diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py b/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..87bfdb0a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py
@@ -0,0 +1,24 @@
+# First Party
+from instructlab.training.tokenizer_utils import SpecialTokens
+
+SPECIAL_TOKENS = SpecialTokens(
+    system="<|system|>",
+    user="<|user|>",
+    assistant="<|assistant|>",
+    eos="<|endoftext|>",
+    pad="<|pad|>",
+)
+
+CHAT_TEMPLATE = (
+    "{% for message in messages %}"
+    "{% if message['role'] == 'pretraining' %}"
+    "{{'<|endoftext|>' + message['content'] + '<|endoftext|>'}}"
+    "{% elif message['role'] == 'system' %}"
+    "{{'<|system|>'+ '\n' + message['content'] + '\n'}}"
+    "{% elif message['role'] == 'user' %}"
+    "{{'<|user|>' + '\n' + message['content'] + '\n'}}"
+    "{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}"
+    "{{'<|assistant|>' + '\n' + message['content'] + '<|endoftext|>' + ('' if loop.last else '\n')}}"
+    "{% endif %}"
+    "{% endfor %}"
+)
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/mistral_tmpl.py b/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/mistral_tmpl.py
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..965823f2
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/chat_templates/mistral_tmpl.py
@@ -0,0 +1,22 @@
+# First Party
+from instructlab.training.tokenizer_utils import SpecialTokens
+
+SPECIAL_TOKENS = SpecialTokens(
+    bos="<s>",
+    eos="</s>",
+    user="[INST]",
+    assistant="[/INST]",
+)
+
+CHAT_TEMPLATE = (
+    "{{ '<s>' }}"
+    "{% for message in messages %}"
+    "{% if message['role'] == 'pretraining' %}"
+    "{{ message['content'] + '</s>' }}"
+    "{% elif message['role'] == 'user' %}"
+    "{{ '[INST] ' + message['content'] + ' [/INST]' }}"
+    "{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}"
+    "{{ message['content'] + '</s>'}}"
+    "{% endif %}"
+    "{% endfor %}"
+)
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/config.py b/src/instructlab/training/config.py
index c8733a45..83c7a1f8 100644
--- a/src/instructlab/training/config.py
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/config.py
@@ -4,6 +4,7 @@
 
 # Standard
 from enum import Enum
+import os
 
 # Third Party
 from pydantic import BaseModel, ConfigDict, Field
@@ -42,6 +43,7 @@ class DataProcessArgs(BaseModel):
     data_output_path: str
     max_seq_len: int  # defines the max sequence length of a sample
     model_path: str  # either a HF model name or path to HF model
+    chat_tmpl_path: str
 
     # disable the protected namespace for the model_config field
     model_config = ConfigDict(protected_namespaces=())
@@ -100,6 +102,11 @@ class TrainingArgs(BaseModel):
     # Either the name of a HuggingFace model or a path to a model saved in HuggingFace format.
     model_path: str
 
+    # Specify the chat template / special tokens for training (default is ibm-generic template/tokens)
+    chat_tmpl_path: str = os.path.join(
+        os.path.dirname(__file__), "chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py"
+    )
+
     # this field specifies the filepath to the training dataset before processing
     data_path: str
     ckpt_output_dir: str
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/data_process.py b/src/instructlab/training/data_process.py
index f8f43535..9301d185 100644
--- a/src/instructlab/training/data_process.py
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/data_process.py
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@
 from pathlib import Path
 from typing import List
 import logging
+import os
 
 # Third Party
 from datasets import load_dataset
@@ -10,12 +11,8 @@
 
 # First Party
 from instructlab.training.config import DataProcessArgs
-from instructlab.training.tokenizer_utils import (
-    SPECIAL_TOKENS,
-    get_sp_token,
-    setup_tokenizer,
-)
-from instructlab.training.utils import log_rank_0, setup_logger
+from instructlab.training.tokenizer_utils import get_sp_token, setup_tokenizer
+from instructlab.training.utils import log_rank_0, retrieve_chat_template, setup_logger
 
 
 def check_valid_sample(
@@ -37,18 +34,6 @@ def check_valid_sample(
     if not any(token in whole_sentence_tk for token in special_tokens):
         return True
 
