diff --git a/megatron/data/gpt2_dataset.py b/megatron/data/gpt2_dataset.py
index 9c70eba01..b6824cab5 100644
--- a/megatron/data/gpt2_dataset.py
+++ b/megatron/data/gpt2_dataset.py
@@ -48,6 +48,13 @@ def __init__(
 
         self.neox_args = neox_args
 
+        # TODO: move spacy model def outside this fn, into __init__()
+        if neox_args.conditional_training:
+            import spacy
+            self.spacy_model = spacy.blank("en")
+            sentencizer = self.spacy_model.add_pipe("sentencizer")
+            self.spacy_model.max_length = 1e12
+
         # Checks
         assert np.min(documents) >= 0
         assert np.max(documents) < indexed_dataset.sizes.shape[0]
@@ -111,14 +118,8 @@ def __getitem__(self, idx):
                     )
                     samples.append(np.concatenate(sample_list))
 
-            # TODO: move spacy model def outside this fn, into __init__()
-            import spacy
-            spacy_model = spacy.blank("en")
-            sentencizer = spacy_model.add_pipe("sentencizer")
-            spacy_model.max_length = 1e12
 
-            conditional_training = True
-            if conditional_training:
+            if self.neox_args.conditional_training:
                 sample_text = self.neox_args.tokenizer.detokenize(samples[0])
 
                 new_sample_text = ""
diff --git a/megatron/neox_arguments/neox_args.py b/megatron/neox_arguments/neox_args.py
index 957960832..aac369773 100644
--- a/megatron/neox_arguments/neox_args.py
+++ b/megatron/neox_arguments/neox_args.py
@@ -788,6 +788,11 @@ class NeoXArgsTraining(NeoXArgsTemplate):
     Warm up mmap files.
     """
 
+    conditional_training: bool = False
+    """
+    Whether to perform (decision-transformer style) conditional training.
+    """
+
     save: str = None
     """
     Output directory to save checkpoints to.