Hi @<1649221394904387584:profile|RattySparrow90>

: Are the models I defined to be served e.g. via the CLI downloaded to the serving pod

Yes this is done automatically and online (i.e. when you update the using CLI/API) , based on the models/endpoints you set

So that they are physically lying there as a file I can see in the filesystem?

They are, and cached there

Or is it more the case that the pod gets the model when needed/when an API call for this model is incoming?

It downloads and loads it when the endpoint is created/updated, but there is always some "warmup" that the first requests will trigger.