-    # first token should be system_token
-    if whole_sentence_tk[0] != system_tk:
-        print("\033[91mfirst token is not a system_token\033[0m")
-        log_rank_0(tokenizer.decode(whole_sentence_tk), to_print=True)
-        return False
-
-    # check there's only one system_token
-    if (np.array(whole_sentence_tk) == system_tk).sum() != 1:
-        print("\033[91mthere are more than one system_token\033[0m")
-        log_rank_0(tokenizer.decode(whole_sentence_tk), to_print=True)
-        return False
-
     whole_sentence_tk = np.array(whole_sentence_tk)
     user_token_index = (whole_sentence_tk == user_tk).nonzero()[0]
     assistant_token_index = (whole_sentence_tk == assistant_tk).nonzero()[0]
@@ -121,7 +106,11 @@ def unmask_only_assistant_responses(
     whole_sentence = chosen_token["input_ids"][:sentence_legth].clone()
 
     # pre-training mode
-    if system_tk not in whole_sentence:
+    if not (
+        system_tk in whole_sentence
+        or user_token in whole_sentence
+        or assist_token in whole_sentence
+    ):
         return labels
 
     labels[:sentence_legth] = -100
@@ -204,11 +193,15 @@ def remove_pretrain_system_messages(example: dict):
 
 
 def main(args: DataProcessArgs):
-    tokenizer = setup_tokenizer(args.model_path)
+    CHAT_TEMPLATE, SPECIAL_TOKENS = retrieve_chat_template(args.chat_tmpl_path)
+    tokenizer = setup_tokenizer(args.model_path, SPECIAL_TOKENS, CHAT_TEMPLATE)
 
     eos_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.eos)
     pad_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.pad)
-    system_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.system)
+    if SPECIAL_TOKENS.system:
+        system_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.system)
+    else:
+        system_tk = None
     user_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.user)
     assistant_tk = get_sp_token(tokenizer, SPECIAL_TOKENS.assistant)
     log_rank_0(
@@ -309,6 +302,14 @@ def main(args: DataProcessArgs):
     parser.add_argument(
         "--model_name_or_path", type=str, required=True, help="Model name or path"
     )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--chat-tmpl-path",
+        type=str,
+        default=os.path.join(
+            os.path.dirname(__file__), "chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py"
+        ),
+        help="Path to desired chat template and special tokens, defaults to IBM generic.",
+    )
     args = parser.parse_args()
     setup_logger(args.logging_level)
     data_process_args = DataProcessArgs(
@@ -316,6 +317,7 @@ def main(args: DataProcessArgs):
         data_path=args.data_path,
         max_seq_len=args.max_seq_len,
         model_path=args.model_name_or_path,
+        chat_tmpl_path=args.chat_tmpl_path,
     )
     main(data_process_args)
 
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/main_ds.py b/src/instructlab/training/main_ds.py
index eeb0c077..1eb21a68 100644
--- a/src/instructlab/training/main_ds.py
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/main_ds.py
@@ -37,6 +37,7 @@
     patch_target_module,
     prepare_peft_model,
     prepare_universal_checkpoint_from_latest,
+    retrieve_chat_template,
     save_hf_format_ds,
     save_model_ds_native,
     set_random_seed,
@@ -438,7 +439,8 @@ def main(args):
         print(f"\033[38;5;120m{yaml.dump(vars(args), sort_keys=False)}\033[0m")
 
     setup_logger(args.log_level)
-    tokenizer = setup_tokenizer(args.model_name_or_path)
+    CHAT_TEMPLATE, SPECIAL_TOKENS = retrieve_chat_template(args.chat_tmpl_path)
+    tokenizer = setup_tokenizer(args.model_name_or_path, SPECIAL_TOKENS, CHAT_TEMPLATE)
     # device = torch.device("cuda", args.local_rank)
 
     #### distributed init #####
@@ -522,6 +524,7 @@ def run_training(torch_args: TorchrunArgs, train_args: TrainingArgs):
             model_path=train_args.model_path,
             data_path=train_args.data_path,
             max_seq_len=train_args.max_seq_len,
+            chat_tmpl_path=train_args.chat_tmpl_path,
         )
     )
 
