ml-intern

name

ml-intern

description

Hugging Face ML Intern CLI (`ml-intern`) — an agent that turns natural-language goals into end-to-end ML workflows using the HF ecosystem. Use when: the user wants to research papers/datasets, fine-tune models, run ML experiments, publish artifacts to HF Hub, or perform any multi-step ML engineering task. Combines research, code generation, sandbox execution, and Hub publishing. Use with `hf` CLI for deterministic repo/space/job operations.

ML Intern Skill

What is ml-intern?

ml-intern is a CLI-first agent from Hugging Face that orchestrates end-to-end ML workflows:

• Research papers and docs via HF Hub
• Inspect and query datasets
• Write training/evaluation code
• Run experiments locally or in HF sandbox (GPU-backed)
• Publish models, datasets, and Spaces to HF Hub

Source: https://github.com/huggingface/ml-intern

When to Use

Use ml-intern	Use hf CLI	Use both
Broad ML engineering task	Precise Hub/Space/Jobs commands	Agent-driven workflow + deterministic ops
Research → plan → train → eval → publish	Upload/download files	Train locally, publish via hf upload
Multi-step experimentation	Check model/dataset info	Research via ml-intern, deploy via hf
"Fine-tune X on my dataset"	"List my models"	"Train then push to Hub"

Prerequisites

Install

git clone https://github.com/huggingface/ml-intern.git
cd ml-intern
uv sync
uv tool install -e .

Required Environment Variables

HF_TOKEN=<your-hugging-face-token>
GITHUB_TOKEN=<github-personal-access-token>

Optional (only for closed providers):

ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=...
OPENAI_API_KEY=...

Secrets management: Use PQC secrets bundle (~/.config/pqc-secrets/) or secrets-load shell function. Never commit tokens to repo files.

Basic Usage

# Interactive mode
ml-intern

# Goal-directed mode
ml-intern "fine-tune llama on my dataset"

# With sandbox (GPU-backed remote execution)
ml-intern --sandbox-tools "test this training script in a GPU sandbox"

# Limit iterations
ml-intern --max-iterations 100 "your prompt"

# Non-streaming output
ml-intern --no-stream "your prompt"

Model Selection

# Default (HF Inference)
ml-intern "your prompt"

# Specific HF model
ml-intern --model moonshotai/Kimi-K2.6 "your prompt"

# Closed provider
ml-intern --model openai/gpt-5.5:fal-ai "your prompt"

# Local models
ml-intern --model ollama/llama3.1:8b "your prompt"
ml-intern --model vllm/meta-llama/Llama-3.1-8B-Instruct "your prompt"
ml-intern --model lm_studio/google/gemma-3-4b "your prompt"
ml-intern --model llamacpp/llama-3.1-8b-instruct "your prompt"

Interactive model switch during session:

/model ollama/llama3.1:8b

Built-in Tools

ml-intern routes to these tool groups:

Tool	Purpose
Research sub-agent	Deep topic investigation
HF docs search/fetch	Official documentation lookup
HF papers	Academic paper search and reading
Web search	General web research
Dataset inspection	hf datasets info, parquet queries
Planning + notifications	Workflow orchestration
HF Jobs	Run compute on HF infrastructure
HF repo files/git	Repo file management
GitHub code search	Find implementation examples
Sandbox tools	Remote GPU execution
Local tools	Filesystem read/write/edit

Workflows

Standard ML Workflow

Research → Plan → Inspect Data → Write Code → Train → Evaluate → Publish

Local Mode vs Sandbox Mode

Local mode (bash, read, write, edit):

• Direct filesystem inspection
• Local repo checkout iteration
• No remote compute costs

Sandbox mode (HF Space sandbox + GPU):

• Remote isolation
• GPU-backed training
• Disposable execution environments
• Requires HF Jobs access

Approval Gates

ml-intern has built-in approval for sensitive operations:

• approval_required events pause the loop
• Human must confirm before: destructive file ops, Hub publishes, compute job launches
• This is a safety feature, not a bug

Integration with HF CLI

Pair ml-intern with hf for deterministic operations:

# ml-intern handles research + code generation
ml-intern "write a training script for sentiment analysis"

# hf handles precise Hub operations
hf upload myorg/sentiment-model ./output

# hf handles Space deployment
hf repos create myorg/sentiment-demo --type space --space-sdk gradio
hf upload myorg/sentiment-demo ./app.py

# hf handles Jobs
hf jobs run pytorch/pytorch:latest "python train.py" --flavor t4-small

Troubleshooting

Issue	Cause	Fix
Stalled on approval	Approval gate waiting	Check terminal for approval_required event
Token scope error	HF_TOKEN lacks permissions	hf auth login with write token
Sandbox timeout	GPU queue busy	Retry or use --flavor for different hardware
MCP tool error	External MCP server down	Check MCP server status, restart ml-intern
Stale tools	Tool cache issue	Restart ml-intern session

Security Notes

• Token scoping: use fine-grained tokens with minimal permissions
• Sandbox mode is safer for untrusted code (isolated execution)
• Local mode has full filesystem access — trust the code before running
• Never commit .env files with tokens
• Use PQC secrets bundle for production token management

Quick Reference

ml-intern                              # Interactive mode
ml-intern "goal"                       # Goal-directed
ml-intern --sandbox-tools "goal"       # With GPU sandbox
ml-intern --max-iterations N "goal"    # Limit iterations
ml-intern --model MODEL "goal"         # Specific model
ml-intern --no-stream "goal"           # Non-streaming