ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader 1.1.0

📥 ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader

A .NET library and CLI tool to download files (ONNX models, tokenizers, voice presets, etc.) from Hugging Face Hub repositories with progress reporting, caching, and authentication support.

Features

• 📦 Download any file from public or private Hugging Face repositories
• 📊 Rich progress reporting with stages (Checking → Downloading → Validating → Complete)
• 🔑 HF_TOKEN authentication for gated/private repositories (env var or explicit)
• 🔒 Atomic writes using temp files to avoid partial/corrupt downloads
• ✅ Required vs optional files — optional files fail silently
• 📏 HEAD requests to resolve total download size before starting
• ⏭️ Skip existing files — only downloads what's missing
• 🖥️ Cross-platform cache directory helpers (Windows, Linux, macOS)
• 💉 DI-friendly with IServiceCollection extension methods
• 📝 ILogger integration for structured logging

Installation

Library (NuGet)

dotnet add package ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader

CLI Tool

dotnet tool install -g ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader.Cli

Once installed, use the hfdownload command:

# Download model files
hfdownload download sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 onnx/model.onnx tokenizer.json

# Check if files exist locally
hfdownload check sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2 onnx/model.onnx tokenizer.json

# List cached models
hfdownload list

# Delete a cached model
hfdownload delete sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2

# See all commands
hfdownload --help

See the full CLI Reference for all commands and options.

Quick Start (Library)

1) Download model files

using ElBruno.HuggingFace;

using var downloader = new HuggingFaceDownloader();

await downloader.DownloadFilesAsync(new DownloadRequest
{
    RepoId = "sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2",
    LocalDirectory = "./models/miniLM",
    RequiredFiles = ["onnx/model.onnx", "tokenizer.json"],
    OptionalFiles = ["tokenizer_config.json", "vocab.txt"]
});

2) Check if files are already downloaded

bool ready = downloader.AreFilesAvailable(
    ["onnx/model.onnx", "tokenizer.json"],
    "./models/miniLM");

if (!ready)
{
    var missing = downloader.GetMissingFiles(
        ["onnx/model.onnx", "tokenizer.json"],
        "./models/miniLM");
    Console.WriteLine($"Missing {missing.Count} files");
}

3) Track download progress

var progress = new Progress<DownloadProgress>(p =>
{
    if (p.Stage == DownloadStage.Downloading)
        Console.Write($"\r⬇️ [{p.CurrentFile}] {p.PercentComplete:F0}%");
    else
        Console.WriteLine($"{p.Stage}: {p.Message}");
});

await downloader.DownloadFilesAsync(new DownloadRequest
{
    RepoId = "sentence-transformers/all-MiniLM-L6-v2",
    LocalDirectory = "./models/miniLM",
    RequiredFiles = ["onnx/model.onnx", "tokenizer.json"],
    Progress = progress
});

4) Authentication (Private/Gated Repos)

Set the HF_TOKEN environment variable, or pass it explicitly:

var downloader = new HuggingFaceDownloader(new HuggingFaceDownloaderOptions
{
    AuthToken = "hf_your_token_here"
});

5) Dependency Injection

builder.Services.AddHuggingFaceDownloader(options =>
{
    options.Timeout = TimeSpan.FromMinutes(60);
});

// Then inject HuggingFaceDownloader in your services
public class MyModelService(HuggingFaceDownloader downloader)
{
    public async Task EnsureModelAsync()
    {
        await downloader.DownloadFilesAsync(new DownloadRequest
        {
            RepoId = "my-org/my-model",
            LocalDirectory = DefaultPathHelper.GetDefaultCacheDirectory("MyApp"),
            RequiredFiles = ["model.onnx", "tokenizer.json"]
        });
    }
}

Documentation

Related Projects

• ElBruno.PersonaPlex — Integrates this downloader to auto-download ONNX models for NVIDIA's PersonaPlex-7B-v1 full-duplex speech-to-speech model

Building from Source

git clone https://github.com/elbruno/ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader.git
cd ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader
dotnet build ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader.slnx
dotnet test ElBruno.HuggingFace.Downloader.slnx

Requirements

• .NET 8.0 SDK or later

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -m 'Add amazing feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin feature/amazing-feature)
5. Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

👋 About the Author

Hi! I'm ElBruno 🧡, a passionate developer and content creator exploring AI, .NET, and modern development practices.

Made with ❤️ by ElBruno

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