diff --git a/nanochat/dataloader.py b/nanochat/dataloader.py
index 4136802..20dd88f 100644
--- a/nanochat/dataloader.py
+++ b/nanochat/dataloader.py
@@ -5,9 +5,8 @@ import pyarrow.parquet as pq
 
 from nanochat.common import get_dist_info
 from nanochat.dataset import list_parquet_files
-from nanochat.tokenizer import get_tokenizer
 
-def tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state(B, T, split, tokenizer_threads=4, tokenizer_batch_size=128, device="cuda", resume_state_dict=None):
+def tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state(tokenizer, B, T, split, tokenizer_threads=4, tokenizer_batch_size=128, device="cuda", resume_state_dict=None):
     """
     Stream pretraining text from parquet files, tokenize, yield training batches.
 
@@ -62,8 +61,6 @@ def tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state(B, T, split, tokenizer_threads
 
     # Now emit batches of tokens.
     needed_tokens = B * T + 1 # +1 is because we also need the target at the last token
-    # get the tokenizer and the bos token
-    tokenizer = get_tokenizer()
     bos_token = tokenizer.get_bos_token_id()
     # scratch buffer holds the tokens for one iteration
     token_buffer = deque() # we stream tokens on the right and pop from the left
diff --git a/nanochat/tokenizer.py b/nanochat/tokenizer.py
index 726fb2f..e8ccafa 100644
--- a/nanochat/tokenizer.py
+++ b/nanochat/tokenizer.py
@@ -103,9 +103,10 @@ class HuggingFaceTokenizer:
     def id_to_token(self, id):
         return self.tokenizer.id_to_token(id)
 
-    def _encode_one(self, text, prepend=None, append=None):
+    def _encode_one(self, text, prepend=None, append=None, num_threads=None):
         # encode a single string
         # prepend/append can be either a string of a special token or a token id directly.
+        # num_threads is ignored (only used by the nanochat Tokenizer for parallel encoding)
         assert isinstance(text, str)
         ids = []
         if prepend is not None:
diff --git a/scripts/base_loss.py b/scripts/base_loss.py
index 3dbe68f..094299a 100644
--- a/scripts/base_loss.py
+++ b/scripts/base_loss.py
@@ -5,6 +5,9 @@ Loads a checkpoint, and:
 
 Example run as:
 torchrun --standalone --nproc_per_node=8 -m scripts.base_loss
+
+To evaluate a HuggingFace model:
+python -m scripts.base_loss --hf_path openai-community/gpt2
 """
 import argparse
 from contextlib import nullcontext
@@ -12,42 +15,98 @@ import torch
 from nanochat.checkpoint_manager import load_model
 from nanochat.common import compute_init, print0, compute_cleanup, autodetect_device_type
 from nanochat.dataloader import tokenizing_distributed_data_loader
-from nanochat.tokenizer import get_token_bytes
+from nanochat.tokenizer import get_token_bytes, HuggingFaceTokenizer
 from nanochat.loss_eval import evaluate_bpb
 from nanochat.engine import Engine
 
+# -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
+# HuggingFace loading utilities, making the APIs match up to those of nanochat
+
+class ModelWrapper:
+    """Lightweight wrapper for a HuggingFace model"""
+    def __init__(self, model, max_seq_len=None):
+        self.model = model
+        self.max_seq_len = max_seq_len
+
+    def __call__(self, input_ids, targets=None, loss_reduction='mean'):
+        logits = self.model(input_ids).logits
+        if targets is None:
+            return logits
+        else:
+            loss = torch.nn.functional.cross_entropy(logits.view(-1, logits.size(-1)), targets.view(-1), ignore_index=-1, reduction=loss_reduction)
+            return loss
+
+    def get_device(self):
+        return next(self.model.parameters()).device
+
+def load_hf_model(hf_path: str, device):
+    print0(f"Loading model from: {hf_path}")
+    from transformers import AutoModelForCausalLM
+    model = AutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained(hf_path)
+    model.to(device)
+    model.eval()
+    max_seq_len = 1024 if "openai-community/gpt2" in hf_path else None
+    model = ModelWrapper(model, max_seq_len=max_seq_len)
+    tokenizer = HuggingFaceTokenizer.from_pretrained(hf_path)
+    return model, tokenizer
+
+def get_hf_token_bytes(tokenizer, device="cpu"):
+    """Compute token_bytes tensor for a HuggingFace tokenizer."""
+    vocab_size = tokenizer.tokenizer.get_vocab_size()
+    token_bytes = torch.zeros(vocab_size, dtype=torch.int64, device=device)
+    for token_id in range(vocab_size):
+        token_str = tokenizer.tokenizer.decode([token_id])
+        token_bytes[token_id] = len(token_str.encode('utf-8')) # Count UTF-8 bytes
+    return token_bytes
+
 # CLI arguments
 parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description="Evaluate loss on train/val splits and sample from model")
 parser.add_argument("--device_batch_size", type=int, default=32, help="per-device batch size")
-parser.add_argument("--split_tokens", type=int, default=20*524288, help="number of tokens to evaluate per split")
+parser.add_argument("--split_tokens", type=int, default=40*524288, help="number of tokens to evaluate per split")
 parser.add_argument("--model_tag", type=str, default=None, help="model tag for checkpoint directory")
 parser.add_argument("--model_step", type=int, default=None, help="model step to load")
 parser.add_argument("--device_type", type=str, default="", help="cuda|cpu|mps (empty = autodetect)")
+parser.add_argument("--hf_path", type=str, default=None, help="HuggingFace model path (e.g. openai-community/gpt2)")
 args = parser.parse_args()
 
