diff --git a/src/transformers/generation/tf_utils.py b/src/transformers/generation/tf_utils.py
index 64c47a1ea62..5d619d1d19c 100644
--- a/src/transformers/generation/tf_utils.py
+++ b/src/transformers/generation/tf_utils.py
@@ -14,10 +14,11 @@
 # See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 # limitations under the License.
 
+import copy
 import inspect
 import warnings
 from dataclasses import dataclass
-from typing import Any, Dict, List, Optional, Tuple, Union
+from typing import Any, Dict, Optional, Tuple, Union
 
 import numpy as np
 import tensorflow as tf
@@ -32,6 +33,7 @@ from ..models.auto import (
 )
 from ..tf_utils import shape_list, stable_softmax
 from ..utils import ModelOutput, logging
+from .configuration_utils import GenerationConfig
 from .tf_logits_process import (
     TFForcedBOSTokenLogitsProcessor,
     TFForcedEOSTokenLogitsProcessor,
@@ -449,6 +451,11 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
 
     supports_xla_generation = True
 
+    def prepare_inputs_for_generation(self, *args, **kwargs):
+        raise NotImplementedError(
+            "A model class needs to define a `prepare_inputs_for_generation` method in order to use `generate`."
+        )
+
     def adjust_logits_during_generation(
         self, logits, cur_len, max_length, forced_bos_token_id, forced_eos_token_id, **kwargs
     ):
@@ -475,7 +482,7 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         Confirms that the model class is compatible with generation. If not, raises an exception that points to the
         right class to use.
         """
-        if not hasattr(self, "prepare_inputs_for_generation"):
+        if not self.can_generate():
             generate_compatible_mappings = [
                 TF_MODEL_FOR_CAUSAL_LM_MAPPING,
                 TF_MODEL_FOR_VISION_2_SEQ_MAPPING,
@@ -520,153 +527,43 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
 
     def generate(
         self,
-        input_ids=None,
-        max_length=None,
-        max_new_tokens=None,
-        min_length=None,
-        do_sample=None,
-        early_stopping=None,
-        num_beams=None,
-        temperature=None,
-        penalty_alpha=None,
-        top_k=None,
-        top_p=None,
-        repetition_penalty=None,
-        bad_words_ids=None,
-        bos_token_id=None,
-        pad_token_id=None,
-        eos_token_id=None,
-        length_penalty=None,
-        no_repeat_ngram_size=None,
-        num_return_sequences=None,
-        attention_mask=None,
-        decoder_start_token_id=None,
-        use_cache=None,
+        input_ids: Optional[tf.Tensor] = None,
+        generation_config: Optional[GenerationConfig] = None,
         seed=None,
-        output_scores=None,
-        output_attentions=None,
-        output_hidden_states=None,
-        return_dict_in_generate=None,
-        forced_bos_token_id=None,
-        forced_eos_token_id=None,
-        suppress_tokens=None,
-        begin_suppress_tokens=None,
-        forced_decoder_ids=None,
-        **model_kwargs,
+        **kwargs,
     ) -> Union[TFGenerateOutput, tf.Tensor]:
         r"""
-        Generates sequences of token ids for models with a language modeling head. The method supports the following
-        generation methods for text-decoder, text-to-text, speech-to-text, and vision-to-text models:
-            - *greedy decoding* by calling [`~generation.TFGenerationMixin.greedy_search`] if `num_beams=1` and
-              `do_sample=False`.
-            - *contrastive search* by calling [`~generation.TFGenerationMixin.contrastive_search`] if `penalty_alpha>0`
-              and `top_k>1`
-            - *multinomial sampling* by calling [`~generation.TFGenerationMixin.sample`] if `num_beams=1` and
-              `do_sample=True`.
-            - *beam-search decoding* by calling [`~generation.TFGenerationMixin.beam_search`] if `num_beams>1` and
-              `do_sample=False`.
+        Generates sequences of token ids for models with a language modeling head.
 
-        Adapted in part from [Facebook's XLM beam search
-        code](https://github.com/facebookresearch/XLM/blob/9e6f6814d17be4fe5b15f2e6c43eb2b2d76daeb4/src/model/transformer.py#L529).
+        <Tip warning={true}>
 
-        Apart from `input_ids` and `attention_mask`, all the arguments below will default to the value of the attribute
-        of the same name inside the [`PretrainedConfig`] of the model. The default values indicated are the default
-        values of those config.
+        Most generation-controlling parameters are set in `generation_config` which, if not passed, will be set to the
+        model's default generation configuration. You can override any `generation_config` by passing the corresponding
+        parameters to generate, e.g. `.generate(inputs, num_beams=4, do_sample=True)`.
 
-        Most of these parameters are explained in more detail in [this blog
-        post](https://huggingface.co/blog/how-to-generate).
+        For a complete overview of generate, check the [following
+        guide](https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/en/main_classes/text_generation).
+
+        </Tip>
 
         Parameters:
             input_ids (`tf.Tensor` of `dtype=tf.int32` and shape `(batch_size, sequence_length)`, *optional*):
                 The sequence used as a prompt for the generation. If `None` the method initializes it with
                 `bos_token_id` and a batch size of 1.
-            max_length (`int`, *optional*, defaults to `model.config.max_length`):
-                The maximum length the generated tokens can have. Corresponds to the length of the input prompt +
-                `max_new_tokens`. In general, prefer the use of `max_new_tokens`, which ignores the number of tokens in
-                the prompt.
-            max_new_tokens (`int`, *optional*):
-                The maximum numbers of tokens to generate, ignoring the number of tokens in the prompt.
-            min_length (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 10):
-                The minimum length of the sequence to be generated.
-            do_sample (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to use sampling ; use greedy decoding otherwise.
-            early_stopping (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether to stop the beam search when at least `num_beams` sentences are finished per batch or not.
-            num_beams (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 1):
-                Number of beams for beam search. 1 means no beam search.
-            temperature (`float`, *optional*, defaults to 1.0):
-                The value used to module the next token probabilities.
-            penalty_alpha (`float`, *optional*):
-                The values balance the model confidence and the degeneration penalty in contrastive search decoding.
-            top_k (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 50):
-                The number of highest probability vocabulary tokens to keep for top-k-filtering.
-            top_p (`float`, *optional*, defaults to 1.0):
-                If set to float < 1, only the most probable tokens with probabilities that add up to `top_p` or higher
-                are kept for generation.
-            repetition_penalty (`float`, *optional*, defaults to 1.0):
-                The parameter for repetition penalty. 1.0 means no penalty. See [this
-                paper](https://arxiv.org/pdf/1909.05858.pdf) for more details.
-            pad_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *padding* token.
-            bos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *beginning-of-sequence* token.
-            eos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *end-of-sequence* token.
-            length_penalty (`float`, *optional*, defaults to 1.0):
-                Exponential penalty to the length that is used with beam-based generation. It is applied as an exponent
-                to the sequence length, which in turn is used to divide the score of the sequence. Since the score is
-                the log likelihood of the sequence (i.e. negative), `length_penalty` > 0.0 promotes longer sequences,
-                while `length_penalty` < 0.0 encourages shorter sequences.
-            no_repeat_ngram_size (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 0):
-                If set to int > 0, all ngrams of that size can only occur once.
-            bad_words_ids(`List[int]`, *optional*):
-                List of token ids that are not allowed to be generated. In order to get the tokens of the words that
-                should not appear in the generated text, use `tokenizer.encode(bad_word, add_prefix_space=True)`.
-            num_return_sequences(`int`, *optional*, defaults to 1):
-                The number of independently computed returned sequences for each element in the batch.
-            attention_mask (`tf.Tensor` of `dtype=tf.int32` and shape `(batch_size, sequence_length)`, *optional*):
-                Mask to avoid performing attention on padding token indices. Mask values are in `[0, 1]`, 1 for tokens
-                that are not masked, and 0 for masked tokens.
-
-                If not provided, will default to a tensor the same shape as `input_ids` that masks the pad token.
-
-                [What are attention masks?](../glossary#attention-mask)
-            decoder_start_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                If an encoder-decoder model starts decoding with a different token than *bos*, the id of that token.
-            use_cache (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `True`):
-                Whether or not the model should use the past last key/values attentions (if applicable to the model) to
-                speed up decoding.
