[Python] How to upload local LLM to private JFrog huggingface-ml repository?

I want to upload a local LLM to a private Jfrog "huggingface-ml" repository.

First I have installed the HF python client:

python3 -m pip install "huggingface_hub[cli]"


With this client in place, I have created a simple download script to get unsloth/Phi-4-mini-instruct-GGUF:

from huggingface_hub import snapshot_download

# Define model repository ID
model_id = "unsloth/Phi-4-mini-instruct-GGUF"

# Define local directory to store the model
local_dir = "./phi3_mini_instruct"

# Download the model
print(f" Downloading model: {model_id} ...")
snapshot_download(repo_id=model_id, local_dir=local_dir, repo_type="model")

print(f"✅ Model downloaded successfully to: {local_dir}")


The downlopad worked fine. All files had been in place:

ls phi3_mini_instruct/
Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q2_K.gguf Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q4_K_M.gguf Phi-4-mini-instruct.BF16.gguf config.json
Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q2_K_L.gguf Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q5_K_M.gguf Phi-4-mini-instruct.Q8_0.gguf
Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q3_K_M.gguf Phi-4-mini-instruct-Q6_K.gguf README.md


Then, I have used the deploy instructions by jfrog to setup "HF SDK". Then I created an upload routine:

from huggingface_hub import HfApi

# Initialize API (make sure you're authenticated)
api = HfApi()

# Define model path and repo details
local_model_path = "/home/fixcybj/phi3_mini_instruct" # Local folder containing model files
repo_id = "unsloth/Phi-4-mini-instruct-GGUF" # Hugging Face repository ID

# Upload the folder to the Hugging Face model repository
api.upload_folder(
folder_path=local_model_path, # Path to the model folder
repo_id=repo_id, # The Hugging Face model repository ID
repo_type="model" # Type of repository (model)
)

print(f"✅ Upload complete: {repo_id}")


When executing this script, I receive following error message:


python3 upload_hf.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/models.py", line 971, in json
return complexjson.loads(self.text, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3.12/json/__init__.py", line 346, in loads
return _default_decoder.decode(s)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3.12/json/decoder.py", line 337, in decode
obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3.12/json/decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/home/fixcybj/upload_hf.py", line 11, in <module>
api.upload_folder(
File "/home/fixcybj/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/huggingface_hub/utils/_validators.py", line 114, in _inner_fn
return fn(*args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/fixcybj/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 1551, in _inner
return fn(self, *args, **kwargs)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/fixcybj/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 4688, in upload_folder
add_operations = self._prepare_upload_folder_additions(
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/home/fixcybj/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 9189, in _prepare_upload_folder_additions
self._validate_yaml(
File "/home/fixcybj/.local/lib/python3.12/site-packages/huggingface_hub/hf_api.py", line 9243, in _validate_yaml
response_content = response.json()
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/requests/models.py", line 975, in json
raise RequestsJSONDecodeError(e.msg, e.doc, e.pos)
requests.exceptions.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

What do I need to change?!

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