diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index 6214e30..b8c28c2 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -137,6 +137,16 @@ oellm schedule-eval \
 
 Results are written to `./oellm-output/<timestamp>/results/`.
 
+**Air-gapped cluster nodes (no internet):** batch jobs set `HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1` and get `HF_HOME` from your cluster env. With `--local`, the CLI defaults `HF_HOME` to `~/.cache/huggingface` if unset and would otherwise allow Hub access—so on a compute node without network, export your real cache and offline flag before running, for example:
+
+```bash
+export HF_HOME=/leonardo_work/OELLM_prod2026/users/shaldar0/oellm-evals/hf_data
+export HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1
+oellm schedule-eval ... --venv_path .venv --local true
+```
+
+The `HF_HUB_OFFLINE` value is read when you invoke `oellm` and baked into the generated script.
+
 ## SLURM Overrides
 
 Override cluster defaults (partition, account, time limit, etc.) with `--slurm-template-var` (JSON object):
diff --git a/oellm/scheduler.py b/oellm/scheduler.py
index c06453d..7314a3b 100644
--- a/oellm/scheduler.py
+++ b/oellm/scheduler.py
@@ -34,6 +34,22 @@
 )
 
 
+def _resolve_hf_hub_offline(local: bool) -> int:
+    """Value embedded in the generated eval script as HF_HUB_OFFLINE.
+
+    If ``HF_HUB_OFFLINE`` is set in the environment when ``oellm`` runs, that
+    value wins. Otherwise defaults to online Hub access for ``--local``
+    (typical laptop dev) and offline for SLURM jobs (air-gapped workers).
+    """
+    raw = os.environ.get("HF_HUB_OFFLINE")
+    if raw is not None and str(raw).strip() != "":
+        try:
+            return int(str(raw).strip())
+        except ValueError:
+            logging.warning("Invalid HF_HUB_OFFLINE=%r; using default", raw)
+    return 0 if local else 1
+
+
 @capture_third_party_output_from_kwarg("verbose")
 def schedule_evals(
     models: str | None = None,
@@ -359,7 +375,7 @@ def schedule_evals(
         venv_path=venv_path or "",
         lm_eval_include_path=lm_eval_include_path
         or str(files("oellm.resources") / "custom_lm_eval_tasks"),
-        hf_hub_offline=0 if local else 1,
+        hf_hub_offline=_resolve_hf_hub_offline(local),
         lighteval_model_args="trust_remote_code=True,batch_size=1"
         if local
         else "trust_remote_code=True",