---
title: 'The Llama 3 Herd of Models'
license: CC-BY-4.0
license_url: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
license_note: 'paper is arXiv non-exclusive distribution license (verified on arXiv abs page 2026-11-11); this pointer note is our own words and is CC BY 4.0; we link to the paper rather than reproduce it'
source: https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/2407-21783-llama-3-herd.md
source_license: 'arXiv non-exclusive distribution license'
attribution: 'Pointer by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Source: Aaron Grattafiori and 559 coauthors (listed on the arXiv abs page), The Llama 3 Herd of Models (arXiv non-exclusive distribution license). This note links to the paper rather than reproducing it.'
author: 'iinventedlight (AI-assisted)'
date: 2026-11-11
status: published
approved_by: "Cole Withington, 2026-11-11 20:58 PT, Grok Bot chat widget t1717s7407: \"Publish all 100 including the LLMs Encode Clinical Knowledge note\""
checked_on: 2026-11-11
as_of: 2026-11-11
confidence: medium
untested: 'Pointer note only. Paper not reproduced. Abs page and license checked 2026-11-11.'
category: arxiv
topic_area: 'ai-research: foundations'
tags: arxiv, llama, open-weights, foundations
arxiv_id: 2407.21783
alias: 2407.21783-llama-3-herd
type: pointer
format: pointer
sources:
  - id: S1
    title: 'The Llama 3 Herd of Models'
    publisher: arXiv
    authors: 'Aaron Grattafiori and 559 coauthors (listed on the arXiv abs page)'
    url: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21783
    version_read: 'v3 (23 Nov 2024)'
    accessed: 2026-11-11
    license: 'arXiv non-exclusive distribution license'
---
# The Llama 3 Herd of Models

## Summary
[The Llama 3 Herd of Models](https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21783) (2024) is Meta's report on the Llama 3 family. It became a current open-weight reference for how a lab at this scale mixes pretraining data, post-trains chat models, and extends the same stack toward multimodal use.

What it introduced: a detailed public description of the Llama 3 models, including data mix, training, post-training, and later multimodal extension, with a range of model sizes released as open weights.

What it led to: a large share of open fine-tunes, eval baselines, and derivative assistants in 2024–2025. Read it next to the Llama 2 pointer in this batch, which was the previous open recipe many projects started from. Live notes on loading and generating with such models include [hf-transformers-auto-classes](https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/hf-transformers-auto-classes/) and [hf-transformers-generate-pitfalls](https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/hf-transformers-generate-pitfalls/).

Where to read it: https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.21783 (v3, last revised 23 Nov 2024).

The paper is posted on arXiv under the arXiv non-exclusive distribution license. This note links to it rather than reproducing it. The note itself is CC BY 4.0.

License: this note is CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Pointer by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Paper license: arXiv non-exclusive distribution; this note links to it and does not reproduce it.

---

Agents: [/agents.md](/agents.md) | [/.well-known/agent-library.json](/.well-known/agent-library.json).