diff --git a/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/ds_tool.py b/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/ds_tool.py
index 36691dc4..c3aa0dda 100644
--- a/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/ds_tool.py
+++ b/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/ds_tool.py
@@ -104,20 +104,24 @@ def _map_sample(self, sample):
 #   just ds_tool textgen -d ylacombe/expresso -u fixie-ai/expresso -c continuation -T @expresso_template.txt
 @dataclasses.dataclass
 class DatasetToolArgs:
+    # HF source dataset parameters
     dataset_name: str = simple_parsing.field(alias="-d")
     dataset_subset: Optional[str] = simple_parsing.field(default=None, alias="-S")
     dataset_split: Optional[str] = simple_parsing.field(default=None, alias="-s")
 
+    # Local processing parameters
     shuffle: bool = simple_parsing.field(default=False)
     shuffle_seed: int = simple_parsing.field(default=42)
     num_samples: Optional[int] = simple_parsing.field(default=None, alias="-n")
     num_workers: int = simple_parsing.field(default=16, alias="-w")
 
+    # HF destination dataset parameters
     upload_name: Optional[str] = simple_parsing.field(default=None, alias="-u")
+    # eg if the original split="train", but we want to upload it as "validation"
+    upload_split: Optional[str] = simple_parsing.field(default=None)
     upload_branch: Optional[str] = simple_parsing.field(default="main", alias="-B")
     num_shards: Optional[int] = simple_parsing.field(default=None, alias="-N")
     private: bool = simple_parsing.field(default=False)
-
     token: Optional[str] = None
 
     task: Union[TtsTask, TextGenerationTask] = simple_parsing.subgroups(
@@ -126,6 +130,11 @@ class DatasetToolArgs:
         positional=True,
     )
 
+    def __post_init__(self):
+        assert (
+            not self.upload_split or self.dataset_split
+        ), "Must specify dataset_split when using upload_split"
+
 
 def main(args: DatasetToolArgs):
     ds_name = args.dataset_name
@@ -150,6 +159,7 @@ def main(args: DatasetToolArgs):
         "token": token,
         "revision": args.upload_branch,
         "private": args.private,
+        "split": args.upload_split,
     }
     if args.num_shards is not None:
         hub_args["num_shards"] = {split: args.num_shards for split in data_dict.keys()}
diff --git a/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/tts.py b/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/tts.py
index e6b8b9e4..78e11c1c 100644
--- a/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/tts.py
+++ b/ultravox/tools/ds_tool/tts.py
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@
 import soundfile as sf
 
 RANDOM_VOICE_KEY = "random"
+REQUEST_TIMEOUT = 30
+NUM_RETRIES = 3
 
 
 def _make_ssml(voice: str, text: str):
@@ -23,6 +25,10 @@ def _make_ssml(voice: str, text: str):
 class Client(abc.ABC):
     def __init__(self, sample_rate: int = 16000):
         self._session = requests.Session()
+        retries = requests.adapters.Retry(total=NUM_RETRIES)
+        self._session.mount(
+            "https://", requests.adapters.HTTPAdapter(max_retries=retries)
+        )
         self._sample_rate = sample_rate
 
     @abc.abstractmethod
@@ -30,7 +36,9 @@ def tts(self, text: str, voice: Optional[str] = None) -> bytes:
         raise NotImplementedError
 
     def _post(self, url: str, headers: Dict[str, str], json: Dict[str, Any]):
-        response = self._session.post(url, headers=headers, json=json)
+        response = self._session.post(
+            url, headers=headers, json=json, timeout=REQUEST_TIMEOUT
+        )
         response.raise_for_status()
         return response
 
diff --git a/ultravox/tools/infer_tool.py b/ultravox/tools/infer_tool.py
index 0aa9427c..cf8b21f8 100644
--- a/ultravox/tools/infer_tool.py
+++ b/ultravox/tools/infer_tool.py
@@ -78,6 +78,11 @@ class InferArgs:
     # JSON output
     json: bool = simple_parsing.field(default=False)
 
+    def __post_init__(self):
+        if self.prompt and self.prompt.startswith("@"):
+            with open(self.prompt[1:], "r") as f:
+                self.prompt = f.read()
+
 
 def run_tui(
     index: int,