Support INSPECT_EVAL_MODEL_ARGS environment variable for calls to `ev…

…al()` (#733)

CHANGELOG.md

@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 - Llama: remove extraneous <|start_header_id|>assistant<|end_header_id|> if it appears in an assistant message.
 - Use Dockerhub aisiuk/inspect-web-browser-tool image for web browser tool.
 - Use ParamSpec to capture types of decorated solvers, tools, scorers, and metrics.
+- Support INSPECT_EVAL_MODEL_ARGS environment variable for calls to `eval()`.
 - Requirements: require semver>=3.0.0
 - Added `delimiter` option to `csv_dataset()` (defaults to ",")
 - Improve answer detection in multiple choice scorer.

src/inspect_ai/_eval/eval.py

@@ -7,6 +7,7 @@
 from shortuuid import uuid
 from typing_extensions import Unpack
 
+from inspect_ai._cli.util import parse_cli_args
 from inspect_ai._util.error import PrerequisiteError
 from inspect_ai._util.file import absolute_file_path
 from inspect_ai._util.platform import platform_init
@@ -687,6 +688,13 @@ def eval_init(
     # init eval context
     init_eval_context(trace, log_level, log_level_transcript, max_subprocesses)
 
+    # resolve model args from environment if not specified
+    if len(model_args) == 0:
+        env_model_args = os.environ.get("INSPECT_EVAL_MODEL_ARGS", None)
+        if env_model_args:
+            args = [arg.strip() for arg in env_model_args.split(" ")]
+            model_args = parse_cli_args(args)
+
     # resolve models
     generate_config = GenerateConfig(**kwargs)
     models = resolve_models(model, model_base_url, model_args, generate_config)