diff --git a/.github/workflows/docker-publish.yml b/.github/workflows/docker-publish.yml
index f13fb043..07d815b3 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/docker-publish.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/docker-publish.yml
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ jobs:
       packages: write
     strategy:
       matrix:
-        image: [extproc, llm-katan, dashboard]
+        image: [extproc, llm-katan, dashboard, model-downloader]
         # Multi-architecture build strategy:
         # - AMD64: Native build on ubuntu-latest (fast)
         # - ARM64: Cross-compilation on ubuntu-latest (faster than emulation)
@@ -171,6 +171,10 @@ jobs:
             echo "context=." >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
             echo "dockerfile=./dashboard/backend/Dockerfile" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
             echo "platform=linux/${{ matrix.arch }}" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+          elif [ "${{ matrix.image }}" = "model-downloader" ]; then
+            echo "context=." >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+            echo "dockerfile=./Dockerfile.model-downloader" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
+            echo "platform=linux/${{ matrix.arch }}" >> $GITHUB_OUTPUT
           fi
 
       - name: Generate tags
@@ -236,7 +240,7 @@ jobs:
       packages: write
     strategy:
       matrix:
-        image: [extproc, llm-katan, dashboard]
+        image: [extproc, llm-katan, dashboard, model-downloader]
 
     steps:
       - name: Log in to GitHub Container Registry
diff --git a/Dockerfile.model-downloader b/Dockerfile.model-downloader
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..6883e87d
--- /dev/null
+++ b/Dockerfile.model-downloader
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+FROM python:3.11-slim
+
+# Set environment variables
+ENV PIP_DISABLE_PIP_VERSION_CHECK=1 \
+    PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1 \
+    PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1
+
+# Add OCI labels
+LABEL org.opencontainers.image.source="https://github.com/vllm-project/semantic-router" \
+      org.opencontainers.image.description="Lightweight model downloader for Semantic Router with huggingface_hub pre-installed"
+
+WORKDIR /app
+
+# Install minimal dependencies in a single layer
+RUN apt-get update && \
+    apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
+        ca-certificates \
+    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/* /var/cache/apt/archives/* \
+    && pip install --no-cache-dir "huggingface_hub>=0.19.0" \
+    && find /usr/local -type d -name '__pycache__' -exec rm -rf {} + 2>/dev/null || true \
+    && find /usr/local -type f -name '*.pyc' -delete
+
+# Set default entrypoint to bash to allow script execution from arguments
+ENTRYPOINT ["/bin/bash", "-c"]