diff --git a/src/anemoi/inference/checkpoint.py b/src/anemoi/inference/checkpoint.py
index 3e52130..fea51f3 100644
--- a/src/anemoi/inference/checkpoint.py
+++ b/src/anemoi/inference/checkpoint.py
@@ -30,6 +30,9 @@ def _download_huggingfacehub(huggingface_config):
     except ImportError as e:
         raise ImportError("Could not import `huggingface_hub`, please run `pip install huggingface_hub`.") from e
 
+    if isinstance(huggingface_config, str):
+        huggingface_config = {"repo_id": huggingface_config}
+
     if "filename" in huggingface_config:
         config_path = hf_hub_download(**huggingface_config)
     else:
diff --git a/src/anemoi/inference/config.py b/src/anemoi/inference/config.py
index 738d2f6..f62a9c8 100644
--- a/src/anemoi/inference/config.py
+++ b/src/anemoi/inference/config.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ class Config:
 
     description: str | None = None
 
-    checkpoint: str | Dict[Literal["huggingface"], Dict[str, Any]]
+    checkpoint: str | Dict[Literal["huggingface"], Dict[str, Any] | str]
     """A path to an Anemoi checkpoint file."""
 
     date: str | int | datetime.datetime | None = None