 # Load the base model and the tokenizer
 device_type = autodetect_device_type() if args.device_type == "" else args.device_type
 ddp, ddp_rank, ddp_local_rank, ddp_world_size, device = compute_init(device_type)
-model, tokenizer, meta = load_model("base", device, phase="eval", model_tag=args.model_tag, step=args.model_step)
-sequence_len = meta["model_config"]["sequence_len"] # could be arbitrary really
+print0(f"Device: {device} | DDP rank: {ddp_rank} | DDP local rank: {ddp_local_rank} | DDP world size: {ddp_world_size}")
+
+if args.hf_path is not None:
+    # Load HuggingFace model
+    model, tokenizer = load_hf_model(args.hf_path, device)
+    sequence_len = model.max_seq_len if model.max_seq_len else 1024
+    token_bytes = get_hf_token_bytes(tokenizer, device=device)
+    model_name = args.hf_path
+else:
+    # Load local nanochat model
+    model, tokenizer, meta = load_model("base", device, phase="eval", model_tag=args.model_tag, step=args.model_step)
+    sequence_len = meta["model_config"]["sequence_len"]
+    token_bytes = get_token_bytes(device=device)
+    model_name = f"base_model (step {meta['step']})"
+
 autocast_ctx = torch.amp.autocast(device_type=device_type, dtype=torch.bfloat16) if device_type == "cuda" else nullcontext()
 
+print0(f"Evaluating model: {model_name}")
+
 # Evaluate the loss on each split
 tokens_per_step = args.device_batch_size * sequence_len * ddp_world_size
 assert args.split_tokens % tokens_per_step == 0, "split_tokens must be divisible by tokens_per_step"
 steps = args.split_tokens // tokens_per_step
-token_bytes = get_token_bytes(device=device)
 bpb_results = {}
 for split_name in ["train", "val"]:
-    loader = tokenizing_distributed_data_loader(args.device_batch_size, sequence_len, split_name, device=device)
+    loader = tokenizing_distributed_data_loader(tokenizer, args.device_batch_size, sequence_len, split_name, device=device)
     with autocast_ctx:
         bpb = evaluate_bpb(model, loader, steps, token_bytes)
     print0(f"{split_name} bpb: {bpb:.4f}")
     bpb_results[split_name] = bpb
+    print0(f"Model: {model_name}, {split_name} bpb: {bpb:.6f}")
 
-# Master process also samples from the model
+# Master process also samples from the model (only for nanochat models)
 samples = []
-if ddp_rank == 0:
+if ddp_rank == 0 and args.hf_path is None:
     prompts = [
         "The capital of France is",
         "The chemical symbol of gold is",
@@ -70,6 +129,7 @@ if ddp_rank == 0:
 from nanochat.report import get_report
 get_report().log(section="Base model loss", data=[
     {
+        "model": model_name,
         "train bpb": bpb_results["train"],
         "val bpb": bpb_results["val"],
     },
diff --git a/scripts/base_train.py b/scripts/base_train.py
index 7a16276..c7c5bba 100644
--- a/scripts/base_train.py
+++ b/scripts/base_train.py
@@ -210,8 +210,8 @@ if resuming:
 # Initialize the DataLoaders for train/val
 tokens_dir = os.path.join(base_dir, "tokenized_data")
 dataloader_resume_state_dict = None if not resuming else meta_data["dataloader_state_dict"]
-train_loader = tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state(args.device_batch_size, args.max_seq_len, split="train", device=device, resume_state_dict=dataloader_resume_state_dict)
-build_val_loader = lambda: tokenizing_distributed_data_loader(args.device_batch_size, args.max_seq_len, split="val", device=device)
+train_loader = tokenizing_distributed_data_loader_with_state(tokenizer, args.device_batch_size, args.max_seq_len, split="train", device=device, resume_state_dict=dataloader_resume_state_dict)
+build_val_loader = lambda: tokenizing_distributed_data_loader(tokenizer, args.device_batch_size, args.max_seq_len, split="val", device=device)
 x, y, dataloader_state_dict = next(train_loader) # kick off load of the very first batch of data
 
 # -----------------------------------------------------------------------------