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26 changes: 23 additions & 3 deletions docs/LEONARDO.md
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -115,14 +115,34 @@ uv pip install -e ./elliot-cli

## 5. Set HuggingFace Cache Directory

Compute nodes have no internet access, so all models and datasets must be pre-downloaded. Set `HF_HOME` to point to your work storage:
Compute nodes have no internet access, so all models and datasets must be pre-downloaded. Set `HF_HOME` to point to a storage area large enough to hold your models and datasets.

> **Warning:** `$HOME` on Leonardo has a quota of only **50 GB** — far too small for most LLMs and multimodal datasets. Do **not** use `$HOME` as your HF cache directory.

Leonardo provides several larger storage areas ([full details](https://docs.hpc.cineca.it/hpc/hpc_data_storage.html)):

| Area | Quota | Purge policy | Notes |
|------|-------|--------------|-------|
| `$WORK` | 1 TB | 6 months post-project | Persistent, parallel I/O, **recommended** |
| `$FAST` | 1 TB | 6 months post-project | Faster I/O than `$WORK`, no extension option |
| `$SCRATCH` | 20 TB | Files purged after **40 days** of inactivity | Temporary only |

**Recommended:** use `$WORK` for persistent caches (models you reuse across runs):

```zsh
mkdir -p $HOME/hf_cache
export HF_HOME="$HOME/hf_cache"
mkdir -p $WORK/hf_cache
export HF_HOME="$WORK/hf_cache"
echo 'export HF_HOME="$WORK/hf_cache"' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
```

If you need more space for a single campaign and don't need the cache long-term, `$SCRATCH` (up to 20 TB) is an option — but files are **automatically deleted after 40 days of inactivity** and must not be kept alive artificially with `touch`:

```zsh
mkdir -p $SCRATCH/hf_cache
export HF_HOME="$SCRATCH/hf_cache"
```

---

## 6. Running Evaluations
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