+            generation_config (`~generation.GenerationConfig`, *optional*):
+                The generation configuration to be used as base parametrization for the generation call. `**kwargs`
+                passed to generate matching the attributes of `generation_config` will override them. If
+                `generation_config` is not provided, the default will be used, which had the following loading
+                priority: 1) from the `generation_config.json` model file, if it exists; 2) from the model
+                configuration. Please note that unspecified parameters will inherit [`~generation.GenerationConfig`]'s
+                default values, whose documentation should be checked to parameterize generation.
             seed (`List[int]`, *optional*):
                 Random seed to control sampling, containing two integers, used when `do_sample` is `True`. See the
                 `seed` argument from stateless functions in `tf.random`.
-            output_attentions (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the attentions tensors of all attention layers. See `attentions` under
-                returned tensors for more details.
-            output_hidden_states (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the hidden states of all layers. See `hidden_states` under returned tensors
-                for more details.
-            output_scores (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the prediction scores. See `scores` under returned tensors for more details.
-            return_dict_in_generate (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return a [`~utils.ModelOutput`] instead of a plain tuple.
-            forced_bos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the token to force as the first generated token after the `decoder_start_token_id`. Useful
-                for multilingual models like [mBART](../model_doc/mbart) where the first generated token needs to be
-                the target language token.
-            forced_eos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the token to force as the last generated token when `max_length` is reached.
-            suppress_tokens  (`List[int]`, *optional*, defaults to `model.config.suppress_tokens`):
-                A list of tokens that will be supressed at generation. The `SupressTokens` logit processor will set
-                their log probs to `-inf` so that they are not sampled.
-            begin_suppress_tokens  (`List[int]`, *optional*, defaults to `model.config.begin_suppress_tokens`):
-                A list of tokens that will be supressed at the begining of the generation. The `SupressBeginTokens`
-                logit processor will set their log probs to `-inf` so that they are not sampled.
-            forced_decoder_ids (`List[List[int]]`, *optional*, defaults to `model.config.forced_decoder_ids`):
-                A list of pairs of integers which indicates a mapping from generation indices to token indices that
-                will be forced before sampling. For example, `[[1, 123]]` means the second generated token will always
-                be a token of index 123.
-            model_kwargs:
-                Additional model specific kwargs will be forwarded to the `call` function of the model.
+            kwargs:
+                Ad hoc parametrization of `generate_config` and/or additional model-specific kwargs that will be
+                forwarded to the `forward` function of the model. If the model is an encoder-decoder model, encoder
+                specific kwargs should not be prefixed and decoder specific kwargs should be prefixed with *decoder_*.
 
         Return:
             [`~utils.ModelOutput`] or `tf.Tensor`: A [`~utils.ModelOutput`] (if `return_dict_in_generate=True` or when
@@ -690,59 +587,92 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
 
         Examples:
 
+        Greedy decoding, using the default generation configuration and ad hoc modifications:
+
         ```python
-        tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("distilgpt2")  # Initialize tokenizer
-        model = TFAutoModelWithLMHead.from_pretrained("distilgpt2")
-        # Greedy decoding
-        outputs = model.generate(max_length=40)
-        print(f"Generated: {tokenizer.decode(outputs[0], skip_special_tokens=True)}")
+        >>> from transformers import AutoTokenizer, TFAutoModelForCausalLM
 
-        tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("openai-gpt")
-        model = TFAutoModelWithLMHead.from_pretrained("openai-gpt")
-        input_context = "The dog"
-        input_ids = tokenizer.encode(input_context, return_tensors="tf")  # encode input context
-        # Generate 3 independent sequences using beam search decoding (5 beams) with sampling from initial context 'The dog'
-        outputs = model.generate(input_ids=input_ids, num_beams=5, num_return_sequences=3, temperature=1.5)
-        # 3 output sequences were generated
-        for i in range(3):
-            print(f"Generated {i}: {tokenizer.decode(outputs[i], skip_special_tokens=True)}")
+        >>> tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("gpt2")
+        >>> model = TFAutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained("gpt2")
 
-        tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("distilgpt2")
-        model = TFAutoModelWithLMHead.from_pretrained("distilgpt2")
-        input_context = "The dog"
-        input_ids = tokenizer.encode(input_context, return_tensors="tf")
-        # Generate 3 candidates using sampling
-        outputs = model.generate(
-            input_ids=input_ids, max_length=40, temperature=0.7, num_return_sequences=3, do_sample=True
-        )
-        #  3 output sequences were generated
-        for i in range(3):
-            print(f"Generated {i}: {tokenizer.decode(outputs[i], skip_special_tokens=True)}")
+        >>> prompt = "Today I believe we can finally"
+        >>> input_ids = tokenizer(prompt, return_tensors="tf").input_ids
 
-        tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("ctrl")
-        model = TFAutoModelWithLMHead.from_pretrained("ctrl")
-        # "Legal" is one of the control codes for ctrl
-        input_context = "Legal My neighbor is"
-        input_ids = tokenizer.encode(input_context, return_tensors="tf")
-        outputs = model.generate(input_ids=input_ids, max_length=50, temperature=0.7, repetition_penalty=1.2)
-        print(f"Generated: {tokenizer.decode(outputs[0], skip_special_tokens=True)}")
+        >>> # Generate up to 30 tokens
+        >>> outputs = model.generate(input_ids, do_sample=False, max_length=30)
+        >>> tokenizer.batch_decode(outputs, skip_special_tokens=True)
+        ['Today I believe we can finally get to the point where we can make a difference in the lives of the people of the United States of America.\n']
+        ```
 
-        tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("gpt2")
-        model = TFAutoModelWithLMHead.from_pretrained("gpt2")
-        input_context = "My cute dog"
-        bad_words_ids = [
-            tokenizer.encode(bad_word, add_prefix_space=True) for bad_word in ["idiot", "stupid", "shut up"]
-        ]
-        input_ids = tokenizer.encode(input_context, return_tensors="tf")
-        # generate sequences without allowing bad_words to be generated
-        outputs = model.generate(input_ids=input_ids, max_length=100, do_sample=True, bad_words_ids=bad_words_ids)
+        Multinomial sampling, modifying an existing generation configuration:
+
+        ```python
+        >>> from transformers import AutoTokenizer, TFAutoModelForCausalLM, GenerationConfig
+
+        >>> tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("gpt2")
+        >>> model = TFAutoModelForCausalLM.from_pretrained("gpt2")
+
+        >>> prompt = "Today I believe we can finally"
+        >>> input_ids = tokenizer(prompt, return_tensors="tf").input_ids
+
+        >>> # Sample up to 30 tokens
+        >>> generation_config = GenerationConfig.from_pretrained("gpt2")
+        >>> generation_config.max_length = 30
+        >>> generation_config.do_sample = True
+        >>> outputs = model.generate(input_ids, generation_config=generation_config, seed=[0, 0])
+        >>> tokenizer.batch_decode(outputs, skip_special_tokens=True)
+        ["Today I believe we can finally start taking a bold stand against climate change and climate change mitigation efforts such as President Obama's climate ban and President Trump's"]
+        ```
+
+        Beam-search decoding, using a freshly initialized generation configuration:
+
+        ```python
+        >>> from transformers import AutoTokenizer, TFAutoModelForSeq2SeqLM, GenerationConfig
+
+        >>> tokenizer = AutoTokenizer.from_pretrained("Helsinki-NLP/opus-mt-en-de")
+        >>> model = TFAutoModelForSeq2SeqLM.from_pretrained("Helsinki-NLP/opus-mt-en-de")
+
+        >>> sentence = "Paris is one of the densest populated areas in Europe."
+        >>> input_ids = tokenizer(sentence, return_tensors="tf").input_ids
+
+        >>> generation_config = GenerationConfig(
+        ...     max_length=64,
+        ...     num_beams=5,
+        ...     bos_token_id=0,
+        ...     eos_token_id=0,
+        ...     decoder_start_token_id=58100,
+        ...     pad_token_id=58100,
+        ...     bad_words_ids=[[58100]],
+        ... )
+        >>> outputs = model.generate(input_ids, generation_config=generation_config)
+        >>> tokenizer.batch_decode(outputs, skip_special_tokens=True)
+        ['Paris ist eines der dichtesten besiedelten Gebiete Europas.']
