September 10, 2026 · 2 min read · ← All posts

WebBrain Compass Tiny v2: small model, sharper tool routing

Meet WebBrain Compass Tiny v2, our new small model for choosing WebBrain browser tools and their arguments. Built on MiniCPM5-2B, it shows a substantial routing improvement over its base. We expect to incorporate it into WebBrain soon, subject to runtime validation and release checks.

A focused upgrade

Compass Tiny v2 is a LoRA fine-tune of OpenBMB's MiniCPM5-2B, approximately 2.6B parameters. We trained it for one epoch on 7,311 reviewed examples, with 213 held out for validation. Its job is specialized tool routing—not replacing a general-purpose planner.

Against the separately tested base, the merged BF16 model moves from 9 to 16 exact actions and 21 to 41 tool-family matches. Structured-call coverage slips from 96 to 94 out of 100.

One comparison, all models

Sorted by strict exact action, then loose match. Larger Qwen models are included as reference points. Both bar columns use the same 0–89 scale.

ModelParametersStructured callsStrict exact actionLoose tool-family matchLoose rate
Qwen3.8-27B27B99 / 10017 / 8939 / 8943.8%
WebBrain Compass Tiny v2Merged BF16 · new~2.6B94 / 10016 / 8941 / 8946.1%
Qwen3.5-4B4B89 / 10016 / 8936 / 8940.4%
Gemma 4 E4B7.5B90 / 10015 / 8943 / 8948.3%
Qwen3.6-35B-A3B35B A3B89 / 10015 / 8942 / 8947.2%
Nanbeige4.2-3B4.2B reported89 / 10013 / 8937 / 8941.6%
Gemma 4 12B QAT12B90 / 10012 / 8934 / 8938.2%
Qwen3.5-2B2B92 / 10011 / 8928 / 8931.5%
MiniCPM5-2B baseCompass Tiny v2's base~2.6B96 / 1009 / 8921 / 8923.6%
Gemma 4 E2B4.6B74 / 1008 / 8945 / 8950.6%
WebBrain Compass Tiny v12.6B81 / 1004 / 8942 / 8947.2%
LFM2.5-2.6B base2.6B80 / 1004 / 8934 / 8938.2%
100 first-turn prompts; 89 scored next-action scenarios. Strict requires the reference tool and arguments. Loose also credits name-only matches and equivalent terminal prose. Structured calls measure format, not correctness. Bars show counts, not executed browser-task success. On narrow screens, scroll the chart sideways.

Compass Tiny v2 is one exact match behind Qwen3.8-27B and two tool-family matches ahead in these runs—a promising result at roughly one-tenth the parameter count, not a claim of general 27B-level capability.

What's next

The BF16 research preview is private on Hugging Face. ONNX compatibility work is underway; integration is planned, not shipped. Runtime checks and training-data licensing clearance remain prerequisites.

Results combine our earlier comparison, the author's separate MiniCPM5 base run, and Compass Tiny v2's merged BF16 run and saved results. Backends and precision differ; this is not a controlled speed comparison. Browser actions were not executed. Compass Tiny v2 retained one malformed-XML response and missed our earlier adapter-relative loose-match target (41 versus 43), so it remains experimental.

Tags: #WebBrain #CompassTinyV2 #MiniCPM5 #ToolCalling #LocalAI

Written by Emre Sokullu. WebBrain 33.0.0 and later is GPL-3.0-or-later and open on GitHub.