diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/BUILD.bazel b/examples/simplified_gemma/BUILD.bazel
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2ae7861
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/BUILD.bazel
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+# Hello World example frontend to gemma.cpp.
+package(
+    default_applicable_licenses = [
+        "//:license",  # Placeholder comment, do not modify
+    ],
+    default_visibility = ["//visibility:public"],
+)
+
+cc_library(
+    name = "gemma",
+    hdrs = ["gemma.hpp"],
+    deps = [
+        "//:app",
+        "//:args",
+        "//:common",
+        "//:gemma_lib",
+        "//:threading",
+        "//:tokenizer",
+        "@highway//:hwy",
+        "@highway//:thread_pool",
+    ],
+)
+
+cc_binary(
+    name = "simplified_gemma",
+    srcs = ["run.cc"],
+    deps = [
+        ":gemma",
+        # Placeholder for internal dep, do not remove.,
+        "//:app",
+        "//:args",
+        "//:common",
+        "//:gemma_lib",
+        "//:threading",
+        "//:tokenizer",
+        "@highway//:hwy",
+        "@highway//:thread_pool",
+    ],
+)
diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/CMakeLists.txt b/examples/simplified_gemma/CMakeLists.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..609459e
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/CMakeLists.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,49 @@
+# Copyright 2019 Google LLC
+#
+# Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+# you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+# You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+# Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+# distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+# WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+# See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+# limitations under the License.
+
+cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.11)
+project(simplified_gemma)
+set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD_REQUIRED ON)
+
+include(FetchContent)
+FetchContent_Declare(highway GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/google/highway.git GIT_TAG f2209b911c74019e85d0b7a7a2833c9a2e1b7995)
+FetchContent_MakeAvailable(highway)
+FetchContent_Declare(sentencepiece GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/google/sentencepiece GIT_TAG 53de76561cfc149d3c01037f0595669ad32a5e7c)
+FetchContent_MakeAvailable(sentencepiece)
+
+
+
+# Allow for both local and remote building)
+option(BUILD_MODE "'local' or 'remote' git fetch for builds")
+if (NOT BUILD_MODE)
+  set(BUILD_MODE "remote")
+endif()
+if (BUILD_MODE STREQUAL "local")
+  # Relative path to gemma.cpp from examples/simplified_gemma/build/
+  FetchContent_Declare(gemma SOURCE_DIR ../../..) 
+else()
+  FetchContent_Declare(gemma GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/google/gemma.cpp.git GIT_TAG a9aa63fd2ea6b786ed0706d619588bfe2d43370e)
+endif()
+FetchContent_MakeAvailable(gemma)
+
+if(NOT CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE)
+    set(CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE "Release")
+endif()
+
+add_executable(simplified_gemma run.cc)
+target_link_libraries(simplified_gemma hwy hwy_contrib sentencepiece libgemma)
+FetchContent_GetProperties(sentencepiece)
+target_include_directories(simplified_gemma PRIVATE ${sentencepiece_SOURCE_DIR})
+target_compile_definitions(simplified_gemma PRIVATE $<$<PLATFORM_ID:Windows>:_CRT_SECURE_NO_WARNINGS NOMINMAX>)
+target_compile_options(simplified_gemma PRIVATE $<$<PLATFORM_ID:Windows>:-Wno-deprecated-declarations>)
diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/README.md b/examples/simplified_gemma/README.md
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d8f9394
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/README.md
@@ -0,0 +1,60 @@
+# Simplified Gemma.cpp Example
+
+This is a minimal/template project for using `gemma.cpp` as a library. Instead
+of an interactive interface, it sets up the model state and generates text for a
+single hard coded prompt.
+
+Build steps are similar to the main `gemma` executable. For now only
+`cmake`/`make` is available for builds (PRs welcome for other build options).
+
+First use `cmake` to configure the project, starting from the `simplified_gemma`
+example directory (`gemma.cpp/examples/simplified_gemma`):
+
+```sh
+cmake -B build
+```
+
+This sets up a build configuration in `gemma.cpp/examples/simplified_gemma/build`.