         ```"""
 
-        # 0. Validate the `.generate()` call
+        # 1. Handle `generation_config` and kwargs that might update it, and validate the `.generate()` call
         self._validate_model_class()
+
+        # priority: `generation_config` argument > `model.generation_config` (the default generation config)
+        if generation_config is None:
+            # legacy: users may modify the model configuration to control generation -- update the generation config
+            # model attribute accordingly, if it was created from the model config
+            if self.generation_config._from_model_config:
+                new_generation_config = GenerationConfig.from_model_config(self.config)
+                if new_generation_config != self.generation_config:
+                    warnings.warn(
+                        "You have modified the pretrained model configuration to control generation. This is a"
+                        " deprecated strategy to control generation and will be removed soon, in a future version."
+                        " Please use a generation configuration file (see"
+                        " https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/main_classes/text_generation)"
+                    )
+                    self.generation_config = new_generation_config
+            generation_config = self.generation_config
+
+        generation_config = copy.deepcopy(generation_config)
+        model_kwargs = generation_config.update(**kwargs)  # All unused kwargs must be model kwargs
         self._validate_model_kwargs(model_kwargs.copy())
 
-        # 1. Cast input dtypes to tf.int32 unless they're floats (which happens for some image models)
+        # 2. Cast input dtypes to tf.int32 unless they're floats (which happens for some image models)
         if input_ids is not None:
             if isinstance(input_ids, tf.Tensor) and input_ids.dtype.is_floating:
                 pass
@@ -750,8 +680,8 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
                 pass
             else:
                 input_ids = tf.cast(input_ids, tf.int32)
-        if attention_mask is not None:
-            attention_mask = tf.cast(attention_mask, tf.int32)
+        if model_kwargs.get("attention_mask") is not None:
+            model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = tf.cast(model_kwargs["attention_mask"], tf.int32)
         if "decoder_input_ids" in model_kwargs:
             if (
                 isinstance(model_kwargs["decoder_input_ids"], tf.Tensor)
@@ -765,44 +695,18 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
             else:
                 model_kwargs["decoder_input_ids"] = tf.cast(model_kwargs["decoder_input_ids"], tf.int32)
 
-        # 2. Set generation parameters if not already defined
-        length_penalty = length_penalty if length_penalty is not None else self.config.length_penalty
-        early_stopping = early_stopping if early_stopping is not None else self.config.early_stopping
-
-        bos_token_id = bos_token_id if bos_token_id is not None else self.config.bos_token_id
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
-
-        forced_bos_token_id = (
-            forced_bos_token_id if forced_bos_token_id is not None else self.config.forced_bos_token_id
-        )
-        forced_eos_token_id = (
-            forced_eos_token_id if forced_eos_token_id is not None else self.config.forced_eos_token_id
-        )
-
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
-        output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
-        )
-        return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
-        )
-
-        num_beams = num_beams if num_beams is not None else self.config.num_beams
-        do_sample = do_sample if do_sample is not None else self.config.do_sample
-        num_return_sequences = (
-            num_return_sequences if num_return_sequences is not None else self.config.num_return_sequences
-        )
-
-        if pad_token_id is None and eos_token_id is not None:
-            if attention_mask is None:
+        # 3. Set generation parameters if not already defined
+        if generation_config.pad_token_id is None and generation_config.eos_token_id is not None:
+            if model_kwargs.get("attention_mask") is None:
                 logger.warning(
                     "The attention mask and the pad token id were not set. As a consequence, you may observe "
                     "unexpected behavior. Please pass your input's `attention_mask` to obtain reliable results."
                 )
-            logger.warning(f"Setting `pad_token_id` to {eos_token_id} (first `eos_token_id`) to generate sequence")
-            pad_token_id = eos_token_id
+            logger.warning(
+                f"Setting `pad_token_id` to {generation_config.eos_token_id} (first `eos_token_id`) to generate"
+                " sequence"
+            )
+            generation_config.pad_token_id = generation_config.eos_token_id
 
         use_xla = not tf.executing_eagerly()
         if use_xla and not self.supports_xla_generation:
@@ -810,241 +714,242 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
                 "The selected model does not support Graph mode nor XLA generation (e.g. from tf.function())"
             )
 
-        # 3. Define model inputs
-        input_ids = self._prepare_model_inputs(input_ids, bos_token_id)
+        # 4. Define model inputs
+        input_ids = self._prepare_model_inputs(input_ids, generation_config.bos_token_id)
         # inputs_ids now has to be defined and cannot be None anymore
         batch_size = shape_list(input_ids)[0]
 
-        # 4. Prepare other model kwargs
-        if output_attentions is not None:
-            model_kwargs["output_attentions"] = output_attentions
-        if output_hidden_states is not None:
-            model_kwargs["output_hidden_states"] = output_hidden_states
-        if use_cache is not None:
-            model_kwargs["use_cache"] = use_cache
-        if attention_mask is not None:
-            model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = attention_mask
+        # 5. Prepare other model kwargs
+        model_kwargs["output_attentions"] = generation_config.output_attentions
+        model_kwargs["output_hidden_states"] = generation_config.output_hidden_states
+        model_kwargs["use_cache"] = generation_config.use_cache
 
         accepts_attention_mask = "attention_mask" in set(inspect.signature(self.call).parameters.keys())
         requires_attention_mask = "encoder_outputs" not in model_kwargs
 
         if model_kwargs.get("attention_mask", None) is None and requires_attention_mask and accepts_attention_mask:
             model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = self._prepare_attention_mask_for_generation(
-                input_ids, pad_token_id, eos_token_id
+                input_ids, generation_config.pad_token_id, generation_config.eos_token_id
             )
 
         # decoder-only models should use left-padding for generation
         if not self.config.is_encoder_decoder:
-            if pad_token_id is not None and tf.math.reduce_any(input_ids[:, -1] == pad_token_id):
+            if generation_config.pad_token_id is not None and tf.math.reduce_any(
+                input_ids[:, -1] == generation_config.pad_token_id
+            ):
                 logger.warning(
                     "A decoder-only architecture is being used, but right-padding was detected! For correct "
                     "generation results, please set `padding_side='left'` when initializing the tokenizer."
                 )
 
-        # 5. Prepare model inputs which will be used for auto-regressive generation
+        # 6. Prepare model inputs which will be used for auto-regressive generation
         if self.config.is_encoder_decoder:
             # if encoder-decoder, we create encoder_outputs and add to `model_kwargs`
             model_kwargs = self._prepare_encoder_decoder_kwargs_for_generation(input_ids, model_kwargs)
             # if encoder-decoder then `input_ids` come from `decoder_start_token_id`
             input_ids = self._prepare_decoder_input_ids_for_generation(
                 batch_size,
-                decoder_start_token_id=decoder_start_token_id,
-                bos_token_id=bos_token_id,
+                decoder_start_token_id=generation_config.decoder_start_token_id,
+                bos_token_id=generation_config.bos_token_id,
                 model_kwargs=model_kwargs,
             )
 
-        # 6. Prepare `max_length` depending on other stopping criteria.
+        # 7. Prepare `max_length` depending on other stopping criteria.
