diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 77c0910..2dce43b 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -2,6 +2,11 @@
 
 All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 
+## [Unreleased]
+
+### Fixed
+- KV-cache estimates now count global attention layers declared by `layer_types` or `sliding_window_pattern` at the full context length instead of capping every layer at the sliding window.
+
 ## [0.4.0] - 2026-11-03
 
 ### Added
diff --git a/src/quantpreflight/rules.py b/src/quantpreflight/rules.py
index b094956..4d32438 100644
--- a/src/quantpreflight/rules.py
+++ b/src/quantpreflight/rules.py
@@ -1099,12 +1099,21 @@ def estimate_per_gpu_vram_gb(
         # Check sliding-window attention
         sw = _pos_int(tcfg.get("sliding_window")) or _pos_int(tcfg.get("sliding_window_size"))
         if sw:
-            if model_type == "gemma2":
-                num_sliding = num_layers // 2
-                num_global = num_layers - num_sliding
-                eff_ctx = (num_sliding * min(ctx, sw) + num_global * ctx) / num_layers
+            layer_types = tcfg.get("layer_types")
+            pattern = _pos_int(tcfg.get("sliding_window_pattern"))
+            if isinstance(layer_types, list) and layer_types:
+                num_global = min(num_layers, sum(
+                    1 for kind in layer_types
+                    if isinstance(kind, str) and ("full" in kind.lower() or "global" in kind.lower())
+                ))
+            elif pattern:
+                num_global = num_layers // pattern
+            elif model_type == "gemma2":
+                num_global = num_layers - num_layers // 2
             else:
-                eff_ctx = min(ctx, sw)
+                num_global = 0
+            num_sliding = num_layers - num_global
+            eff_ctx = (num_sliding * min(ctx, sw) + num_global * ctx) / num_layers
         else:
             eff_ctx = ctx
 
diff --git a/tests/test_compatibility_matrix.py b/tests/test_compatibility_matrix.py
index dc68223..2ca43ae 100644
--- a/tests/test_compatibility_matrix.py
+++ b/tests/test_compatibility_matrix.py
@@ -350,6 +350,103 @@ def test_gemma2_alternates_sliding_and_global_layers() -> None:
     assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 8 * 8 * 100 * 2 * (1000 + CONTEXT) / 2)
 
