fix(ci): pin hf-xet<1.5 to fix model download failures

[VincyZhang]

Problem

hf-xet 1.5.0 (released 2026-05-06) deprecated the hf_xet.download_files() API that huggingface_hub's snapshot_download() relies on internally. This causes all tests requiring model pre-download to fail with:

RuntimeError: Failed to pre-download required Hugging Face models:
hf_xet.download_files() is deprecated. Use XetSession().new_file_download_group().start_download_file() instead.

Affected models: Qwen/Qwen2-VL-2B-Instruct, Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B, Qwen/Qwen2.5-VL-7B-Instruct, deepseek-ai/deepseek-llm-7b-base

Result: 31 test errors (all from fixture predownload_models in tests/conftest.py:389)

Root Cause

hf-xet is unpinned in container/deps/requirements.test.txt. The newly released 1.5.0 broke backward compatibility with current huggingface_hub by converting a deprecation warning into a hard error.

Fix

Pin hf-xet<1.5 until huggingface_hub releases a version compatible with the new XetSession API.

Verification

• Tested locally: pip install hf-xet<1.5 && python -c "from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download; snapshot_download('Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B', ignore_patterns=['*.safetensors'])" succeeds
• Previous CI runs (before 2026-05-06) with hf-xet 1.4.3 passed model downloads successfully

---

Summary by CodeRabbit

• Chores
  • Updated test environment dependencies to ensure compatibility with recent API changes.

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[github-actions]

👋 Hi VincyZhang! Thank you for contributing to ai-dynamo/dynamo.

Just a reminder: The NVIDIA Test Github Validation CI runs an essential subset of the testing framework to quickly catch errors.Your PR reviewers may elect to test the changes comprehensively before approving your changes.

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[coderabbitai]

Walkthrough

The test requirements file pins the hf-xet dependency to versions below 1.5, replacing an unpinned entry. An explanatory comment documents that the pin is necessary due to XetSession API changes.

Changes

Test Dependency Pin

Layer / File(s)	Summary
Dependency Specification container/deps/requirements.test.txt	hf-xet is pinned to <1.5 with a comment explaining the constraint is due to XetSession API compatibility.

Estimated code review effort

🎯 1 (Trivial) | ⏱️ ~2 minutes

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title clearly and specifically describes the main change: pinning hf-xet<1.5 to fix model download failures in CI.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description comprehensively covers the problem, root cause, fix, and verification, exceeding the template requirements with detailed context and evidence.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	No functions found in the changed files to evaluate docstring coverage. Skipping docstring coverage check.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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[coderabbitai]

🧹 Nitpick comments (1)

container/deps/requirements.test.txt (1)

19-20: ⚡ Quick win

Consider tracking the pin removal with a GitHub issue.

Since this pin is temporary and should be removed once huggingface_hub supports the new XetSession API, consider creating a GitHub issue to track this future work. You could then reference it in the comment (e.g., # ... new XetSession API, see GH-XXXX).

🤖 Prompt for AI Agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

In `@container/deps/requirements.test.txt` around lines 19 - 20, The requirements
pin for "hf-xet<1.5" is temporary; create a GitHub issue to track removal once
huggingface_hub supports the new XetSession API and update the inline comment
next to the hf-xet<1.5 entry to reference that issue (e.g., "# For faster model
downloads (pin <1.5 until huggingface_hub adapts to new XetSession API, see
GH-XXXX)"), so future maintainers can find the follow-up work easily.

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Nitpick comments:
In `@container/deps/requirements.test.txt`:
- Around line 19-20: The requirements pin for "hf-xet<1.5" is temporary; create
a GitHub issue to track removal once huggingface_hub supports the new XetSession
API and update the inline comment next to the hf-xet<1.5 entry to reference that
issue (e.g., "# For faster model downloads (pin <1.5 until huggingface_hub
adapts to new XetSession API, see GH-XXXX)"), so future maintainers can find the
follow-up work easily.

---

ℹ️ Review info

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Run ID: f6d1f8f8-d7ef-4f5a-8bd5-57c870942acd

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 87c5090 and f2df824.

📒 Files selected for processing (1)

• container/deps/requirements.test.txt