         input_ids_seq_length = input_ids.shape[-1]
-        if max_length is None and max_new_tokens is None:
+        has_default_max_length = kwargs.get("max_length") is None and generation_config.max_length is not None
+        if has_default_max_length and generation_config.max_new_tokens is None:
             warnings.warn(
-                "Neither `max_length` nor `max_new_tokens` have been set, `max_length` will default to "
-                f"{self.config.max_length} (`self.config.max_length`). Controlling `max_length` via the config is "
-                "deprecated and `max_length` will be removed from the config in v5 of Transformers -- we recommend "
-                "using `max_new_tokens` to control the maximum length of the generation.",
+                "Neither `max_length` nor `max_new_tokens` have been set, `max_length` will default to"
+                f" {generation_config.max_length} (`generation_config.max_length`). Controlling `max_length` via the"
+                " config is deprecated and `max_length` will be removed from the config in v5 of Transformers -- we"
+                " recommend using `max_new_tokens` to control the maximum length of the generation.",
                 UserWarning,
             )
-        elif max_length is None and max_new_tokens is not None:
-            max_length = max_new_tokens + input_ids_seq_length
-        elif max_length is not None and max_new_tokens is not None:
+        elif has_default_max_length and generation_config.max_new_tokens is not None:
+            generation_config.max_length = generation_config.max_new_tokens + input_ids_seq_length
+        elif not has_default_max_length and generation_config.max_new_tokens is not None:
             raise ValueError(
                 "Both `max_new_tokens` and `max_length` have been set but they serve the same purpose -- setting a"
                 " limit to the generated output length. Remove one of those arguments. Please refer to the"
                 " documentation for more information. "
                 "(https://huggingface.co/docs/transformers/main/en/main_classes/text_generation)"
             )
-        # default to config if still None
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        min_length = min_length if min_length is not None else self.config.min_length
 
-        if min_length is not None and min_length > max_length:
+        if generation_config.min_length is not None and generation_config.min_length > generation_config.max_length:
             raise ValueError(
-                f"Unfeasable length constraints: the minimum length ({min_length}) is larger than the maximum "
-                f"length ({max_length})"
+                f"Unfeasable length constraints: the minimum length ({generation_config.min_length}) is larger than"
+                f" the maximum length ({generation_config.max_length})"
             )
-        if input_ids_seq_length >= max_length:
+        if input_ids_seq_length >= generation_config.max_length:
             input_ids_string = "decoder_input_ids" if self.config.is_encoder_decoder else "input_ids"
             logger.warning(
                 f"Input length of {input_ids_string} is {input_ids_seq_length}, but `max_length` is set to"
-                f" {max_length}. This can lead to unexpected behavior. You should consider increasing"
-                "`max_new_tokens`."
+                f" {generation_config.max_length}. This can lead to unexpected behavior. You should consider"
+                " increasing`max_new_tokens`."
             )
 
-        # 7. determine generation mode
+        # 8. determine generation mode
         is_contrastive_search_gen_mode = (
-            top_k is not None and top_k > 1 and do_sample is False and penalty_alpha is not None and penalty_alpha > 0
+            generation_config.top_k is not None
+            and generation_config.top_k > 1
+            and generation_config.do_sample is False
+            and generation_config.penalty_alpha is not None
+            and generation_config.penalty_alpha > 0
         )
-        is_greedy_gen_mode = not is_contrastive_search_gen_mode and (num_beams == 1) and do_sample is False
-        is_beam_gen_mode = not is_contrastive_search_gen_mode and (num_beams > 1) and do_sample is False
-        is_sample_gen_mode = (num_beams == 1) and do_sample is True
-        is_beam_sample_gen_mode = (num_beams > 1) and do_sample is True
+        is_greedy_gen_mode = (
+            not is_contrastive_search_gen_mode
+            and (generation_config.num_beams == 1)
+            and generation_config.do_sample is False
+        )
+        is_beam_gen_mode = (
+            not is_contrastive_search_gen_mode
+            and (generation_config.num_beams > 1)
+            and generation_config.do_sample is False
+        )
+        is_sample_gen_mode = (generation_config.num_beams == 1) and generation_config.do_sample is True
+        is_beam_sample_gen_mode = (generation_config.num_beams > 1) and generation_config.do_sample is True
 
-        # 8. prepare distribution pre_processing samplers
+        # 9. prepare distribution pre_processing samplers
         logits_processor = self._get_logits_processor(
-            repetition_penalty=repetition_penalty,
-            no_repeat_ngram_size=no_repeat_ngram_size,
+            generation_config=generation_config,
             input_ids_seq_length=input_ids_seq_length,
-            bad_words_ids=bad_words_ids,
-            min_length=min_length,
-            max_length=max_length,
-            eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
-            forced_bos_token_id=forced_bos_token_id,
-            forced_eos_token_id=forced_eos_token_id,
-            suppress_tokens=suppress_tokens,
-            begin_suppress_tokens=begin_suppress_tokens,
-            forced_decoder_ids=forced_decoder_ids,
         )
 
-        # 9. go into different generation modes
+        # 10. go into different generation modes
         if is_greedy_gen_mode:
-            if num_return_sequences > 1:
+            if generation_config.num_return_sequences > 1:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    f"num_return_sequences has to be 1, but is {num_return_sequences} when doing greedy search."
+                    f"num_return_sequences has to be 1, but is {generation_config.num_return_sequences} when doing"
+                    " greedy search."
                 )
-            # 10. run greedy search
+            # 11. run greedy search
             return self.greedy_search(
                 input_ids,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
                 logits_processor=logits_processor,
-                output_scores=output_scores,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
+                output_scores=generation_config.output_scores,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
         elif is_contrastive_search_gen_mode:
-            if num_return_sequences > 1:
+            if generation_config.num_return_sequences > 1:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    f"num_return_sequences has to be 1, but is {num_return_sequences} when doing contrastive search."
+                    f"num_return_sequences has to be 1, but is {generation_config.num_return_sequences} when doing"
+                    " contrastive search."
                 )
-            # 10. run contrastive search
+            # 11. run contrastive search
             return self.contrastive_search(
                 input_ids,
-                top_k=top_k,
-                penalty_alpha=penalty_alpha,
+                top_k=generation_config.top_k,
+                penalty_alpha=generation_config.penalty_alpha,
                 logits_processor=logits_processor,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
-                output_scores=output_scores,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
+                output_scores=generation_config.output_scores,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
         elif is_sample_gen_mode:
-            # 10. prepare logits warper
-            logits_warper = self._get_logits_warper(top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p, temperature=temperature)
+            # 11. prepare logits warper
+            logits_warper = self._get_logits_warper(generation_config=generation_config)
 
-            # 11. expand input_ids with `num_return_sequences` additional sequences per batch
+            # 12. expand input_ids with `num_return_sequences` additional sequences per batch
             input_ids, model_kwargs = self._expand_inputs_for_generation(
                 input_ids=input_ids,
-                expand_size=num_return_sequences,
+                expand_size=generation_config.num_return_sequences,
                 is_encoder_decoder=self.config.is_encoder_decoder,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
 
-            # 12. run sample
+            # 13. run sample
             return self.sample(
                 input_ids,
                 logits_processor=logits_processor,
                 logits_warper=logits_warper,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
                 seed=seed,
-                output_scores=output_scores,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
+                output_scores=generation_config.output_scores,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
 
         elif is_beam_gen_mode:
-            if num_beams < num_return_sequences:
+            if generation_config.num_beams < generation_config.num_return_sequences:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set "
-                    f"num_beams >= num_return_sequences, got {num_beams} and {num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
+                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set num_beams >="
+                    f" num_return_sequences, got {generation_config.num_beams} and"
+                    f" {generation_config.num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
                 )
 
-            # 10. broadcast inputs to the desired number of beams
-            input_ids = self._expand_to_num_beams(input_ids, num_beams=num_beams)
+            # 11. broadcast inputs to the desired number of beams
+            input_ids = self._expand_to_num_beams(input_ids, num_beams=generation_config.num_beams)
 
             if "encoder_outputs" in model_kwargs:
                 model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"] = self._expand_to_num_beams(
-                    model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"], num_beams=num_beams
+                    model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"], num_beams=generation_config.num_beams
                 )
 
             if "attention_mask" in model_kwargs:
                 model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = self._expand_to_num_beams(
-                    model_kwargs["attention_mask"], num_beams=num_beams
+                    model_kwargs["attention_mask"], num_beams=generation_config.num_beams
                 )
 
-            # 11. run beam search
+            # 12. run beam search
             return self.beam_search(
                 input_ids,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
-                length_penalty=length_penalty,
-                early_stopping=early_stopping,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
+                length_penalty=generation_config.length_penalty,
+                early_stopping=generation_config.early_stopping,
                 logits_processor=logits_processor,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
-                num_return_sequences=num_return_sequences,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
+                num_return_sequences=generation_config.num_return_sequences,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
 
