Isaac Lab Training

Isaac Lab reinforcement learning training with SKRL and RSL-RL backends. Both Azure ML and OSMO platforms support distributed GPU training with automatic checkpointing and MLflow experiment tracking.

📋 Prerequisites

Component	Requirement
Infrastructure	AKS cluster deployed via Infrastructure Guide
Azure ML	Extension installed via 02-deploy-azureml-extension.sh
OSMO	Control plane and backend via 03-deploy-osmo-control-plane.sh
Terraform outputs	Available in infrastructure/terraform/ (or provide values via CLI / environment vars)
Azure CLI	az with ml extension for Azure ML submissions
OSMO CLI	osmo CLI installed and authenticated for OSMO submissions

🚀 Quick Start

Azure ML

./scripts/submit-azureml-training.sh \
  --task Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0 \
  --num-envs 2048 \
  --stream

OSMO (Base64 Payload)

./scripts/submit-osmo-training.sh \
  --task Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0 \
  --num-envs 2048

OSMO (Dataset Injection)

./scripts/submit-osmo-dataset-training.sh \
  --task Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0 \
  --dataset-name my-training-v1

Dataset injection removes the ~1 MB payload size limit of base64-encoded archives and enables dataset reuse across runs.

⚖️ Platform Selection

Aspect	Azure ML	OSMO
Submission	az ml job create via YAML templates	osmo workflow submit
Orchestration	AKS compute targets	KAI Scheduler / Volcano integration
Experiment tracking	MLflow (managed)	MLflow (Azure ML backend)
Dataset delivery	Azure ML datastores	Base64 payload or OSMO bucket upload
Monitoring	Azure ML Studio	OSMO UI Dashboard
Payload modes	Single (YAML template)	Base64 or dataset folder injection

Azure ML provides managed compute and experiment tracking through Azure ML Studio. OSMO adds distributed training coordination, KAI Scheduler integration, and a dataset versioning system.

⚙️ Training Configuration

Core parameters shared across platforms:

Parameter	Default	Description
--task	Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0	Isaac Lab task identifier
--num-envs	2048	Parallel simulation environments
--max-iterations	(unset)	Training iteration limit
--image	nvcr.io/nvidia/isaac-lab:2.2.0	Container image
--backend	skrl	Training backend: skrl or rsl_rl
--headless	true	Disable rendering

Values resolve in order: CLI arguments → environment variables → Terraform outputs.

Training Backends

Backend	Algorithms	Use Case
SKRL	PPO, IPPO, MAPPO, AMP, SAC	General-purpose RL with MLflow
RSL-RL	PPO, Distillation	Locomotion-focused, teacher-student

SKRL is the default backend and supports automatic MLflow metric logging via monkey-patching. See MLflow Integration for metric details.

🔄 Checkpoint Workflows

Four checkpoint modes control how training initializes:

Mode	Behavior
from-scratch	Default. No checkpoint loaded, training starts fresh.
warm-start	Load weights only. Resets optimizer and iteration counters.
resume	Load full state. Continues from exact training position.
fresh	Load model architecture only. Reinitializes all parameters.

Checkpoint Examples

# Resume interrupted training (Azure ML)
./scripts/submit-azureml-training.sh \
  --checkpoint-uri "runs:/abc123/checkpoint" \
  --checkpoint-mode resume

# Warm-start from a registered model (OSMO)
./scripts/submit-osmo-training.sh \
  --checkpoint-uri "models:/anymal-c-velocity/1" \
  --checkpoint-mode warm-start

Model Registration

Training scripts register checkpoints to Azure ML automatically. Override the model name or skip registration:

# Custom model name
./scripts/submit-azureml-training.sh \
  --register-checkpoint my-custom-model

# Skip registration
./scripts/submit-osmo-training.sh \
  --skip-register-checkpoint

💾 Dataset Injection (OSMO)

OSMO supports two payload delivery modes for training code:

Mode	Script	Size Limit	Versioning
Base64 payload	submit-osmo-training.sh	~1 MB	None
Dataset injection	submit-osmo-dataset-training.sh	Unlimited	Automatic

Dataset injection uploads training/rl/ as a versioned OSMO dataset, mounted at /data/<dataset_name>/training in the container:

./scripts/submit-osmo-dataset-training.sh \
  --dataset-bucket custom-bucket \
  --dataset-name my-training-v1 \
  --task Isaac-Velocity-Rough-Anymal-C-v0

The script stages files to exclude __pycache__ and build artifacts via .amlignore patterns before upload.

🔗 Related Documentation

• Experiment Tracking for MLflow and WANDB setup
• MLflow Integration for SKRL metric logging internals
• AzureML Workflows for job template reference
• OSMO Workflows for workflow template reference
• Scripts Reference for full CLI parameter tables

🤖 Crafted with precision by ✨Copilot following brilliant human instruction, then carefully refined by our team of discerning human reviewers.