+Note that this fetches `libgemma` from a git commit hash on github.
+Alternatively if you want to build using the local version of `gemma.cpp` use:
+
+```sh
+cmake -B build -DBUILD_MODE=local
+```
+
+Make sure you delete the contents of the build directory before changing
+configurations.
+
+Then use `make` to build the project:
+
+```sh
+cd build
+make simplified_gemma
+```
+
+As with the top-level `gemma.cpp` project you can use the `make` commands `-j`
+flag to use parallel threads for faster builds.
+
+From inside the `gemma.cpp/examples/simplified_gemma/build` directory, there should
+be a `simplified_gemma` executable. You can run it with the same 3 model arguments as
+gemma.cpp specifying the tokenizer, compressed weights file, and model type, for
+example:
+
+```sh
+./simplified_gemma --tokenizer tokenizer.spm --compressed_weights 2b-it-sfp.sbs --model 2b-it
+```
+
+Should print a greeting to the terminal:
+
+```
+"Hello, world! It's a pleasure to greet you all. May your day be filled with joy, peace, and all the things that make your heart soar.
+```
+
+For a demonstration of constrained decoding, add the `--reject` flag followed by
+a list of token IDs (note that it must be the last flag, since it consumes every
+subsequent argument). For example, to reject variations of the word "greeting",
+run:
+
+```sh
+./simplified_gemma [...] --reject 32338 42360 78107 106837 132832 143859 154230 190205
+```
diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/build/.gitignore b/examples/simplified_gemma/build/.gitignore
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..d6b7ef3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/build/.gitignore
@@ -0,0 +1,2 @@
+*
+!.gitignore
diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/gemma.hpp b/examples/simplified_gemma/gemma.hpp
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..84283a3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/gemma.hpp
@@ -0,0 +1,114 @@
+// Copyright 2024 Google LLC
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by app_licable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+#include <stddef.h>
+
+#include <cstdlib>
+#include <cstring>
+#include <iostream>
+#include <random>
+#include <set>
+#include <string>
+#include <vector>
+
+#include "third_party/gemma_cpp/gemma/gemma.h"
+#include "third_party/gemma_cpp/gemma/tokenizer.h"
+#include "third_party/gemma_cpp/util/app.h"  // LoaderArgs
+#include "third_party/gemma_cpp/util/threading.h"
+#include "third_party/highway/hwy/base.h"
+#include "third_party/highway/hwy/contrib/thread_pool/thread_pool.h"
+
+class SimplifiedGemma {
+ public:
+  SimplifiedGemma(const gcpp::LoaderArgs& loader,
+                  const gcpp::InferenceArgs& inference = gcpp::InferenceArgs(),
+                  const gcpp::AppArgs& app = gcpp::AppArgs())
+      : loader_(loader),
+        inference_(inference),
+        app_(app),
+        pools_(gcpp::CreatePools(app_)),
+        model_(gcpp::CreateGemma(loader_, pools_)) {
+    Init();
+  }
+
+  SimplifiedGemma(int argc, char** argv)
+      : loader_(argc, argv, /*validate=*/true),
+        inference_(argc, argv),
+        app_(argc, argv),
+        pools_(gcpp::CreatePools(app_)),
+        model_(gcpp::CreateGemma(loader_, pools_)) {
+    Init();
+  }
+
+  void Init() {
+    gcpp::Allocator::Init(pools_.Topology());
+
+    // Instantiate model and KV Cache
+    kv_cache_ = gcpp::KVCache::Create(model_.GetModelConfig(),
+                                      inference_.prefill_tbatch_size);
+
+    // Initialize random number generator
+    std::random_device rd;
+    gen_.seed(rd());
+  }
+
+  void Generate(std::string& prompt, size_t max_generated_tokens = 1024,
+                float temperature = 0.7,
+                const std::set<int>& reject_tokens = {}) {
+    size_t generated = 0;
+
+    const std::vector<int> tokens = gcpp::WrapAndTokenize(