         elif is_beam_sample_gen_mode:
-            if num_beams < num_return_sequences:
+            if generation_config.num_beams < generation_config.num_return_sequences:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set "
-                    f"num_beams >= num_return_sequences, got {num_beams} and {num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
+                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set num_beams >="
+                    f" num_return_sequences, got {generation_config.num_beams} and"
+                    f" {generation_config.num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
                 )
 
-            # 10. prepare logits warper
-            logits_warper = self._get_logits_warper(top_k=top_k, top_p=top_p, temperature=temperature)
+            # 11. prepare logits warper
+            logits_warper = self._get_logits_warper(generation_config=generation_config)
 
-            # 11. broadcast inputs to the desired number of beams
-            input_ids = self._expand_to_num_beams(input_ids, num_beams=num_beams)
+            # 12. broadcast inputs to the desired number of beams
+            input_ids = self._expand_to_num_beams(input_ids, num_beams=generation_config.num_beams)
 
             if "encoder_outputs" in model_kwargs:
                 model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"] = self._expand_to_num_beams(
-                    model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"], num_beams=num_beams
+                    model_kwargs["encoder_outputs"]["last_hidden_state"], num_beams=generation_config.num_beams
                 )
 
             if "attention_mask" in model_kwargs:
                 model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = self._expand_to_num_beams(
-                    model_kwargs["attention_mask"], num_beams=num_beams
+                    model_kwargs["attention_mask"], num_beams=generation_config.num_beams
                 )
 
-            # 12. run beam sample (beam search with sampling)
+            # 13. run beam sample (beam search with sampling)
             return self.beam_search(
                 input_ids,
                 do_sample=True,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
-                length_penalty=length_penalty,
-                early_stopping=early_stopping,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
+                length_penalty=generation_config.length_penalty,
+                early_stopping=generation_config.early_stopping,
                 logits_processor=logits_processor,
                 logits_warper=logits_warper,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
-                num_return_sequences=num_return_sequences,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
+                num_return_sequences=generation_config.num_return_sequences,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
 
@@ -1108,26 +1013,16 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         # retrieve decoder_start_token_id for encoder-decoder models
         # fall back to bos_token_id if necessary
         decoder_start_token_id = (
-            decoder_start_token_id if decoder_start_token_id is not None else self.config.decoder_start_token_id
+            decoder_start_token_id
+            if decoder_start_token_id is not None
+            else self.generation_config.decoder_start_token_id
         )
-        bos_token_id = bos_token_id if bos_token_id is not None else self.config.bos_token_id
+        bos_token_id = bos_token_id if bos_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.bos_token_id
 
         if decoder_start_token_id is not None:
             return decoder_start_token_id
-        elif (
-            hasattr(self.config, "decoder")
-            and hasattr(self.config.decoder, "decoder_start_token_id")
-            and self.config.decoder.decoder_start_token_id is not None
-        ):
-            return self.config.decoder.decoder_start_token_id
         elif bos_token_id is not None:
             return bos_token_id
-        elif (
-            hasattr(self.config, "decoder")
-            and hasattr(self.config.decoder, "bos_token_id")
-            and self.config.decoder.bos_token_id is not None
-        ):
-            return self.config.decoder.bos_token_id
         raise ValueError(
             "`decoder_start_token_id` or `bos_token_id` has to be defined for encoder-decoder generation."
         )
@@ -1332,46 +1227,30 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
 
     def _get_logits_warper(
         self,
-        top_k: Optional[int] = None,
-        top_p: Optional[float] = None,
-        temperature: Optional[float] = None,
+        generation_config: GenerationConfig,
     ) -> TFLogitsProcessorList:
         """
         This class returns a [`TFLogitsProcessorList`] list object that contains all relevant [`TFLogitsWarper`]
         instances used for multinomial sampling.
         """
 
-        # init warp parameters
-        top_k = top_k if top_k is not None else self.config.top_k
-        top_p = top_p if top_p is not None else self.config.top_p
-        temperature = temperature if temperature is not None else self.config.temperature
         # instantiate warpers list
         warpers = TFLogitsProcessorList()
 
         # the following idea is largely copied from this PR: https://github.com/huggingface/transformers/pull/5420/files
         # all samplers can be found in `generation_utils_samplers.py`
-        if temperature is not None and temperature != 1.0:
-            warpers.append(TFTemperatureLogitsWarper(temperature))
-        if top_k is not None and top_k != 0:
-            warpers.append(TFTopKLogitsWarper(top_k=top_k, min_tokens_to_keep=1))
-        if top_p is not None and top_p < 1.0:
-            warpers.append(TFTopPLogitsWarper(top_p=top_p, min_tokens_to_keep=1))
+        if generation_config.temperature is not None and generation_config.temperature != 1.0:
+            warpers.append(TFTemperatureLogitsWarper(generation_config.temperature))
+        if generation_config.top_k is not None and generation_config.top_k != 0:
+            warpers.append(TFTopKLogitsWarper(top_k=generation_config.top_k, min_tokens_to_keep=1))
+        if generation_config.top_p is not None and generation_config.top_p < 1.0:
+            warpers.append(TFTopPLogitsWarper(top_p=generation_config.top_p, min_tokens_to_keep=1))
         return warpers
 
     def _get_logits_processor(
         self,
-        repetition_penalty: float,
-        no_repeat_ngram_size: int,
+        generation_config: GenerationConfig,
         input_ids_seq_length: int,
-        bad_words_ids: List[List[int]],
-        min_length: int,
-        max_length: int,
-        eos_token_id: int,
-        forced_bos_token_id: int,
-        forced_eos_token_id: int,
-        suppress_tokens: Optional[List[int]] = None,
-        begin_suppress_tokens: Optional[List[int]] = None,
-        forced_decoder_ids: Optional[List[List[int]]] = None,
     ) -> TFLogitsProcessorList:
         """
         This class returns a [`TFLogitsProcessorList`] list object that contains all relevant [`TFLogitsProcessor`]
@@ -1379,42 +1258,45 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         """
         processors = TFLogitsProcessorList()
 
-        repetition_penalty = repetition_penalty if repetition_penalty is not None else self.config.repetition_penalty
-        no_repeat_ngram_size = (
-            no_repeat_ngram_size if no_repeat_ngram_size is not None else self.config.no_repeat_ngram_size
-        )
-        bad_words_ids = bad_words_ids if bad_words_ids is not None else self.config.bad_words_ids
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
-        suppress_tokens = suppress_tokens if suppress_tokens is not None else self.config.suppress_tokens
-        begin_suppress_tokens = (
-            begin_suppress_tokens if begin_suppress_tokens is not None else self.config.begin_suppress_tokens
-        )
-        if forced_decoder_ids is None and hasattr(self.config, "forced_decoder_ids"):
-            forced_decoder_ids = self.config.forced_decoder_ids
-
         # instantiate processors list
-        if repetition_penalty is not None and repetition_penalty != 1.0:
-            processors.append(TFRepetitionPenaltyLogitsProcessor(penalty=repetition_penalty))
-        if no_repeat_ngram_size is not None and no_repeat_ngram_size > 0:
-            processors.append(TFNoRepeatNGramLogitsProcessor(no_repeat_ngram_size))
-        if bad_words_ids is not None:
-            processors.append(TFNoBadWordsLogitsProcessor(bad_words_ids, eos_token_id))
-        if min_length is not None and eos_token_id is not None and min_length > 0:
-            processors.append(TFMinLengthLogitsProcessor(min_length, eos_token_id))
-        if forced_bos_token_id is not None:
-            processors.append(TFForcedBOSTokenLogitsProcessor(forced_bos_token_id))
-        if forced_eos_token_id is not None:
-            processors.append(TFForcedEOSTokenLogitsProcessor(max_length, forced_eos_token_id))
-        if suppress_tokens is not None:
-            processors.append(TFSuppressTokensLogitsProcessor(suppress_tokens))
-        if begin_suppress_tokens is not None:
+        if generation_config.repetition_penalty is not None and generation_config.repetition_penalty != 1.0:
+            processors.append(TFRepetitionPenaltyLogitsProcessor(penalty=generation_config.repetition_penalty))
+        if generation_config.no_repeat_ngram_size is not None and generation_config.no_repeat_ngram_size > 0:
+            processors.append(TFNoRepeatNGramLogitsProcessor(generation_config.no_repeat_ngram_size))
+        if generation_config.bad_words_ids is not None:
+            processors.append(
+                TFNoBadWordsLogitsProcessor(generation_config.bad_words_ids, generation_config.eos_token_id)
+            )
+        if (
+            generation_config.min_length is not None
+            and generation_config.eos_token_id is not None
+            and generation_config.min_length > 0
+        ):
+            processors.append(TFMinLengthLogitsProcessor(generation_config.min_length, generation_config.eos_token_id))
+        if generation_config.forced_bos_token_id is not None:
+            processors.append(TFForcedBOSTokenLogitsProcessor(generation_config.forced_bos_token_id))
+        if generation_config.forced_eos_token_id is not None:
+            processors.append(
+                TFForcedEOSTokenLogitsProcessor(generation_config.max_length, generation_config.forced_eos_token_id)
+            )
+        if generation_config.suppress_tokens is not None:
+            processors.append(TFSuppressTokensLogitsProcessor(generation_config.suppress_tokens))
+        if generation_config.begin_suppress_tokens is not None:
             begin_index = input_ids_seq_length
-            begin_index = begin_index if (input_ids_seq_length > 1 or forced_bos_token_id is None) else begin_index + 1
-            if forced_decoder_ids is not None:
-                begin_index += forced_decoder_ids[-1][0]  # generation starts after the last token that is forced
-            processors.append(TFSuppressTokensAtBeginLogitsProcessor(begin_suppress_tokens, begin_index))
-        if forced_decoder_ids is not None:
-            processors.append(TFForceTokensLogitsProcessor(forced_decoder_ids))
+            begin_index = (
+                begin_index
+                if (input_ids_seq_length > 1 or generation_config.forced_bos_token_id is None)
+                else begin_index + 1
+            )
+            if generation_config.forced_decoder_ids is not None:
+                begin_index += generation_config.forced_decoder_ids[-1][
+                    0
+                ]  # generation starts after the last token that is forced
+            processors.append(
+                TFSuppressTokensAtBeginLogitsProcessor(generation_config.begin_suppress_tokens, begin_index)
