diff --git a/nanochat/gpt.py b/nanochat/gpt.py
index 0b822e4..5162ce0 100644
--- a/nanochat/gpt.py
+++ b/nanochat/gpt.py
@@ -469,6 +469,8 @@ class GPT(nn.Module):
         if targets is not None:
             # training: given the targets, compute and return the loss
             # TODO experiment with chunked cross-entropy?
+            if loss_reduction == 'mean' and not (targets != -1).any():
+                return logits.sum() * 0.0
             loss = F.cross_entropy(logits.view(-1, logits.size(-1)), targets.view(-1), ignore_index=-1, reduction=loss_reduction)
             return loss
         else:
diff --git a/tests/test_gpt_loss.py b/tests/test_gpt_loss.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7cff629
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/test_gpt_loss.py
@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+import torch
+import torch.nn.functional as F
+
+from nanochat.gpt import GPT, GPTConfig
+
+
+def build_test_model():
+    config = GPTConfig(
+        sequence_len=8,
+        vocab_size=32,
+        n_layer=2,
+        n_head=2,
+        n_kv_head=2,
+        n_embd=32,
+        window_pattern="L",
+    )
+    model = GPT(config)
+    model.init_weights()
+    return model
+
+
+def test_forward_mean_loss_returns_graph_connected_zero_when_all_targets_ignored():
+    torch.manual_seed(0)
+    model = build_test_model()
+    idx = torch.randint(0, model.config.vocab_size, (2, 8))
+    targets = torch.full((2, 8), -1, dtype=torch.long)
+
+    loss = model(idx, targets)
+
+    assert loss.requires_grad
+    assert torch.isfinite(loss)
+    assert loss.item() == 0.0
+
+    loss.backward()
+
+    grads = [param.grad for param in model.parameters() if param.requires_grad]
+    assert grads, "expected trainable parameters"
+    assert all(grad is not None for grad in grads)
+    assert all(torch.count_nonzero(grad) == 0 for grad in grads)
+
+
+def test_forward_mean_loss_matches_cross_entropy_on_non_ignored_targets():
+    torch.manual_seed(1)
+    model = build_test_model()
+    idx = torch.randint(0, model.config.vocab_size, (2, 8))
+    targets = torch.tensor(
+        [
+            [-1, -1, 3, 4, -1, 5, 6, -1],
+            [-1, 7, -1, -1, 8, 9, -1, 10],
+        ],
+        dtype=torch.long,
+    )
+
+    logits = model(idx)
+    loss = model(idx, targets)
+
+    valid = targets != -1
+    expected = F.cross_entropy(logits[valid], targets[valid], reduction="mean")
+
+    assert torch.isfinite(loss)
+    assert torch.allclose(loss, expected)