@@ -546,6 +549,7 @@ def run_training(torch_args: TorchrunArgs, train_args: TrainingArgs):
         f"--log_level=INFO",
         f"--max_batch_len={train_args.max_batch_len}",
         f"--seed={train_args.random_seed}",
+        f"--chat-tmpl-path={train_args.chat_tmpl_path}",
     ]
 
     if train_args.mock_data:
@@ -644,6 +648,13 @@ def run_training(torch_args: TorchrunArgs, train_args: TrainingArgs):
         help="Offload optimizer to CPU when using DeepSpeed. This configures it to use ZeRO stage 2.",
     )
     parser.add_argument("--NEFTune_alpha", type=float, default=None)
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--chat-tmpl-path",
+        type=str,
+        default=os.path.join(
+            os.path.dirname(__file__), "chat_templates/ibm_generic_tmpl.py"
+        ),
+    )
     args = parser.parse_args()
     set_random_seed(args.seed)
     main(args)
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/tokenizer_utils.py b/src/instructlab/training/tokenizer_utils.py
index 7eff0e69..5c789441 100644
--- a/src/instructlab/training/tokenizer_utils.py
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/tokenizer_utils.py
@@ -10,46 +10,34 @@
 
 @dataclass
 class SpecialTokens:
-    system: str = field(default="<|system|>")
+    system: str = field(default=None)
     user: str = field(default="<|user|>")
     assistant: str = field(default="<|assistant|>")
     eos: str = field(default="<|endoftext|>")
-    pad: str = field(default="<|pad|>")
+    pad: str = field(default=None)
+    bos: str = field(default="<|begginingoftext|>")
 
 
-SPECIAL_TOKENS = SpecialTokens()
-
-CHAT_TEMPLATE = (
-    "{% for message in messages %}"
-    "{% if message['role'] == 'pretraining' %}"
-    "{{'<|endoftext|>' + message['content'] + '<|endoftext|>'}}"
-    "{% elif message['role'] == 'system' %}"
-    "{{'<|system|>'+ '\n' + message['content'] + '\n'}}"
-    "{% elif message['role'] == 'user' %}"
-    "{{'<|user|>' + '\n' + message['content'] + '\n'}}"
-    "{% elif message['role'] == 'assistant' %}"
-    "{{'<|assistant|>' + '\n' + message['content'] + '<|endoftext|>' + ('' if loop.last else '\n')}}"
-    "{% endif %}"
-    "{% endfor %}"
-)
-
-
-def setup_tokenizer(
-    model_name_or_path, SPECIAL_TOKENS=SPECIAL_TOKENS, CHAT_TEMPLATE=CHAT_TEMPLATE
-):
+def setup_tokenizer(model_name_or_path, SPECIAL_TOKENS, CHAT_TEMPLATE):
     tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained(model_name_or_path, fast_tokenizer=True)
-    tokenizer.add_special_tokens(
-        {"eos_token": SPECIAL_TOKENS.eos, "pad_token": SPECIAL_TOKENS.pad}
-    )
+
+    if not SPECIAL_TOKENS.pad:
+        SPECIAL_TOKENS.pad = SPECIAL_TOKENS.eos
     tokenizer.add_special_tokens(
         {
-            "additional_special_tokens": [
-                SPECIAL_TOKENS.system,
-                SPECIAL_TOKENS.user,
-                SPECIAL_TOKENS.assistant,
-            ]
+            "bos_token": SPECIAL_TOKENS.bos,
+            "eos_token": SPECIAL_TOKENS.eos,
+            "pad_token": SPECIAL_TOKENS.pad,
         }
     )
+
+    if SPECIAL_TOKENS.system:
+        add_token_list = [SPECIAL_TOKENS.system]
+    else:
+        add_token_list = []
+    add_token_list.extend([SPECIAL_TOKENS.user, SPECIAL_TOKENS.assistant])
+
+    tokenizer.add_special_tokens({"additional_special_tokens": add_token_list})
     if getattr(tokenizer, "add_bos_token", False) or getattr(
         tokenizer, "add_eos_token", False
     ):
diff --git a/src/instructlab/training/utils.py b/src/instructlab/training/utils.py
index 6feaa548..5eccb5dc 100644
--- a/src/instructlab/training/utils.py
+++ b/src/instructlab/training/utils.py
@@ -24,6 +24,19 @@
 import torch.nn.functional as F
 
 
+def retrieve_chat_template(chat_tmpl_path):
+    try:
+        spec = importlib.util.spec_from_file_location("spcl_chat_tmpl", chat_tmpl_path)
+        module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
+        sys.modules["spcl_chat_tmpl"] = module
+        spec.loader.exec_module(module)
+        SPECIAL_TOKENS = module.SPECIAL_TOKENS
+        CHAT_TEMPLATE = module.CHAT_TEMPLATE
+    except:
+        sys.exit(f"Invalid chat template path: {chat_tmpl_path}")
+    return CHAT_TEMPLATE, SPECIAL_TOKENS
+
+
 def add_noisy_embeddings(model, noise_alpha=None):
     if not noise_alpha:
         return model