diff --git a/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/modeling_smolvla2.py b/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/modeling_smolvla2.py
index 1c65a26ec..79978cf95 100644
--- a/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/modeling_smolvla2.py
+++ b/src/lerobot/policies/smolvla2/modeling_smolvla2.py
@@ -303,63 +303,83 @@ class SmolVLA2Policy(SmolVLAPolicy):
         if eos_token_id is None:
             eos_token_id = tokenizer.eos_token_id
 
-        # AR text generation through the underlying SmolVLM rather
-        # than ``vlm_with_expert.forward``. The latter is built around
-        # the action-expert decode pattern (one-shot suffix forward
-        # against a cached prefix, with cross-attn layers that
-        # *require* an expert input on every call) — it isn't a
-        # general-purpose AR text decoder. ``vlm.generate`` runs the
-        # SmolVLM exactly the way HuggingFace inference does it
-        # everywhere else, so KV caching, beam/greedy/sampling logic,
-        # and EOS handling all just work.
+        # Match training's text-loss forward path (see
+        # ``_compute_text_loss`` above): build the full prefix via
+        # ``embed_prefix`` so images + state conditioning is intact,
+        # then loop AR with ``fill_kv_cache=True, use_cache=False``.
+        # That flag combo routes every layer through
+        # ``forward_attn_layer`` (which gracefully skips ``None``
+        # expert inputs via ``if hidden_states is None or layer is
+        # None: continue``) and short-circuits the cache-update logic
+        # so we don't have to manage past_kv. Each step just
+        # re-forwards the cumulative ``[prefix + generated]``
+        # sequence.
         #
-        # Trade-off: ``state`` is dropped from the prefix at inference
-        # time (no slot for it on the standard SmolVLM path), so
-        # generations may drift from training distribution slightly.
-        # That's acceptable for the dry-run REPL. The high-level
-        # branches (subtask / plan / memory / vqa) are mostly
-        # vision+language conditioned anyway; the action expert is
-        # where state really matters.
-        vlm = self.model.vlm_with_expert.vlm
+        # This is O(n²) in generated text length but cheap in
+        # absolute terms: image encoding happens once via the initial
+        # ``embed_prefix`` call, and the per-step cost is just one
+        # SmolVLM transformer pass over a sequence that grows by one
+        # token each time. Standard SmolVLM ``generate`` was the
+        # other tempting path, but it can't accept SmolVLA's custom
+        # ``state_proj`` output and its tile-grid expectations
+        # disagree with our preprocessor — both lead to garbage
+        # generation, which is what the prior approach produced.
+        images, img_masks = self.prepare_images(batch)
+        state = self.prepare_state(batch)
         lang_tokens = batch[OBS_LANGUAGE_TOKENS]
         lang_masks = batch[OBS_LANGUAGE_ATTENTION_MASK]
 
-        # NOTE: we deliberately do *not* forward ``pixel_values`` to
-        # ``vlm.generate``. The dataset's images go through SmolVLA's
-        # custom preprocessor (resize / normalise to whatever shape
-        # the action expert was trained on), but SmolVLM's standard
-        # vision tower expects images sized to its own default tile
-        # grid (e.g. 384/14 → 27×27 patches). The mismatch surfaces
-        # as ``RuntimeError: shape '[2, 34, 34, 768]' is invalid for
-        # input of size <other>`` deep in the post-vision reshape.
-        #
-        # For the dry-run REPL the high-level branches (subtask /
-        # plan / memory) are dominated by their text context anyway,
-        # so running text-only generation through SmolVLM is good
-        # enough. Restoring full vision conditioning at inference
-        # would mean either re-processing the images through the
-        # backbone's own ``ImageProcessor`` (and matching SmolVLA2
-        # training shape) or giving ``vlm_with_expert`` a real AR
-        # text decode mode — both are bigger follow-ups.
-        gen_kwargs: dict[str, Any] = {
-            "input_ids": lang_tokens,
-            "attention_mask": lang_masks.long() if lang_masks.dtype == torch.bool else lang_masks,
-            "max_new_tokens": max_new_tokens,
-            "do_sample": temperature > 0,
-            "pad_token_id": tokenizer.pad_token_id or tokenizer.eos_token_id,
-        }
-        if temperature > 0:
-            gen_kwargs["temperature"] = temperature
-            gen_kwargs["top_p"] = top_p
-        if eos_token_id is not None:
-            gen_kwargs["eos_token_id"] = eos_token_id
+        prefix_embs, prefix_pad_masks, prefix_att_masks = self.model.embed_prefix(
+            images, img_masks, lang_tokens, lang_masks, state=state
+        )
 
-        gen_ids = vlm.generate(**gen_kwargs)
-        # ``vlm.generate`` returns the prompt + new tokens; slice off
-        # the prompt so the caller only sees the model's continuation.
-        prompt_len = lang_tokens.shape[1]
-        new_token_ids = gen_ids[0, prompt_len:].tolist()
-        return tokenizer.decode(new_token_ids, skip_special_tokens=True).strip()
+        device = prefix_embs.device
+        bsize = prefix_embs.shape[0]
+        vlm = self.model.vlm_with_expert.vlm
+        emb_dim = prefix_embs.shape[-1]
+        text_emb_scale = math.sqrt(emb_dim)
+
+        current_embs = prefix_embs
+        current_pad = prefix_pad_masks
+        current_att = prefix_att_masks
+        ones_step = torch.ones((bsize, 1), dtype=torch.bool, device=device)
+
+        generated: list[int] = []
+        for _ in range(max_new_tokens):
+            full_2d = make_att_2d_masks(current_pad, current_att)
+            full_pos = torch.cumsum(current_pad, dim=1) - 1
+
+            out_pair, _ = self.model.vlm_with_expert.forward(
+                attention_mask=full_2d,
+                position_ids=full_pos,
+                past_key_values=None,
+                inputs_embeds=[current_embs, None],
+                use_cache=False,
+                fill_kv_cache=True,
+            )
+            prefix_out = out_pair[0] if isinstance(out_pair, (tuple, list)) else out_pair
+            if prefix_out is None:
+                raise RuntimeError(
+                    "select_message: vlm_with_expert.forward returned no hidden states."
+                )
+
+            last_hidden = prefix_out[:, -1:].to(vlm.lm_head.weight.dtype)
+            logits_step = vlm.lm_head(last_hidden)[:, -1]  # (B, V)
+            next_ids = self._sample_next_token(logits_step, temperature, top_p)
+            tok_id = int(next_ids[0].item())
+            generated.append(tok_id)
+            if eos_token_id is not None and tok_id == eos_token_id:
+                break
+
+            new_emb = self.model.vlm_with_expert.embed_language_tokens(
+                next_ids.unsqueeze(0)
+            )
+            new_emb = new_emb * text_emb_scale
+            current_embs = torch.cat([current_embs, new_emb], dim=1)
+            current_pad = torch.cat([current_pad, ones_step], dim=1)
+            current_att = torch.cat([current_att, ones_step], dim=1)
+
+        return tokenizer.decode(generated, skip_special_tokens=True).strip()
 
     @staticmethod
     def _sample_next_token(