diff --git a/singularity/Singularity.rag b/singularity/Singularity.rag
index 40ad3d4..7457869 100644
--- a/singularity/Singularity.rag
+++ b/singularity/Singularity.rag
@@ -15,11 +15,13 @@ mkdir -p /app
 cd /app
 apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends git wget curl build-essential ca-certificates && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 pip3 install --no-cache-dir chromadb "fastapi>=0.110,<0.112" "uvicorn[standard]>=0.29,<0.31"     "transformers>=4.41,<4.45" "sentence-transformers>=2.6,<3"     "chromadb==0.5.4" "watchdog>=3,<5" "pypdf>=4,<5" requests httpx pyyaml
+
 HF_HOME=/root/.cache/huggingface
 chmod +x singularity-entrypoint.sh
 
 %environment
 export HF_HOME=/root/.cache/huggingface
+export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/opt/conda/lib:/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
 
 %runscript
 /bin/bash singularity-entrypoint.sh
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/singularity/Singularity.vllm b/singularity/Singularity.vllm
index d24f421..844c477 100644
--- a/singularity/Singularity.vllm
+++ b/singularity/Singularity.vllm
@@ -12,6 +12,12 @@ From: vllm/vllm-openai:latest
         pkg-config cmake ninja-build
     rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
 
+    # FIPS workaround: opencv-python-headless >=4.13 bundles a FIPS-enabled
+    # OpenSSL 1.1.1k from CentOS/RHEL that crashes on FIPS-enabled hosts.
+    # Pin to 4.12.0.88 which does not bundle OpenSSL.
+    # See: https://github.com/opencv/opencv-python/issues/1184
+    pip install opencv-python-headless==4.12.0.88
+
     # Pick a Python interpreter that actually exists in the base image
     if command -v python >/dev/null 2>&1; then
         PY=python
@@ -37,6 +43,9 @@ print("Transformers:", transformers.__version__)
 print("vLLM:", vllm.__version__)
 PY
 
+%environment
+    export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu:/usr/lib${LD_LIBRARY_PATH:+:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH}
+
 %runscript
     mkdir -p /app
     cd /app
diff --git a/workflow.yaml b/workflow.yaml
index f1b6a2f..688a738 100644
--- a/workflow.yaml
+++ b/workflow.yaml
@@ -468,10 +468,48 @@ jobs:
             REPO_URL="https://huggingface.co/$MODEL_ID"
             [[ -n "$HF_TOKEN" ]] && REPO_URL="https://user:${HF_TOKEN}@huggingface.co/$MODEL_ID"
 
-            # Clone with LFS and pull large files
-            GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone --depth 1 "$REPO_URL" "$TARGET_DIR"
+            # Clone without LFS or checkout, then sparse-checkout only safetensors
+            GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone --depth 1 --no-checkout "$REPO_URL" "$TARGET_DIR"
             cd "$TARGET_DIR"
-            git lfs pull
+
+            # Sparse checkout: exclude bin/gguf/onnx/pth to only get safetensors weights
+            git sparse-checkout init --no-cone
+            git sparse-checkout set '/*' '!*.bin' '!*.gguf' '!*.onnx' '!consolidated*.pth'
+            git checkout
+
+            # Configure LFS for reliability with large models
+            git lfs install --local
+            git config lfs.concurrenttransfers 4
+            git config lfs.transfer.maxretries 10
+            git config lfs.transfer.maxretrydelay 30
+
+            # Fetch only safetensors LFS objects with progress and retry logic
+            attempt=1
+            max_attempts=3
+            while true; do
+              echo "LFS fetch attempt ${attempt}/${max_attempts}..."
+              if git lfs fetch --progress --include="*.safetensors"; then
+                break
+              fi
+              if [[ $attempt -ge $max_attempts ]]; then
+                echo "ERROR: LFS fetch failed after ${max_attempts} attempts"
+                exit 1
+              fi
+              sleep $((attempt * 5))
+              ((attempt++))
+            done
+            echo "Checking out LFS files..."
+            git lfs checkout --include="*.safetensors"
+
+            # Fallback: if model only ships bin weights, re-include and fetch those
+            if ! ls *.safetensors 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then
+              echo "No safetensors files found, falling back to bin weights..."
+              git sparse-checkout set '/*'
+              git checkout
+              git lfs fetch --progress --include="*.bin"
+              git lfs checkout --include="*.bin"
+            fi
+
             cd ..
             
             # Verify model weights exist (not just LFS pointers)
diff --git a/yamls/hsp.yaml b/yamls/hsp.yaml
index e5180ef..8285aa3 100644
--- a/yamls/hsp.yaml
+++ b/yamls/hsp.yaml
@@ -468,10 +468,48 @@ jobs:
             REPO_URL="https://huggingface.co/$MODEL_ID"
             [[ -n "$HF_TOKEN" ]] && REPO_URL="https://user:${HF_TOKEN}@huggingface.co/$MODEL_ID"
 
-            # Clone with LFS and pull large files
-            GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone --depth 1 "$REPO_URL" "$TARGET_DIR"
+            # Clone without LFS or checkout, then sparse-checkout only safetensors
+            GIT_LFS_SKIP_SMUDGE=1 git clone --depth 1 --no-checkout "$REPO_URL" "$TARGET_DIR"
             cd "$TARGET_DIR"
-            git lfs pull
+
+            # Sparse checkout: exclude bin/gguf/onnx/pth to only get safetensors weights
+            git sparse-checkout init --no-cone
+            git sparse-checkout set '/*' '!*.bin' '!*.gguf' '!*.onnx' '!consolidated*.pth'
+            git checkout
+
+            # Configure LFS for reliability with large models
+            git lfs install --local
+            git config lfs.concurrenttransfers 4
+            git config lfs.transfer.maxretries 10
+            git config lfs.transfer.maxretrydelay 30
+
+            # Fetch only safetensors LFS objects with progress and retry logic
+            attempt=1
+            max_attempts=3
+            while true; do
+              echo "LFS fetch attempt ${attempt}/${max_attempts}..."
+              if git lfs fetch --progress --include="*.safetensors"; then
+                break
+              fi
+              if [[ $attempt -ge $max_attempts ]]; then
+                echo "ERROR: LFS fetch failed after ${max_attempts} attempts"
+                exit 1
+              fi
+              sleep $((attempt * 5))
+              ((attempt++))
+            done
+            echo "Checking out LFS files..."
+            git lfs checkout --include="*.safetensors"
+
+            # Fallback: if model only ships bin weights, re-include and fetch those
+            if ! ls *.safetensors 1>/dev/null 2>&1; then
+              echo "No safetensors files found, falling back to bin weights..."
+              git sparse-checkout set '/*'
+              git checkout
+              git lfs fetch --progress --include="*.bin"
+              git lfs checkout --include="*.bin"
+            fi
+
             cd ..
             
             # Verify model weights exist (not just LFS pointers)