+            )
+        if generation_config.forced_decoder_ids is not None:
+            processors.append(TFForceTokensLogitsProcessor(generation_config.forced_decoder_ids))
         return processors
 
     def greedy_search(
@@ -1500,17 +1382,22 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         # 1. init greedy_search values
         logits_processor = logits_processor if logits_processor is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
 
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
+        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.generation_config.max_length
+        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.pad_token_id
+        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.eos_token_id
+        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.generation_config.output_scores
+        output_attentions = (
+            output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.generation_config.output_attentions
+        )
         output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
+            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.generation_config.output_hidden_states
         )
         return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
+            return_dict_in_generate
+            if return_dict_in_generate is not None
+            else self.generation_config.return_dict_in_generate
         )
+        use_cache = model_kwargs.pop("use_cache", self.generation_config.use_cache)
         use_xla = not tf.executing_eagerly()
         # TODO (Joao): fix cache format or find programatic way to detect cache index
         # GPT2 and other models has a slightly different cache structure, with a different batch axis
@@ -1546,7 +1433,7 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
                 input_ids = generated[:, :cur_len]
             else:
                 input_ids = tf.expand_dims(generated[:, cur_len - 1], -1)
-            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(input_ids, **model_kwargs)
+            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(input_ids, use_cache=use_cache, **model_kwargs)
             # forward pass to get next token logits
             model_outputs = self(
                 **model_inputs,
@@ -1772,17 +1659,22 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         logits_processor = logits_processor if logits_processor is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
         logits_warper = logits_warper if logits_warper is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
 
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
+        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.generation_config.max_length
+        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.pad_token_id
+        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.eos_token_id
+        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.generation_config.output_scores
+        output_attentions = (
+            output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.generation_config.output_attentions
+        )
         output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
+            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.generation_config.output_hidden_states
         )
         return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
+            return_dict_in_generate
+            if return_dict_in_generate is not None
+            else self.generation_config.return_dict_in_generate
         )
+        use_cache = model_kwargs.pop("use_cache", self.generation_config.use_cache)
         use_xla = not tf.executing_eagerly()
         # TODO (Joao): fix cache format or find programatic way to detect cache index
         # GPT2 and other models has a slightly different cache structure, with a different batch axis
@@ -1814,7 +1706,7 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
                 input_ids = generated[:, :cur_len]
             else:
                 input_ids = tf.expand_dims(generated[:, cur_len - 1], -1)
-            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(input_ids, **model_kwargs)
+            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(input_ids, use_cache=use_cache, **model_kwargs)
             # forward pass to get next token logits
             model_outputs = self(
                 **model_inputs,
@@ -2091,25 +1983,30 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         logits_processor = logits_processor if logits_processor is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
         logits_warper = logits_warper if logits_warper is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
 
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
+        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.generation_config.max_length
+        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.pad_token_id
+        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.eos_token_id
         num_return_sequences = (
-            num_return_sequences if num_return_sequences is not None else self.config.num_return_sequences
+            num_return_sequences if num_return_sequences is not None else self.generation_config.num_return_sequences
         )
 
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
+        output_attentions = (
+            output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.generation_config.output_attentions
+        )
         output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
+            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.generation_config.output_hidden_states
         )
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
+        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.generation_config.output_scores
         return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
+            return_dict_in_generate
+            if return_dict_in_generate is not None
+            else self.generation_config.return_dict_in_generate
         )
 
-        length_penalty = length_penalty if length_penalty is not None else self.config.length_penalty
-        early_stopping = early_stopping if early_stopping is not None else self.config.early_stopping
+        length_penalty = length_penalty if length_penalty is not None else self.generation_config.length_penalty
+        early_stopping = early_stopping if early_stopping is not None else self.generation_config.early_stopping
 
+        use_cache = model_kwargs.pop("use_cache", self.generation_config.use_cache)
         use_xla = not tf.executing_eagerly()
         # TODO (Joao): fix cache format or find programatic way to detect cache index
         # GPT2 and other models has a slightly different cache structure, with a different batch axis
@@ -2199,7 +2096,9 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
                 input_ids = running_sequences[:, :, :cur_len]
             else:
                 input_ids = tf.expand_dims(running_sequences[:, :, cur_len - 1], -1)
-            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(flatten_beam_dim(input_ids), **model_kwargs)
+            model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(
+                flatten_beam_dim(input_ids), use_cache=use_cache, **model_kwargs
+            )
             model_outputs = self(
                 **model_inputs,
                 return_dict=True,
@@ -2521,17 +2420,22 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
         # 1. init greedy_search values
         logits_processor = logits_processor if logits_processor is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
         logits_warper = logits_warper if logits_warper is not None else TFLogitsProcessorList()
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.eos_token_id
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
+        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.generation_config.max_length
+        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.pad_token_id
+        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.generation_config.eos_token_id
+        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.generation_config.output_scores
+        output_attentions = (
+            output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.generation_config.output_attentions
+        )
         output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
+            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.generation_config.output_hidden_states
         )
         return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
+            return_dict_in_generate
+            if return_dict_in_generate is not None
+            else self.generation_config.return_dict_in_generate
         )
+        use_cache = True  # In contrastive search, we always use cache
         use_xla = not tf.executing_eagerly()
         # TODO (Joao): fix cache format or find programatic way to detect cache index
         # GPT2 and other models has a slightly different cache structure, with a different batch axis
@@ -2571,8 +2475,9 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
             if model_kwargs.get("past") is None:
 
                 # prepare inputs
-                model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(generated[:, :cur_len], **model_kwargs)
-                model_inputs["use_cache"] = True
+                model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(
+                    generated[:, :cur_len], use_cache=use_cache, **model_kwargs
+                )
 
                 # encode the given prefix and prepare model inputs; encoder-decoder model process the prefix and save
                 # the `encoder_outputs`
@@ -2662,8 +2567,9 @@ class TFGenerationMixin:
             )
 
             # compute the candidate tokens by the language model and collects their hidden_states
-            next_model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(tf.reshape(top_k_ids, [-1, 1]), **model_kwargs)
-            next_model_inputs["use_cache"] = True
+            next_model_inputs = self.prepare_inputs_for_generation(
+                tf.reshape(top_k_ids, [-1, 1]), use_cache=use_cache, **model_kwargs
+            )
             outputs = self(
                 **next_model_inputs, return_dict=True, output_hidden_states=True, output_attentions=output_attentions
             )
diff --git a/src/transformers/modeling_tf_utils.py b/src/transformers/modeling_tf_utils.py
index 91779a38b4e..d24c59b0c95 100644
--- a/src/transformers/modeling_tf_utils.py
+++ b/src/transformers/modeling_tf_utils.py
@@ -39,7 +39,7 @@ from . import DataCollatorWithPadding, DefaultDataCollator
 from .activations_tf import get_tf_activation
 from .configuration_utils import PretrainedConfig
 from .dynamic_module_utils import custom_object_save
-from .generation import TFGenerationMixin
+from .generation import GenerationConfig, TFGenerationMixin
 from .tf_utils import shape_list
 from .utils import (
     DUMMY_INPUTS,
@@ -1137,6 +1137,7 @@ class TFPreTrainedModel(tf.keras.Model, TFModelUtilsMixin, TFGenerationMixin, Pu
         # Save config and origin of the pretrained weights if given in model
         self.config = config
         self.name_or_path = config.name_or_path
+        self.generation_config = GenerationConfig.from_model_config(config) if self.can_generate() else None
         # Set the serving spec quickly to ensure that Keras doesn't use the specific dummy input shapes as the spec
         self._set_save_spec(self.serving.input_signature[0])
 
@@ -1200,6 +1201,18 @@ class TFPreTrainedModel(tf.keras.Model, TFModelUtilsMixin, TFGenerationMixin, Pu
         """
         raise NotImplementedError
 
+    def can_generate(self) -> bool:
+        """
+        Returns whether this model can generate sequences with `.generate()`.
