diff --git a/examples/gpt-oss/README.md b/examples/gpt-oss/README.md
index 98f3ea892..0aa04a71c 100644
--- a/examples/gpt-oss/README.md
+++ b/examples/gpt-oss/README.md
@@ -67,9 +67,23 @@ mv ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/merged/* ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
 ### Inferencing your fine-tuned model
 
+#### vLLM
+
 GPT-OSS support in vLLM does not exist in a stable release yet. See https://x.com/MaziyarPanahi/status/1955741905515323425
 for more information about using a special vllm-openai docker image for inferencing with vLLM.
 
+Optionally, vLLM can be installed from nightly:
+
+```bash
+pip install --no-build-isolation --pre -U vllm --extra-index-url https://wheels.vllm.ai/nightly
+```
+and the vLLM server can be started with the following command (modify `--tensor-parallel-size 8` to match your environment):
+```bash
+vllm serve ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/ --served-model-name axolotl/gpt-oss-20b --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8888  --tensor-parallel-size 8
+```
+
+#### SGLang
+
 SGLang has 0-day support in main, see https://github.com/sgl-project/sglang/issues/8833 for infomation on installing
 SGLang from source. Once you've installed SGLang, run the following command to launch a SGLang server:
 
diff --git a/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml b/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml
index a6ba83433..1b142b6c3 100644
--- a/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml
+++ b/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2-offload.yaml
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ datasets:
     field_thinking: thinking
     template_thinking_key: thinking
 
-dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
+dataset_prepared_path: ./outputs/last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0
 output_dir: ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
diff --git a/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2.yaml b/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2.yaml
index aa658c863..bdbb70fae 100644
--- a/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2.yaml
+++ b/examples/gpt-oss/gpt-oss-20b-fft-fsdp2.yaml
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ datasets:
     field_thinking: thinking
     template_thinking_key: thinking
 
-dataset_prepared_path: last_run_prepared
+dataset_prepared_path: ./outputs/last_run_prepared
 val_set_size: 0
 output_dir: ./outputs/gpt-oss-out/
 
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/cloud/modal_.py b/src/axolotl/cli/cloud/modal_.py
index 240c6d894..0509cba69 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/cloud/modal_.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/cloud/modal_.py
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ class ModalCloud(Cloud):
         return res
 
     def get_image(self):
-        docker_tag = "main-py3.11-cu124-2.6.0"
+        docker_tag = "main-py3.11-cu126-2.7.1"
         if self.config.docker_tag:
             docker_tag = self.config.docker_tag
         docker_image = f"axolotlai/axolotl:{docker_tag}"
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py b/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
index 83b567b64..d03a91bc7 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/inference.py
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ def do_inference(
             importlib.import_module("axolotl.prompters"), prompter
         )
     elif cfg.chat_template:
-        chat_template_str = get_chat_template(cfg.chat_template)
+        chat_template_str = get_chat_template(cfg.chat_template, tokenizer=tokenizer)
     elif cfg.datasets[0].type == "chat_template":
         chat_template_str = get_chat_template_from_config(
             cfg=cfg, ds_cfg=cfg.datasets[0], tokenizer=tokenizer
diff --git a/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py b/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
index 5d692c315..4120062d8 100644
--- a/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
+++ b/src/axolotl/cli/preprocess.py
@@ -97,7 +97,8 @@ def do_cli(
     """
     # pylint: disable=duplicate-code
     os.environ["AXOLOTL_IS_PREPROCESS"] = "1"
-    parsed_cfg = load_cfg(config, **kwargs)
+    is_preprocess = kwargs.pop("is_preprocess", True)
+    parsed_cfg = load_cfg(config, is_preprocess=is_preprocess, **kwargs)
     parsed_cfg.is_preprocess = True
     parser = transformers.HfArgumentParser(PreprocessCliArgs)
     parsed_cli_args, _ = parser.parse_args_into_dataclasses(