nemo-rl-brev-etiquette

Original：🇺🇸 English

Translated

Brev instance operating guidance for NeMo-RL agents working in /home/ubuntu/RL with limited workspace disk, a larger /ephemeral volume, and optional /home/ubuntu/RL/.env secrets. Use when running nemo-rl-auto-research campaigns, experiments, training jobs, model or dataset downloads, shared cache-heavy commands, log-producing runs, checkpoint generation, W&B or Hugging Face authenticated workflows, or any workflow that may create large files on Brev.

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Sourcenvidia/skills

Added on2026-06-03

NPX Install

npx skill4agent add nvidia/skills nemo-rl-brev-etiquette

SKILL.md Content

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Brev Etiquette

Operate as though

/home/ubuntu/RL

is the source checkout and

/ephemeral

is the working storage for generated experiment state. Keep the repo small, reproducible, and easy to inspect. Move bulky run outputs to

/ephemeral

before launching anything expensive.

Storage Rules

Keep code edits, small config changes, committed experiment hypotheses, and concise reproducibility records under
```
/home/ubuntu/RL
```
.
Put generated experiment assets under
```
/ephemeral
```
, including checkpoints, run logs, Ray temp directories, W&B offline files, profiler traces, evaluation dumps, rollout samples, and per-experiment artifacts.
Keep reusable caches under one shared
```
/ephemeral
```
cache root per user, not under each experiment. This includes Hugging Face models, dataset caches, PyTorch caches, Triton caches,
```
uv
```
caches, and pip caches.
Before a campaign or long run, check capacity with
```
df -h /home/ubuntu/RL /ephemeral
```
and avoid starting if
```
/ephemeral
```
is missing or nearly full.
Create a campaign root such as
```
/ephemeral/nemo-rl/${USER:-ubuntu}/nemo-rl-auto-research/<campaign>
```
and use one subdirectory per experiment.
Do not leave large files, cache directories, or generated outputs in the git checkout. If a tool defaults to the repo, override its output/cache path before running it.

Environment Secrets

Treat
```
/home/ubuntu/RL/.env
```
as the local secret store. It may contain keys such as
```
WANDB_API_KEY
```
,
```
HF_TOKEN
```
, or
```
HUGGING_FACE_HUB_TOKEN
```
.
Before any run that may need external auth, load
```
/home/ubuntu/RL/.env
```
when it exists. Never print,
```
cat
```
, log, commit, or summarize secret values.
If
```
/home/ubuntu/RL/.env
```
is absent, or a required key is still unset after loading it, remind the user to add the needed key to that file before launching authenticated work.

bash

if [ -f /home/ubuntu/RL/.env ]; then
  set -a
  . /home/ubuntu/RL/.env
  set +a
else
  echo "Missing /home/ubuntu/RL/.env; add required keys such as WANDB_API_KEY or HF_TOKEN before authenticated runs."
fi

Auto-Research Pattern

When using

nemo-rl-auto-research

, keep the git ledger in the repo and heavy evidence on

/ephemeral

.

bash

if [ -f /home/ubuntu/RL/.env ]; then
  set -a
  . /home/ubuntu/RL/.env
  set +a
fi

BREV_ROOT=/ephemeral/nemo-rl/${USER:-ubuntu}
CACHE_ROOT=$BREV_ROOT/cache
CAMPAIGN_ROOT=$BREV_ROOT/nemo-rl-auto-research/<campaign>
EXP_DIR=$CAMPAIGN_ROOT/<experiment>
mkdir -p "$EXP_DIR"/{logs,checkpoints,artifacts,ray,tmp,wandb}
mkdir -p "$CACHE_ROOT"/{huggingface,torch,triton,uv,pip,xdg,wandb}

export HF_HOME=$CACHE_ROOT/huggingface
export HF_HUB_CACHE=$HF_HOME/hub
export HF_DATASETS_CACHE=$HF_HOME/datasets
export TRANSFORMERS_CACHE=$HF_HOME/transformers
export TORCH_HOME=$CACHE_ROOT/torch
export TRITON_CACHE_DIR=$CACHE_ROOT/triton
export UV_CACHE_DIR=$CACHE_ROOT/uv
export PIP_CACHE_DIR=$CACHE_ROOT/pip
export XDG_CACHE_HOME=$CACHE_ROOT/xdg
export WANDB_CACHE_DIR=$CACHE_ROOT/wandb
export RAY_TMPDIR=$EXP_DIR/ray
export TMPDIR=$EXP_DIR/tmp
export WANDB_DIR=$EXP_DIR/wandb

Record the absolute

/ephemeral

paths in the nemo-rl-auto-research TSV fields for log path, checkpoint path, artifacts, shared cache root, and command. If the TSV itself may grow large, store the full TSV in

/ephemeral

and keep a small pointer file or summary in the repo.

Launch Checklist

Inspect disk first:
```
df -h /home/ubuntu/RL /ephemeral
```
.
Choose a unique
```
/ephemeral
```
run root before editing recipes or launching jobs.
Reuse a shared cache root such as
```
/ephemeral/nemo-rl/${USER:-ubuntu}/cache
```
across experiments unless a run explicitly requires a clean cache.
Override recipe output paths, logger paths, checkpoint paths, and temp paths to point under the experiment directory.
Override cache paths to point under the shared cache root.
Stream stdout/stderr to
```
$EXP_DIR/logs/run.log
```
or an equivalent file under
```
/ephemeral
```
.
Periodically check disk during long runs with
```
df -h /ephemeral
```
and stop gracefully if the volume is approaching exhaustion.
At the end, summarize the important metrics and paths in the repo ledger; do not copy bulky artifacts back into
```
/home/ubuntu/RL
```
.

Cleanup

Clean only files that belong to the current campaign or experiment.
Prefer pruning clearly named experiment directories under
```
/ephemeral/nemo-rl/...
```
; never remove shared caches or another user's run directory without an explicit instruction.
Preserve enough small metadata in the repo to reproduce a result after
```
/ephemeral
```
is cleaned.