+
+        Returns:
+            `bool`: Whether this model can generate sequences with `.generate()`.
+        """
+        # Detects whether `prepare_inputs_for_generation` has been overwritten, which is a requirement for generation
+        if "GenerationMixin" in str(self.prepare_inputs_for_generation):
+            return False
+        return True
+
     def get_input_embeddings(self) -> tf.keras.layers.Layer:
         """
         Returns the model's input embeddings layer.
@@ -2832,6 +2845,29 @@ class TFPreTrainedModel(tf.keras.Model, TFModelUtilsMixin, TFGenerationMixin, Pu
                 " to use it for predictions and inference."
             )
 
+        # If it is a model with generation capabilities, attempt to load the generation config
+        if model.can_generate():
+            try:
+                model.generation_config = GenerationConfig.from_pretrained(
+                    pretrained_model_name_or_path,
+                    cache_dir=cache_dir,
+                    force_download=force_download,
+                    resume_download=resume_download,
+                    proxies=proxies,
+                    local_files_only=local_files_only,
+                    use_auth_token=use_auth_token,
+                    revision=revision,
+                    subfolder=subfolder,
+                    _from_auto=from_auto_class,
+                    _from_pipeline=from_pipeline,
+                    **kwargs,
+                )
+            except OSError:
+                logger.info(
+                    "Generation config file not found, using a generation config created from the model config."
+                )
+                pass
+
         if output_loading_info:
             loading_info = {
                 "missing_keys": missing_keys,
diff --git a/src/transformers/models/rag/modeling_tf_rag.py b/src/transformers/models/rag/modeling_tf_rag.py
index feed5f00d7f..cb3170b4e53 100644
--- a/src/transformers/models/rag/modeling_tf_rag.py
+++ b/src/transformers/models/rag/modeling_tf_rag.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 
 """TFRAG model implementation."""
 
+import copy
 from dataclasses import dataclass
 from typing import List, Optional, Tuple, Union
 
@@ -999,25 +1000,9 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
         context_input_ids=None,
         context_attention_mask=None,
         doc_scores=None,
-        max_length=None,
-        min_length=None,
-        early_stopping=None,
-        use_cache=None,
-        num_beams=None,
-        bos_token_id=None,
-        pad_token_id=None,
-        eos_token_id=None,
-        length_penalty=None,
-        no_repeat_ngram_size=None,
-        bad_words_ids=None,
-        num_return_sequences=None,
-        decoder_start_token_id=None,
         n_docs=None,
-        output_scores=None,
-        output_attentions=None,
-        output_hidden_states=None,
-        return_dict_in_generate=None,
-        **model_kwargs
+        generation_config=None,
+        **kwargs
     ):
         """
         Implements TFRAG token decoding.
@@ -1051,91 +1036,32 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
 
                 If the model has is not initialized with a `retriever`, `context_input_ids` has to be provided to the
                 forward pass. `context_input_ids` are returned by [`~RagRetriever.__call__`].
-            max_length (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 20):
-                The maximum length of the sequence to be generated.
-            min_length (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 10):
-                The minimum length of the sequence to be generated.
-            early_stopping (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to stop the beam search when at least `num_beams` sentences are finished per batch or
-                not.
-            use_cache: (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `True`):
-                Whether or not the model should use the past last key/values attentions (if applicable to the model) to
-                speed up decoding.
-            pad_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *padding* token.
-            bos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *beginning-of-sequence* token.
-            eos_token_id (`int`, *optional*):
-                The id of the *end-of-sequence* token.
-            length_penalty (`float`, *optional*, defaults to 1.0):
-                Exponential penalty to the length that is used with beam-based generation. It is applied as an exponent
-                to the sequence length, which in turn is used to divide the score of the sequence. Since the score is
-                the log likelihood of the sequence (i.e. negative), `length_penalty` > 0.0 promotes longer sequences,
-                while `length_penalty` < 0.0 encourages shorter sequences.
-            no_repeat_ngram_size (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 0):
-                If set to int > 0, all ngrams of that size can only occur once.
-            bad_words_ids(`List[int]`, *optional*):
-                List of token ids that are not allowed to be generated. In order to get the tokens of the words that
-                should not appear in the generated text, use `tokenizer.encode(bad_word, add_prefix_space=True)`.
-            num_beams (`int`, *optional*, defaults to 1):
-                Number of beams for beam search. 1 means no beam search.
-            num_return_sequences(`int`, *optional*, defaults to 1):
-                The number of independently computed returned sequences for each element in the batch. Note that this
-                is not the value we pass to the `generator`'s `[`~generation.GenerationMixin.generate`] function, where
-                we set `num_return_sequences` to `num_beams`. decoder_start_token_id (`int`, *optional*): If an
-                encoder-decoder model starts decoding with a different token than *bos*, the id of that token.
             n_docs (`int`, *optional*, defaults to `config.n_docs`)
                 Number of documents to retrieve and/or number of documents for which to generate an answer.
-            output_attentions (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the attentions tensors of all attention layers. See `attentions` under
-                returned tensors for more details.
-            output_hidden_states (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the hidden states of all layers. See `hidden_states` under returned tensors
-                for more details.
-            output_scores (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return the prediction scores. See `scores` under returned tensors for more details.
-            return_dict_in_generate (`bool`, *optional*, defaults to `False`):
-                Whether or not to return a [`~utils.ModelOutput`] instead of a plain tuple.
-            model_specific_kwargs:
-                Additional model specific kwargs will be forwarded to the `forward` function of the model.
+            generation_config (`~generation.GenerationConfig`, *optional*):
+                The generation configuration to be used as base parametrization for the generation call. `**kwargs`
+                passed to generate matching the attributes of `generation_config` will override them. If
+                `generation_config` is not provided, the default will be used, which had the following loading
+                priority: 1) from the `generation_config.json` model file, if it exists; 2) from the model
+                configuration. Please note that unspecified parameters will inherit [`~generation.GenerationConfig`]'s
+                default values, whose documentation should be checked to parameterize generation.
+            kwargs:
+                Ad hoc parametrization of `generate_config` and/or additional model-specific kwargs that will be
+                forwarded to the `forward` function of the model.
 
         Return:
             `tf.Tensor` of shape `(batch_size * num_return_sequences, sequence_length)`: The generated sequences. The
             second dimension (sequence_length) is either equal to `max_length` or shorter if all batches finished early
             due to the `eos_token_id`.