+        model_.Tokenizer(), loader_.Info(), generated, prompt);
+    const size_t prompt_size = tokens.size();
+
+    // This callback function gets invoked every time a token is generated
+    auto stream_token = [&generated, &prompt_size, this](int token, float) {
+      ++generated;
+      if (generated < prompt_size) {
+        // print feedback
+      } else if (token != gcpp::EOS_ID) {
+        std::string token_text;
+        HWY_ASSERT(this->model_.Tokenizer().Decode({token}, &token_text));
+        std::cout << token_text << std::flush;
+      }
+      return true;
+    };
+
+    gcpp::TimingInfo timing_info;
+    gcpp::RuntimeConfig runtime_config = {
+        .max_generated_tokens = max_generated_tokens,
+        .temperature = temperature,
+        .gen = &gen_,
+        .verbosity = 0,
+        .stream_token = stream_token,
+        .accept_token =
+            [&](int token, float /* prob */) {
+              return !reject_tokens.contains(token);
+            },
+    };
+    model_.Generate(runtime_config, tokens, 0, kv_cache_, timing_info);
+  }
+  ~SimplifiedGemma() = default;
+
+ private:
+  gcpp::LoaderArgs loader_;
+  gcpp::InferenceArgs inference_;
+  gcpp::AppArgs app_;
+  gcpp::NestedPools pools_;
+  gcpp::Gemma model_;
+  gcpp::KVCache kv_cache_;
+  std::mt19937 gen_;
+  std::string validation_error_;
+};
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/examples/simplified_gemma/run.cc b/examples/simplified_gemma/run.cc
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f73ddb5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/examples/simplified_gemma/run.cc
@@ -0,0 +1,50 @@
+// Copyright 2024 Google LLC
+// SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+#include <stddef.h>
+
+#include <string>
+
+// Placeholder for internal header, do not modify.
+#include "third_party/gemma_cpp/examples/simplified_gemma/gemma.hpp"
+#include "util/app.h"  // LoaderArgs
+
+int main(int argc, char** argv) {
+  {
+    // Placeholder for internal init, do not modify.
+  }
+
+  // Standard usage: LoaderArgs takes argc and argv as input, then parses
+  // necessary flags.
+  gcpp::LoaderArgs loader(argc, argv, /*validate=*/true);
+
+  // Optional: LoaderArgs can also take tokenizer and weights paths directly.
+  //
+  // gcpp::LoaderArgs loader("/path/to/tokenizer", "/path/to/weights",
+  // "model_identifier");
+
+  // Optional: InferenceArgs and AppArgs can be passed in as well. If not
+  // specified, default values will be used.
+  //
+  // gcpp::InferenceArgs inference(argc, argv);
+  // gcpp::AppArgs app(argc, argv);
+  // SimplifiedGemma gemma(loader, inference, app);
+
+  SimplifiedGemma gemma(loader);
+  std::string prompt = "Write a greeting to the world.";
+  gemma.Generate(prompt, 256, 0.6);
+
+  return 0;
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/util/app.h b/util/app.h
index 4b6dffb..d759467 100644
--- a/util/app.h
+++ b/util/app.h
@@ -126,15 +126,27 @@ static inline NestedPools CreatePools(const AppArgs& app) {
 }
 
 struct LoaderArgs : public ArgsBase<LoaderArgs> {
-  LoaderArgs(int argc, char* argv[]) {
+  LoaderArgs(int argc, char* argv[], bool validate = true) {
     InitAndParse(argc, argv);
+
+    if (validate) {
+      if (const char* error = Validate()) {
+        HWY_ABORT("Invalid args: %s", error);
+      }
+    }
   }
   LoaderArgs(const std::string& tokenizer_path, const std::string& weights_path,
-             const std::string& model) {
+             const std::string& model, bool validate = true) {
     Init();  // Init sets to defaults, so assignments must come after Init().
     tokenizer.path = tokenizer_path;
     weights.path = weights_path;
     model_type_str = model;
+
+    if (validate) {
+      if (const char* error = Validate()) {
+        HWY_ABORT("Invalid args: %s", error);
+      }
+    }
   };
 
   // Returns error string or nullptr if OK.