Allowing encoded configuration for DeepSpeed

src/accelerate/utils/deepspeed.py

@@ -12,8 +12,10 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
+import base64
 import io
 import json
+import os
 from copy import deepcopy
 
 from ..optimizer import AcceleratedOptimizer
@@ -43,11 +45,18 @@ def __init__(self, config_file_or_dict):
             # Don't modify user's data should they want to reuse it (e.g. in tests), because once we
             # modified it, it will not be accepted here again, since `auto` values would have been overridden
             config = deepcopy(config_file_or_dict)
-        elif isinstance(config_file_or_dict, str):
+        elif os.path.exists(config_file_or_dict):
             with io.open(config_file_or_dict, "r", encoding="utf-8") as f:
                 config = json.load(f)
         else:
-            raise ValueError("expecting either a path to a DeepSpeed config file or a pre-populated dict")
+            try:
+                config_decoded = base64.urlsafe_b64decode(config_file_or_dict).decode("utf-8")
+                config = json.loads(config_decoded)
+            except (UnicodeDecodeError, AttributeError):
+                raise ValueError(
+                    f"Expected a string path to an existing deepspeed config, or a dictionary, or a base64 encoded string. Received: {config}"
+                )
+
         self.config = config
 
         # zero stage - this is done as early as possible, before model is created, to allow