> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://training-docs.cerebras.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

#  Failing To Automatically Load Checkpoints 

> When adding a custom checkpoint into `model_dir`, the run command does not automatically pick that up in my model_dir and runs with it. Instead, it reports that no checkpoint is found.

## Explanation

Cerebras ModelZoo PyTorch runs have a feature (enabled by default) to auto-load the last available checkpoint in the `model_dir` if a `--checkpoint_path` is not explicitly provided. It is important to note that only a specific checkpoint naming scheme is checked to find the latest checkpoint. All files in the format `checkpoint_<step>.mdl` are checked in the model\_dir. If one or more are found, the file with the highest value of `<step>` is chosen and model weights are initialized with that checkpoint. This feature can be turned off by setting `runconfig.autoload_last_checkpoint` to `False` in the params yaml file.

## Work around

You can either

* Provide a checkpoint inside `model_dir` with the naming format `checkpoint_<step>.mdl`, or

* Specify checkpoint path by using the `--checkpoint_path` flag.