src/plugins/intel_cpu/docs/debug_capabilities/README.md
Debug capabilities are the set of useful debug features, controlled by environment variables.
They can be activated at runtime and might be used for analyzing issues, getting more context, comparing execution results, etc.
Use the following cmake option to enable debug capabilities:
-DENABLE_DEBUG_CAPS=ON
Verbose mode
When to use: need to understand execution flow — traces node execution with types, shapes, algorithms, and kernels.
Example: OV_CPU_VERBOSE=1
Blob dumping
When to use: wrong results / accuracy issues — dump layer I/O tensors and compare against a reference.
Warning: raw blobs can have very big sizes
Example: OV_CPU_BLOB_DUMP_NODE_NAME="*" OV_CPU_BLOB_DUMP_DIR=blob_dump
Execution graph serialization
When to use: need to have full execution flow picture, i.e. complete graph structure, how nodes are related, who are the producers / consumers of a node.
Example: OV_CPU_EXEC_GRAPH_PATH=graph.xml
IR serialization
When to use: unexpected graph structure — serialize IR at each transformation stage to see what changed.
Example: OV_CPU_DUMP_IR="transformations dir=path/dumpdir formats=svg,xml,dot"
Graph transformation disabling
When to use: crash or wrong results suspected in a transformation — disable groups to isolate the fault.
Example: OV_CPU_DISABLE="transformations=common,preLpt,lpt,postLpt,snippets,specific"
Logging
When to use: need to debug a specific code path — enables [ DEBUG ] logs with source location, supports breakpoint traps. Logs can be filtered and used as breakpoints with OV_CPU_DEBUG_LOG_BRK.
Example: OV_CPU_DEBUG_LOG=-
Inference Precision
When to use: precision-related accuracy issues — override inference precision for specific nodes.
Example: OV_CPU_INFER_PRC_POS_PATTERN="^FullyConnected@"
Average counters When to use:
OV_CPU_AVERAGE_COUNTERS=filenamePerformance summary
When to use: slow inference — displays per-node timing summary when the model is destructed.
Example: OV_CPU_SUMMARY_PERF=1
Memory statistics When to use:
OV_CPU_MEMORY_STATISTICS_PATH=<file_path>.csv