 
+# Geometry from https://huggingface.co/openai/gpt-oss-20b/blob/main/config.json.
+GPT_OSS = {
+    "model_type": "gpt_oss",
+    "num_hidden_layers": 24,
+    "num_attention_heads": 64,
+    "num_key_value_heads": 8,
+    "head_dim": 64,
+    "hidden_size": 2880,
+    "max_position_embeddings": 131072,
+    "sliding_window": 128,
+    "layer_types": ["sliding_attention", "full_attention"] * 12,
+}
+
+
+def test_gpt_oss_counts_the_cache_of_its_twelve_global_layers() -> None:
+    expected = 2 * 8 * 64 * 2 * (12 * 128 + 12 * 131072)
+    assert _kv_bytes(GPT_OSS, context=131072) == _gib(expected) == 3.0
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("global_type", ["full_attention", "global_attention", "FULL_ATTENTION"])
+def test_global_layer_types_keep_the_full_context(global_type: str) -> None:
+    config = {**STANDARD, "sliding_window": 1000, "layer_types": [global_type, "sliding_attention"] * 4}
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 8 * 100 * 2 * (4 * CONTEXT + 4 * 1000))
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(("pattern", "global_layers"), [(1, 8), (3, 2), (6, 1), (9, 0)])
+def test_gemma3_counts_only_each_complete_window_pattern(pattern: int, global_layers: int) -> None:
+    config = {**STANDARD, "model_type": "gemma3_text", "sliding_window": 1000, "sliding_window_pattern": pattern}
+    expected = 2 * 8 * 100 * 2 * (global_layers * CONTEXT + (8 - global_layers) * 1000)
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(expected)
+
+
+def test_global_layer_types_take_precedence_over_the_window_pattern() -> None:
+    config = {
+        **STANDARD,
+        "sliding_window": 1000,
+        "layer_types": ["full_attention"] + ["sliding_attention"] * 7,
+        "sliding_window_pattern": 1,
+    }
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 8 * 100 * 2 * (CONTEXT + 7 * 1000))
+
+
+def test_gemma2_explicit_global_layer_types_override_its_default_alternation() -> None:
+    config = {**STANDARD, "model_type": "gemma2", "sliding_window": 1000, "layer_types": ["sliding_attention"] * 8}
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 8 * 8 * 100 * 2 * 1000)
+
+
+def test_mistral_without_sliding_metadata_keeps_every_layer_windowed() -> None:
+    config = {**STANDARD, "model_type": "mistral", "sliding_window": 1000}
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 8 * 8 * 100 * 2 * 1000)
+
+
+def test_global_layer_types_do_not_inflate_contexts_shorter_than_the_window() -> None:
+    assert _kv_bytes(GPT_OSS, context=64) == _gib(2 * 24 * 8 * 64 * 2 * 64)
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize(("tp", "concurrency", "dtype"), [(1, 1, None), (2, 4, None), (16, 2, "fp8")])
+def test_global_layers_keep_parallelism_precision_and_concurrency_scaling(tp: int, concurrency: int, dtype: str | None) -> None:
+    meta = _meta(GPT_OSS, QuantSpec(activation_dtype=dtype))
+    target = TargetSpec(tp=tp, context_len=131072, concurrency=concurrency)
+    kv_heads = {1: 8, 2: 4, 16: 1}[tp]
+    element_bytes = 1 if dtype == "fp8" else 2
+    expected = 2 * kv_heads * 64 * element_bytes * (12 * 128 + 12 * 131072) * concurrency
+    assert estimate_per_gpu_vram_gb(meta, GPT_OSS, target)[2] == _gib(expected)
+
+
+def test_global_layers_reach_the_vram_budget_finding() -> None:
+    meta = _meta(GPT_OSS, total_weight_bytes=16 * 1024**3)
+    report = analyze_checkpoint(meta, TargetSpec(gpu="L4", context_len=131072))
+    assert report.estimated_vram_per_gpu_gb == 22.53
+    assert any(f.rule_id == "QPF012" for f in report.findings)
+
+
+def test_gemma3_window_pattern_is_read_from_nested_text_config() -> None:
+    text = {
+        "model_type": "gemma3_text",
+        "num_hidden_layers": 26,
+        "num_attention_heads": 8,
+        "num_key_value_heads": 4,
+        "hidden_size": 2304,
+        "head_dim": 256,
+        "sliding_window": 1024,
+        "sliding_window_pattern": 6,
+    }
+    meta = _meta({"model_type": "gemma3", "text_config": text}, total_weight_bytes=1024**3)
+    report = analyze_checkpoint(meta, TargetSpec(vram_gb_override=3.0, context_len=131072))
+    # Four global layers and 22 sliding layers, plus the existing weight/runtime overheads.
+    expected = round(1.18 + 0.65 + 2 * 4 * 256 * 2 * (4 * 131072 + 22 * 1024) / 1024**3, 2)
+    assert report.estimated_vram_per_gpu_gb == expected
+    assert any(f.rule_id == "QPF012" for f in report.findings)
+
+
+def test_global_layer_count_never_exceeds_the_number_of_attention_layers() -> None:
+    config = {**STANDARD, "sliding_window": 1000, "layer_types": ["full_attention"] * 9}
+    assert _kv_bytes(config) <= _kv_bytes(STANDARD)
+
+
 def test_block_type_list_counts_attention_layers() -> None:
     config = {**STANDARD, "layers_block_type": ["attention", "mamba", "mamba", "mamba"]}
     assert _kv_bytes(config) == _gib(2 * 1 * 8 * 100 * 2 * CONTEXT)
diff --git a/tests/test_hostile_inputs.py b/tests/test_hostile_inputs.py
index 56577bd..5b584ed 100644
--- a/tests/test_hostile_inputs.py
+++ b/tests/test_hostile_inputs.py
@@ -43,6 +43,8 @@
     "attn_layer_period",
     "sliding_window",
     "sliding_window_size",
+    "layer_types",
+    "sliding_window_pattern",
     "num_local_experts",
     "n_routed_experts",
     "num_experts",
@@ -190,6 +192,12 @@ def test_hostile_config_value(key: str, value: Any) -> None:
     _analyze({**BASE_CONFIG, key: value})
 
 
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("value", HOSTILE_VALUES, ids=repr)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("key", ["layer_types", "sliding_window_pattern"])
+def test_hostile_sliding_attention_metadata(key: str, value: Any) -> None:
+    _analyze({**BASE_CONFIG, "sliding_window": 16, key: value})
+
+
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("value", HOSTILE_VALUES, ids=repr)
 @pytest.mark.parametrize("key", CONFIG_KEYS)
 def test_hostile_text_config_value(key: str, value: Any) -> None: