backend/utils.py

import streamlit as st
from sentence_transformers import SentenceTransformer
from .config import MODELS_ID


@st.cache(allow_output_mutation=True)
def load_model(model_name):
    assert model_name in MODELS_ID.keys()
    # Lazy downloading
    models = MODELS_ID[model_name]
    if models is str:
        output = SentenceTransformer(models)
    elif hasattr(models, '__iter__') :
        output = [SentenceTransformer(model) for model in models]

    return output