diff --git a/.github/workflows/test-studio.yml b/.github/workflows/test-studio.yml
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9a23871602
--- /dev/null
+++ b/.github/workflows/test-studio.yml
@@ -0,0 +1,84 @@
+# This workflow will install Python dependencies, run tests and lint with a variety of Python versions
+# For more information see: https://help.github.com/actions/language-and-framework-guides/using-python-with-github-actions
+
+name: Validate Shark Studio
+
+on:
+  push:
+    branches: [ main ]
+    paths-ignore:
+      - '**.md'
+      - 'shark/examples/**'
+  pull_request:
+    branches: [ main ]
+    paths-ignore:
+      - '**.md'
+      - 'shark/examples/**'
+  workflow_dispatch:
+
+# Ensure that only a single job or workflow using the same
+# concurrency group will run at a time. This would cancel
+# any in-progress jobs in the same github workflow and github
+# ref (e.g. refs/heads/main or refs/pull/<pr_number>/merge).
+concurrency:
+  group: ${{ github.workflow }}-${{ github.ref }}
+  cancel-in-progress: true
+
+jobs:
+  build-validate:
+    strategy:
+      fail-fast: true
+      matrix:
+        os: [nodai-ubuntu-builder-large]
+        suite: [cpu] #,cuda,vulkan]
+        python-version: ["3.11"]
+        include:
+          - os: nodai-ubuntu-builder-large
+            suite: lint
+
+    runs-on: ${{ matrix.os }}
+
+    steps:
+    - uses: actions/checkout@v3
+    
+    - name: Set Environment Variables
+      run: |
+        echo "SHORT_SHA=`git rev-parse --short=4 HEAD`" >> $GITHUB_ENV
+        echo "DATE=$(date +'%Y-%m-%d')" >> $GITHUB_ENV
+        
+    - name: Set up Python Version File ${{ matrix.python-version }}
+      run: |
+        echo ${{ matrix.python-version }} >> $GITHUB_WORKSPACE/.python-version
+    
+    - name: Set up Python ${{ matrix.python-version }}
+      uses: actions/setup-python@v4
+      with:
+        python-version: '${{ matrix.python-version }}'
+          
+    - name: Install dependencies
+      if: matrix.suite == 'lint'
+      run: |
+        python -m pip install --upgrade pip
+        python -m pip install flake8 pytest toml black
+        
+    - name: Lint with flake8
+      if: matrix.suite == 'lint'
+      run: |
+        # black format check
+        black --version
+        black --check apps/shark_studio 
+        # stop the build if there are Python syntax errors or undefined names
+        flake8 . --statistics
+        # exit-zero treats all errors as warnings. The GitHub editor is 127 chars wide
+        flake8 . --isolated --count --exit-zero --max-complexity=10 --max-line-length=127 \
+          --statistics --exclude lit.cfg.py
+
+    - name: Validate Models on CPU
+      if: matrix.suite == 'cpu'
+      run: |
+        cd $GITHUB_WORKSPACE
+        python${{ matrix.python-version }} -m venv shark.venv
+        shark.venv/bin/activate
+        pip install -r requirements.txt
+        pip install -e .
+        python apps/shark_studio/tests/api_tests.py
diff --git a/apps/shark_studio/tests/api_test.py b/apps/shark_studio/tests/api_test.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..9d4d2dab9f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/apps/shark_studio/tests/api_test.py
@@ -0,0 +1,34 @@
+# Copyright 2023 Nod Labs, Inc
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License v2.0 with LLVM Exceptions.
+# See https://llvm.org/LICENSE.txt for license information.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0 WITH LLVM-exception
+
+import logging
+import unittest
+from apps.shark_studio.api.llm import LanguageModel
+
+
+class LLMAPITest(unittest.TestCase):
+    def testLLMSimple(self):
+        lm = LanguageModel(
+            "Trelis/Llama-2-7b-chat-hf-function-calling-v2",
+            hf_auth_token=None,
+            device="cpu-task",
+            external_weights="safetensors",
+        )
+        count = 0
+        for msg, _ in lm.chat("hi, what are you?"):
+            # skip first token output
+            if count == 0:
+                count+=1
+                continue
+            assert msg.strip(" ") == "Hello", f"LLM API failed to return correct response, expected 'Hello', received {msg}"
+            break
+
+        
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)
+    unittest.main()
diff --git a/pyproject.toml b/pyproject.toml
index 22e0210c50..9e30d2c8fe 100644
--- a/pyproject.toml
+++ b/pyproject.toml
@@ -5,7 +5,6 @@ requires = [
     "packaging",
 
     "numpy>=1.22.4",
-    "torch-mlir>=20230620.875",
     "iree-compiler>=20221022.190",
     "iree-runtime>=20221022.190",
 ]
@@ -14,5 +13,16 @@ build-backend = "setuptools.build_meta"
 [tool.black]
 line-length = 79
 include = '\.pyi?$'
-exclude = "apps/language_models/scripts/vicuna.py"
-extend-exclude = "apps/language_models/src/pipelines/minigpt4_pipeline.py"
+exclude = '''
+(
+  /(
+    | apps/shark_studio
+    | apps/language_models/scripts/vicuna.py
+    | apps/language_models/src/pipelines/minigpt4_pipeline.py
+    | build
+    | generated_imgs
+    | shark.venv
+  )/
+  | setup.py
+)
+'''
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index c387fe9add..061873e7a8 100644
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -9,11 +9,6 @@
 
 PACKAGE_VERSION = os.environ.get("SHARK_PACKAGE_VERSION") or "0.0.5"
 backend_deps = []
-if "NO_BACKEND" in os.environ.keys():
-    backend_deps = [
-        "iree-compiler>=20221022.190",
-        "iree-runtime>=20221022.190",
-    ]
 
 setup(
     name="nodai-SHARK",
@@ -39,7 +34,5 @@
     install_requires=[
         "numpy",
         "PyYAML",
-        "torch-mlir",
     ]
-    + backend_deps,
 )