         """
+        # Handle `generation_config` and kwargs that might update it
+        if generation_config is None:
+            generation_config = self.generation_config
+        generation_config = copy.deepcopy(generation_config)
+        model_kwargs = generation_config.update(**kwargs)  # All unused kwargs must be model kwargs
+
         # set default parameters
         n_docs = n_docs if n_docs is not None else self.config.n_docs
-        max_length = max_length if max_length is not None else self.config.max_length
-        min_length = min_length if min_length is not None else self.config.min_length
-        early_stopping = early_stopping if early_stopping is not None else self.config.early_stopping
-        use_cache = use_cache if use_cache is not None else self.config.use_cache
-        num_beams = num_beams if num_beams is not None else self.config.num_beams
-        bos_token_id = bos_token_id if bos_token_id is not None else self.config.generator.bos_token_id
-        pad_token_id = pad_token_id if pad_token_id is not None else self.config.generator.pad_token_id
-        eos_token_id = eos_token_id if eos_token_id is not None else self.config.generator.eos_token_id
-        length_penalty = length_penalty if length_penalty is not None else self.config.length_penalty
-        no_repeat_ngram_size = (
-            no_repeat_ngram_size if no_repeat_ngram_size is not None else self.config.no_repeat_ngram_size
-        )
-        bad_words_ids = bad_words_ids if bad_words_ids is not None else self.config.bad_words_ids
-        num_return_sequences = (
-            num_return_sequences if num_return_sequences is not None else self.config.num_return_sequences
-        )
-        decoder_start_token_id = (
-            decoder_start_token_id
-            if decoder_start_token_id is not None
-            else self.config.generator.decoder_start_token_id
-        )
-
-        output_scores = output_scores if output_scores is not None else self.config.output_scores
-        output_attentions = output_attentions if output_attentions is not None else self.config.output_attentions
-        output_hidden_states = (
-            output_hidden_states if output_hidden_states is not None else self.config.output_hidden_states
-        )
-        return_dict_in_generate = (
-            return_dict_in_generate if return_dict_in_generate is not None else self.config.return_dict_in_generate
-        )
 
         # retrieve docs
         if self.retriever is not None and context_input_ids is None:
@@ -1174,14 +1100,14 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
         encoder_outputs = encoder(
             input_ids=context_input_ids,
             attention_mask=context_attention_mask,
-            output_attentions=output_attentions,
-            output_hidden_states=output_hidden_states,
+            output_attentions=generation_config.output_attentions,
+            output_hidden_states=generation_config.output_hidden_states,
             return_dict=True,
         )
 
         decoder_input_ids = tf.fill(
-            (batch_size * num_beams, 1),
-            tf.cast(decoder_start_token_id, tf.int32),
+            (batch_size * generation_config.num_beams, 1),
+            tf.cast(generation_config.decoder_start_token_id, tf.int32),
         )
         last_hidden_state = encoder_outputs["last_hidden_state"]
 
@@ -1207,10 +1133,12 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
             return tf.reshape(tensor, new_shape)
 
         # correctly extend last_hidden_state and attention mask
-        context_attention_mask = extend_enc_output(context_attention_mask, num_beams=num_beams)
-        encoder_outputs["last_hidden_state"] = extend_enc_output(last_hidden_state, num_beams=num_beams)
+        context_attention_mask = extend_enc_output(context_attention_mask, num_beams=generation_config.num_beams)
+        encoder_outputs["last_hidden_state"] = extend_enc_output(
+            last_hidden_state, num_beams=generation_config.num_beams
+        )
 
-        doc_scores = tf.repeat(doc_scores, num_beams, axis=0)
+        doc_scores = tf.repeat(doc_scores, generation_config.num_beams, axis=0)
 
         # define start_len & additional parameters
         model_kwargs["doc_scores"] = doc_scores
@@ -1219,41 +1147,35 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
         model_kwargs["n_docs"] = n_docs
 
         pre_processor = self._get_logits_processor(
-            repetition_penalty=self.config.repetition_penalty,
-            no_repeat_ngram_size=no_repeat_ngram_size,
-            bad_words_ids=bad_words_ids,
-            min_length=min_length,
-            max_length=max_length,
-            eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
-            forced_bos_token_id=self.config.generator.forced_bos_token_id,
-            forced_eos_token_id=self.config.generator.forced_eos_token_id,
+            generation_config=generation_config,
             input_ids_seq_length=tf.shape(decoder_input_ids)[-1],
         )
 
-        if num_beams == 1:
+        if generation_config.num_beams == 1:
             return self.greedy_search(
                 input_ids=decoder_input_ids,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
                 logits_processor=pre_processor,
-                output_attentions=output_attentions,
-                output_hidden_states=output_hidden_states,
-                output_scores=output_scores,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
+                output_attentions=generation_config.output_attentions,
+                output_hidden_states=generation_config.output_hidden_states,
+                output_scores=generation_config.output_scores,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
-        elif num_beams > 1:
-            if num_beams < num_return_sequences:
+        elif generation_config.num_beams > 1:
+            if generation_config.num_beams < generation_config.num_return_sequences:
                 raise ValueError(
-                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set "
-                    f"num_beams >= num_return_sequences, got {num_beams} and {num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
+                    "Beam search decoding cannot return more sequences than it has beams. Please set num_beams >="
+                    f" num_return_sequences, got {generation_config.num_beams} and"
+                    f" {generation_config.num_return_sequences} (respectivelly)"
                 )
 
             def unflatten_beam_dim(tensor):
                 """Unflattens the first, flat batch*beam dimension of a non-scalar array."""
                 shape = shape_list(tensor)
-                return tf.reshape(tensor, [-1, num_beams] + shape[1:])
+                return tf.reshape(tensor, [-1, generation_config.num_beams] + shape[1:])
 
             decoder_input_ids = unflatten_beam_dim(decoder_input_ids)
             model_kwargs["attention_mask"] = unflatten_beam_dim(model_kwargs["attention_mask"])
@@ -1263,18 +1185,20 @@ class TFRagTokenForGeneration(TFRagPreTrainedModel, TFCausalLanguageModelingLoss
 
             return self.beam_search(
                 input_ids=decoder_input_ids,
-                max_length=max_length,
-                pad_token_id=pad_token_id,
-                eos_token_id=eos_token_id,
+                max_length=generation_config.max_length,
+                pad_token_id=generation_config.pad_token_id,
+                eos_token_id=generation_config.eos_token_id,
                 logits_processor=pre_processor,
-                output_attentions=output_attentions,
-                output_hidden_states=output_hidden_states,
-                output_scores=output_scores,
-                return_dict_in_generate=return_dict_in_generate,
+                output_attentions=generation_config.output_attentions,
+                output_hidden_states=generation_config.output_hidden_states,
+                output_scores=generation_config.output_scores,
+                return_dict_in_generate=generation_config.return_dict_in_generate,
                 **model_kwargs,
             )
         else:
-            raise ValueError(f"`num_beams` has to be an integer strictly superior to 0 (≥ 1), but is {num_beams}")
+            raise ValueError(
+                f"`num_beams` has to be an integer strictly superior to 0 (≥ 1), but is {generation_config.num_beams}"
+            )
 
     def get_input_embeddings(self):
         return self.rag.generator.get_input_embeddings()
diff --git a/tests/test_modeling_tf_common.py b/tests/test_modeling_tf_common.py
index 4dcc14d8070..f8ca8506262 100644
--- a/tests/test_modeling_tf_common.py
+++ b/tests/test_modeling_tf_common.py
@@ -1824,18 +1824,18 @@ class TFModelTesterMixin:
                 model.train_on_batch(test_batch, test_batch_labels)
 
     def _test_xla_generate(self, **generate_kwargs):
-        def _generate_and_check_results(model, config, inputs_dict):
+        def _generate_and_check_results(model, inputs_dict):
             if "input_ids" in inputs_dict:
                 inputs = inputs_dict["input_ids"]
                 # make sure there are no pad tokens in prompt, which may trigger unwanted behavior
-                if config.pad_token_id is not None:
+                if model.generation_config.pad_token_id is not None:
                     if config.pad_token_id == 0:
-                        new_pad_token = config.pad_token_id + 1
+                        new_pad_token = model.generation_config.pad_token_id + 1
                     else:
-                        new_pad_token = config.pad_token_id - 1
+                        new_pad_token = model.generation_config.pad_token_id - 1
                 else:
                     new_pad_token = None
-                inputs = tf.where(inputs != config.pad_token_id, inputs, new_pad_token)
+                inputs = tf.where(inputs != model.generation_config.pad_token_id, inputs, new_pad_token)
             elif "input_features" in inputs_dict:
                 inputs = inputs_dict["input_features"]
             else:
@@ -1854,10 +1854,10 @@ class TFModelTesterMixin:
             model = model_class(config)
 
             if model.supports_xla_generation:
-                _generate_and_check_results(model, config, inputs_dict)
+                _generate_and_check_results(model, inputs_dict)
             else:
                 with self.assertRaises(ValueError):
-                    _generate_and_check_results(model, config, inputs_dict)
+                    _generate_and_check_results(model, inputs_dict)
 
     def test_xla_generate_fast(self):
         """