diff --git a/crates/xserv-model/src/lib.rs b/crates/xserv-model/src/lib.rs
index fc0d910..67c3f46 100644
--- a/crates/xserv-model/src/lib.rs
+++ b/crates/xserv-model/src/lib.rs
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ pub use gpt_oss::GptOss;
 pub use kv_cache::GpuKVCache;
 pub use paged_kv_cache::{BlockAllocator, Location, PagedKVCache, BLOCK_SIZE};
 pub use qwen3::Qwen3;
-pub use sampling::{SamplingParams, sample};
+pub use sampling::{SamplingParams, sample, sample_greedy_penalized};
 
 /// Initialize GPU kernel hooks. Called automatically by model constructors,
 /// but safe to call multiple times (idempotent via OnceLock).
diff --git a/crates/xserv-model/src/sampling.rs b/crates/xserv-model/src/sampling.rs
index 97bd01a..762b62e 100644
--- a/crates/xserv-model/src/sampling.rs
+++ b/crates/xserv-model/src/sampling.rs
@@ -112,10 +112,51 @@ pub fn sample(logits: &Tensor, params: &SamplingParams) -> u32 {
     (vocab_size - 1) as u32
 }
 
-fn argmax(data: &[f32]) -> u32 {
-    data.iter()
-        .enumerate()
-        .max_by(|a, b| a.1.partial_cmp(b.1).unwrap())
-        .map(|(i, _)| i as u32)
-        .unwrap()
+/// Greedy argmax with a repetition penalty applied to `recent` token ids
+/// (HF-style: divide positive logits by `penalty`, multiply negative by it).
+/// `penalty <= 1.0` is a no-op. Mitigates greedy repetition loops on reasoning
+/// models without changing the forward pass. NaN-safe.
+pub fn sample_greedy_penalized(logits: &Tensor, recent: &[u32], penalty: f32) -> u32 {
+    assert_eq!(logits.ndim(), 2);
+    let vocab_size = logits.shape()[1];
+    let seq_len = logits.shape()[0];
+    let logits_cpu = logits.to_device(Device::Cpu);
+    let mut last_row: Vec<f32> = match logits.dtype() {
+        DType::F32 => logits_cpu.as_slice::<f32>()[(seq_len - 1) * vocab_size..seq_len * vocab_size].to_vec(),
+        DType::BF16 => logits_cpu.as_slice::<bf16>()[(seq_len - 1) * vocab_size..seq_len * vocab_size]
+            .iter().map(|v| v.to_f32()).collect(),
+        _ => panic!("unsupported dtype for sampling: {:?}", logits.dtype()),
+    };
+    if penalty > 1.0 {
+        for &id in recent {
+            let i = id as usize;
+            if i < last_row.len() {
+                let v = last_row[i];
+                last_row[i] = if v > 0.0 { v / penalty } else { v * penalty };
+            }
+        }
+    }
+    argmax(&last_row)
+}
+
+fn argmax(data: &[f32]) -> u32 {
+    // NaN-safe: a single NaN logit must not crash the engine thread (a
+    // partial_cmp().unwrap() panics on NaN). Skip NaNs; warn once if seen.
+    let mut best_i = 0usize;
+    let mut best = f32::NEG_INFINITY;
+    let mut nan_seen = false;
+    for (i, &v) in data.iter().enumerate() {
+        if v.is_nan() {
+            nan_seen = true;
+            continue;
+        }
+        if v > best {
+            best = v;
+            best_i = i;
+        }
+    }
+    if nan_seen {
+        eprintln!("[sampling] WARNING: NaN logits encountered in argmax");
+    }
+    best_i as u32
 }