme reduces the overhead
of reference counting, especially for objects used from multiple threads.
Because the stack references are not counted, objects with deferred reference
counting are not immediately freed when their internal reference count goes to
zero.  Instead, they are examined by the next GC run and, if no stack
references to them are found, they are freed.  This means these objects are
freed by the GC and not when their reference count goes to zero, as is typical.


Per-thread reference counting can delay freeing objects
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

To avoid contention on the reference count fields of frequently shared
objects, the free-threaded build also uses "per-thread reference counting"
for a few selected object types.  Rather than updating a single shared
reference count, each thread maintains its own local reference count array,
indexed by a unique id assigned to the object.  The true reference count is
only computed by summing the per-thread counts when the object's local
count drops to zero.  Per-thread reference counting is currently used for:

* heap type objects (classes created in Python)
* code objects
* the ``__dict__`` of module objects

Because the per-thread counts must be merged back to the object before it
can be deallocated, objects using per-thread reference counting are
typically freed later than they would be in the default build.  In
particular, such an object is usually not freed until the thread that
referenced it reaches a safe point (for example, in the "eval breaker"
section of the bytecode evaluator) or exits.  Running :func:`gc.collect`
will merge the per-thread counts and allow these objects to be freed.