diff --git a/studio/backend/utils/hardware/hardware.py b/studio/backend/utils/hardware/hardware.py
index 8d6c919ebd..117ad7b780 100644
--- a/studio/backend/utils/hardware/hardware.py
+++ b/studio/backend/utils/hardware/hardware.py
@@ -49,6 +49,11 @@ logger = get_logger(__name__)
 # and spawn workers copy os.environ. setdefault so an explicit user override wins.
 os.environ.setdefault("CUDA_DEVICE_ORDER", "PCI_BUS_ID")
 
+# Studio workers can import MLX without importing unsloth first, so mirror the
+# package bootstrap here. Keep an explicit user value authoritative.
+if platform.system() == "Darwin" and platform.machine() == "arm64":
+    os.environ.setdefault("AGX_RELAX_CDM_CTXSTORE_TIMEOUT", "1")
+
 
 # ========== Device Enum ==========
 
diff --git a/unsloth/__init__.py b/unsloth/__init__.py
index de5cd0f61b..659637dd92 100644
--- a/unsloth/__init__.py
+++ b/unsloth/__init__.py
@@ -16,6 +16,11 @@ import os, importlib.util, platform
 
 os.environ["UNSLOTH_IS_PRESENT"] = "1"
 
+# Relax Metal's context-store timeout before MLX modules can initialize Metal.
+# Keep an explicit user value authoritative.
+if platform.system() == "Darwin" and platform.machine() == "arm64":
+    os.environ.setdefault("AGX_RELAX_CDM_CTXSTORE_TIMEOUT", "1")
+
 # ── Windows console UTF-8 safety ─────────────────────────────────────────────
 # Legacy Windows consoles (cp1252) can't encode Unsloth's emoji/box-drawing
 # glyphs and crash with UnicodeEncodeError. Force stdout/stderr to UTF-8 only on