diff --git a/src/maxtext/configs/pyconfig.py b/src/maxtext/configs/pyconfig.py
index 663b76633a..a4edd5320b 100644
--- a/src/maxtext/configs/pyconfig.py
+++ b/src/maxtext/configs/pyconfig.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@
 import omegaconf
 
 from maxtext.configs import pyconfig_deprecated
-from maxtext.utils.globals import MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR
+from maxtext.utils.globals import MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR, MAXTEXT_PKG_DIR
 from maxtext.common.common_types import DecoderBlockType, ShardMode
 from maxtext.configs import types
 from maxtext.configs.types import MaxTextConfig
@@ -46,6 +46,49 @@
 # Don't log the following keys.
 KEYS_NO_LOGGING = ("hf_access_token",)
 
+# Module paths to their default config file (relative to MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR).
+_CONFIG_FILE_MAPPING: dict[str, str] = {
+    "maxtext.trainers.pre_train.train": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.trainers.pre_train.train_compile": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.trainers.post_train.distillation.train_distill": "post_train/distillation.yml",
+    "maxtext.trainers.post_train.rl.train_rl": "post_train/rl.yml",
+    "maxtext.trainers.post_train.sft.train_sft": "post_train/sft.yml",
+    "maxtext.trainers.post_train.sft.train_sft_deprecated": "post_train/sft.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.decode": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.decode_multi": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.inference_microbenchmark": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.inference_microbenchmark_sweep": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.maxengine.maxengine_server": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.mlperf.microbenchmarks.benchmark_chunked_prefill": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.inference.vllm_decode": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.checkpoint_conversion.to_maxtext": "base.yml",
+    "maxtext.checkpoint_conversion.to_huggingface": "base.yml",
+}
+
+
+def _module_from_path(path: str) -> str | None:
+  """Convert a file path to module path for config inference."""
+  real_path = os.path.realpath(path)
+  pkg_parent = os.path.realpath(os.path.dirname(MAXTEXT_PKG_DIR))
+  if real_path.startswith(pkg_parent + os.sep):
+    relative = os.path.relpath(real_path, pkg_parent)
+    return relative.replace(os.sep, ".").removesuffix(".py")
+  return None
+
+
+def _resolve_or_infer_config(argv: list[str]) -> tuple[str, list[str]]:
+  """Resolves or infers config file path from module."""
+  if len(argv) >= 2 and argv[1].endswith(".yml"):
+    return resolve_config_path(argv[1]), argv[2:]
+  module = _module_from_path(argv[0])
+  if module not in _CONFIG_FILE_MAPPING:
+    raise ValueError(
+        f"No config file provided and no default config found for module '{module}'"
+    )
+  config_path = os.path.join(MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR, _CONFIG_FILE_MAPPING[module])
+  logger.warning("No config file provided, using default config mapping: %s", config_path)
+  return config_path, argv[1:]
+
 
 def yaml_key_to_env_key(s: str) -> str:
   return _MAX_PREFIX + s.upper()
@@ -227,11 +270,11 @@ def initialize_pydantic(argv: list[str], **kwargs) -> MaxTextConfig:
   Returns pydantic MaxTextConfig class whereas `initialize` returns the og `HyperParameters`
   """
   # 1. Load base and inherited configs from file(s)
-  config_path = resolve_config_path(argv[1])
+  config_path, cli_args = _resolve_or_infer_config(argv)
   base_yml_config = _load_config(config_path)
 
   # 2. Get overrides from CLI and kwargs
-  cli_cfg = omegaconf.OmegaConf.from_cli(argv[2:])
+  cli_cfg = omegaconf.OmegaConf.from_cli(cli_args)
   kwargs_cfg = omegaconf.OmegaConf.create(kwargs)
   overrides_cfg = omegaconf.OmegaConf.merge(cli_cfg, kwargs_cfg)
 
diff --git a/tests/unit/pyconfig_test.py b/tests/unit/pyconfig_test.py
index 3e7f7be975..9aed5cc195 100644
--- a/tests/unit/pyconfig_test.py
+++ b/tests/unit/pyconfig_test.py
@@ -19,7 +19,7 @@
 import unittest
 
 from maxtext.configs import pyconfig
-from maxtext.configs.pyconfig import resolve_config_path
+from maxtext.configs.pyconfig import resolve_config_path, _CONFIG_FILE_MAPPING, _module_from_path
 from maxtext.utils.globals import MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR, MAXTEXT_PKG_DIR
 from tests.utils.test_helpers import get_test_config_path, get_post_train_test_config_path
 
@@ -115,6 +115,21 @@ def test_resolve_config_path_pip_install(self):
       finally:
         os.chdir(orig)
 
+  def test_config_file_mapping(self):
+    for module, relative_path in _CONFIG_FILE_MAPPING.items():
+      full_path = os.path.join(MAXTEXT_CONFIGS_DIR, relative_path)
+      self.assertTrue(os.path.isfile(full_path), f"Default config for '{module}' not found at {full_path}")
+
+  def test_module_from_path(self):
+    import maxtext.trainers.pre_train.train as train_module
+    module_file = train_module.__file__
+    result = _module_from_path(module_file)
+    self.assertEqual(result, "maxtext.trainers.pre_train.train")
+
+  def test_unknown_module_raises(self):
+    with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
+      pyconfig.initialize_pydantic(["/custom_rl/module.py", "run_name=test"])
+
 
 if __name__ == "__main__":
   unittest.main()