diff --git a/include/flexflow/request_manager.h b/include/flexflow/request_manager.h
index ca83acb4f4..94bfc74244 100644
--- a/include/flexflow/request_manager.h
+++ b/include/flexflow/request_manager.h
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ struct Request {
   BatchConfig::RequestGuid guid;
   PEFTModelID peft_model_id = PEFTModelID::NO_ID;
   int max_length = -1;
-  int max_new_tokens = 128;
+  int max_new_tokens = -1;
   int initial_len;
   int ssm_cache_size = 0;
   int llm_cache_size = 0;
diff --git a/inference/peft/peft.cc b/inference/peft/peft.cc
index ee5bd1b460..14fc653eba 100644
--- a/inference/peft/peft.cc
+++ b/inference/peft/peft.cc
@@ -340,7 +340,7 @@ void FlexFlow::top_level_task(Task const *task,
         printf("Inference prompt[%d]: %s\n", total_num_requests, text.c_str());
         Request inference_req;
         inference_req.prompt = text;
-        inference_req.max_length = 128;
+        inference_req.max_new_tokens = 128;
         inference_req.peft_model_id =
             (peft_model_id != nullptr) ? *peft_model_id : PEFTModelID::NO_ID;
         requests.push_back(inference_req);
diff --git a/src/runtime/request_manager.cc b/src/runtime/request_manager.cc
index 151ccee19b..612bbfb152 100644
--- a/src/runtime/request_manager.cc
+++ b/src/runtime/request_manager.cc
@@ -271,7 +271,13 @@ RequestManager::RequestGuid
   request.guid = next_available_guid++;
   request.max_length = request_.max_length;
   request.max_new_tokens = request_.max_new_tokens;
+  // both unset
+  if (request.max_length == -1 && request.max_new_tokens == -1) {
+    request.max_length = get_max_sequence_length();
+  }
+  // both set
   if (request.max_length != -1 && request.max_new_tokens != -1) {
+    request.max_length = -1;
     std::cout
         << "Both `max_new_tokens` (=" << request.max_new_tokens
         << ") and `max_length`(=" << request.max_length
@@ -372,15 +378,14 @@ RequestManager::RequestGuid
   request.initial_len = 0;
   request.max_length = request_.max_length;
   request.max_new_tokens = request_.max_new_tokens;
-  if (request.max_length != -1) {
-    std::cout << "Warning: max_length is set for PEFT finetuning, but it will "
-                 "be ignored."
-              << std::endl;
-  }
   if (request.max_new_tokens != -1) {
-    std::cout << "Warning: max_new_tokens is set for PEFT finetuning, but "
-                 "it will be ignored."
-              << std::endl;
+    std::cerr
+        << "Error: max_new_tokens is not allowed for PEFT finetuning requests"
+        << std::endl;
+    assert(false);
+  }
+  if (request.max_length == -1) {
+    request.max_length = get_max_sequence_length();
   }
   request.peft_model_id = request_.peft_model_id;
   request.req_type = RequestType::REQ_FINETUNING;