diff --git a/src/utils/hub.js b/src/utils/hub.js
index fe44bd614..84232fa04 100755
--- a/src/utils/hub.js
+++ b/src/utils/hub.js
@@ -190,6 +190,22 @@ function isValidUrl(string, protocols = null, validHosts = null) {
     return true;
 }
 
+const REPO_ID_REGEX = /^(\b[\w\-.]+\b\/)?\b[\w\-.]{1,96}\b$/;
+
+/**
+ * Tests whether a string is a valid Hugging Face model ID or not.
+ * Adapted from https://github.com/huggingface/huggingface_hub/blob/6378820ebb03f071988a96c7f3268f5bdf8f9449/src/huggingface_hub/utils/_validators.py#L119-L170
+ * 
+ * @param {string} string The string to test
+ * @returns {boolean} True if the string is a valid model ID, false otherwise.
+ */
+function isValidHfModelId(string) {
+    if (!REPO_ID_REGEX.test(string)) return false;
+    if (string.includes("..") || string.includes("--")) return false;
+    if (string.endsWith(".git") || string.endsWith(".ipynb")) return false;
+    return true;
+}
+
 /**
  * Helper function to get a file, using either the Fetch API or FileSystem API.
  *
@@ -442,12 +458,13 @@ export async function getModelFile(path_or_repo_id, filename, fatal = true, opti
     }
 
     const revision = options.revision ?? 'main';
+    const requestURL = pathJoin(path_or_repo_id, filename);
 
-    let requestURL = pathJoin(path_or_repo_id, filename);
-    let cachePath = pathJoin(env.localModelPath, requestURL);
-
-    let localPath = requestURL;
-    let remoteURL = pathJoin(
+    const validModelId = isValidHfModelId(path_or_repo_id);
+    const localPath = validModelId
+        ? pathJoin(env.localModelPath, requestURL)
+        : requestURL;
+    const remoteURL = pathJoin(
         env.remoteHost,
         env.remotePathTemplate
             .replaceAll('{model}', path_or_repo_id)
@@ -455,14 +472,14 @@ export async function getModelFile(path_or_repo_id, filename, fatal = true, opti
         filename
     );
 
-    // Choose cache key for filesystem cache
-    // When using the main revision (default), we use the request URL as the cache key.
-    // If a specific revision is requested, we account for this in the cache key.
-    let fsCacheKey = revision === 'main' ? requestURL : pathJoin(path_or_repo_id, revision, filename);
-
     /** @type {string} */
     let cacheKey;
-    let proposedCacheKey = cache instanceof FileCache ? fsCacheKey : remoteURL;
+    const proposedCacheKey = cache instanceof FileCache
+        // Choose cache key for filesystem cache
+        // When using the main revision (default), we use the request URL as the cache key.
+        // If a specific revision is requested, we account for this in the cache key.
+        ? revision === 'main' ? requestURL : pathJoin(path_or_repo_id, revision, filename)
+        : remoteURL;
 
     // Whether to cache the final response in the end.
     let toCacheResponse = false;
@@ -475,11 +492,10 @@ export async function getModelFile(path_or_repo_id, filename, fatal = true, opti
         //  1. We first try to get from cache using the local path. In some environments (like deno),
         //     non-URL cache keys are not allowed. In these cases, `response` will be undefined.
         //  2. If no response is found, we try to get from cache using the remote URL or file system cache.
-        response = await tryCache(cache, cachePath, proposedCacheKey);
+        response = await tryCache(cache, localPath, proposedCacheKey);
     }
 
     const cacheHit = response !== undefined;
-
     if (response === undefined) {
         // Caching not available, or file is not cached, so we perform the request
 
@@ -497,9 +513,9 @@ export async function getModelFile(path_or_repo_id, filename, fatal = true, opti
                     console.warn(`Unable to load from local path "${localPath}": "${e}"`);
                 }
             } else if (options.local_files_only) {
-                throw new Error(`\`local_files_only=true\`, but attempted to load a remote file from: ${localPath}.`);
+                throw new Error(`\`local_files_only=true\`, but attempted to load a remote file from: ${requestURL}.`);
             } else if (!env.allowRemoteModels) {
-                throw new Error(`\`env.allowRemoteModels=false\`, but attempted to load a remote file from: ${localPath}.`);
+                throw new Error(`\`env.allowRemoteModels=false\`, but attempted to load a remote file from: ${requestURL}.`);
             }
         }
 
@@ -519,6 +535,11 @@ export async function getModelFile(path_or_repo_id, filename, fatal = true, opti
                     return null;
                 }
             }
+            if (!validModelId) {
+                // Before making any requests to the remote server, we check if the model ID is valid.
+                // This prevents unnecessary network requests for invalid model IDs.
+                throw Error(`Local file missing at "${localPath}" and download aborted due to invalid model ID "${path_or_repo_id}".`);
+            }
 
             // File not found locally, so we try to download it from the remote server
             response = await getFile(remoteURL);
diff --git a/tests/utils/hub.test.js b/tests/utils/hub.test.js
index 3ef3f41f7..f819efc35 100644
--- a/tests/utils/hub.test.js
+++ b/tests/utils/hub.test.js
@@ -1,6 +1,7 @@
 import { AutoModel, PreTrainedModel } from "../../src/models.js";
 
 import { MAX_TEST_EXECUTION_TIME, DEFAULT_MODEL_OPTIONS } from "../init.js";
+import fs from "fs";
 
 // TODO: Set cache folder to a temp directory
 
@@ -36,5 +37,16 @@ describe("Hub", () => {
       },
       MAX_TEST_EXECUTION_TIME,
     );
+
+    const localPath = "./models/hf-internal-testing/tiny-random-T5ForConditionalGeneration";
+    (fs.existsSync(localPath) ? it : it.skip)(
+      "should load a model from a local path",
+      async () => {
+        // 4. Ensure we can load a model from a local path
+        const model = await AutoModel.from_pretrained(localPath, DEFAULT_MODEL_OPTIONS);
+        expect(model).toBeInstanceOf(PreTrainedModel);
+      },
+      MAX_TEST_EXECUTION_TIME,
+    );
   });
 });