chore(docs): add more guidance to bring your own policies tutorial (#3230)

* chore(docs): add more guidance to bring your own policies tutorial

* removing normalization to avoid confusion with processors

* trailing whitespace

* Update docs/source/bring_your_own_policies.mdx

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: Maxime Ellerbach <maxime@ellerbach.net>

* Update docs/source/bring_your_own_policies.mdx

Co-authored-by: Copilot <175728472+Copilot@users.noreply.github.com>
Signed-off-by: Maxime Ellerbach <maxime@ellerbach.net>

* adding get optim params and predict_action chunk

* removing extra quotes

---------

Signed-off-by: Maxime Ellerbach <maxime@ellerbach.net>

docs/source/bring_your_own_policies.mdx

@@ -41,13 +41,15 @@ requires = # your-build-system
 
 ## Step 2: Define the Policy Configuration
 
-Create a configuration class that inherits from `PreTrainedConfig` and registers your policy type:
+Create a configuration class that inherits from [`PreTrainedConfig`](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/blob/main/src/lerobot/configs/policies.py) and registers your policy type:
+Here is a template to get you started, customize the parameters and methods as needed for your policy's architecture and training requirements.
 
 ```python
 # configuration_my_custom_policy.py
 from dataclasses import dataclass, field
 from lerobot.configs.policies import PreTrainedConfig
-from lerobot.configs.types import NormalizationMode
+from lerobot.optim.optimizers import AdamWConfig
+from lerobot.optim.schedulers import CosineDecayWithWarmupSchedulerConfig
 
 @PreTrainedConfig.register_subclass("my_custom_policy")
 @dataclass
@@ -61,22 +63,56 @@ class MyCustomPolicyConfig(PreTrainedConfig):
         hidden_dim: Hidden dimension for the policy network
         # Add your policy-specific parameters here
     """
-    # ...PreTrainedConfig fields...
+
-    pass
+    horizon: int = 50
+    n_action_steps: int = 50
+    hidden_dim: int = 256
+
+    optimizer_lr: float = 1e-4
+    optimizer_weight_decay: float = 1e-4
 
     def __post_init__(self):
         super().__post_init__()
-        # Add any validation logic here
+        if self.n_action_steps > self.horizon:
+            raise ValueError("n_action_steps cannot exceed horizon")
 
     def validate_features(self) -> None:
         """Validate input/output feature compatibility."""
-        # Implement validation logic for your policy's requirements
+        if not self.image_features:
-        pass
+            raise ValueError("MyCustomPolicy requires at least one image feature.")
+        if self.action_feature is None:
+            raise ValueError("MyCustomPolicy requires 'action' in output_features.")
+
+    def get_optimizer_preset(self) -> AdamWConfig:
+        return AdamWConfig(lr=self.optimizer_lr, weight_decay=self.optimizer_weight_decay)
+
+    def get_scheduler_preset(self):
+        return None
+
+    @property
+    def observation_delta_indices(self) -> list[int] | None:
+        """Relative timestep offsets the dataset loader provides per observation.
+
+        Return `None` for single-frame policies. For temporal policies that consume
+        multiple past or future frames, return a list of offsets, e.g. `[-20, -10, 0, 10]` for
+        3 past frames at stride 10 and 1 future frame at stride 10.
+        """
+        return None
+
+    @property
+    def action_delta_indices(self) -> list[int]:
+        """Relative timestep offsets for the action chunk the dataset loader returns.
+        """
+        return list(range(self.horizon))
+
+    @property
+    def reward_delta_indices(self) -> None:
+        return None
 ```
 
 ## Step 3: Implement the Policy Class
 
-Create your policy implementation by inheriting from LeRobot's base `PreTrainedPolicy` class:
+Create your policy implementation by inheriting from [`PreTrainedPolicy`](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/blob/main/src/lerobot/policies/pretrained.py):
 
 ```python
 # modeling_my_custom_policy.py
@@ -85,38 +121,74 @@ import torch.nn as nn
 from typing import Any
 
 from lerobot.policies.pretrained import PreTrainedPolicy
+from lerobot.utils.constants import ACTION
 from .configuration_my_custom_policy import MyCustomPolicyConfig
 
 class MyCustomPolicy(PreTrainedPolicy):
-    config_class = MyCustomPolicyConfig
+    config_class = MyCustomPolicyConfig  # must match the string in @register_subclass
     name = "my_custom_policy"
 
     def __init__(self, config: MyCustomPolicyConfig, dataset_stats: dict[str, Any] = None):
         super().__init__(config, dataset_stats)
+        config.validate_features()  # not called automatically by the base class
+        self.config = config
+        self.model = ...  # your nn.Module here
+
+    def reset(self):
+        """Reset episode state."""
         ...
+
+    def get_optim_params(self) -> dict:
+        """Return parameters to pass to the optimizer (e.g. with per-group lr/wd)."""
+        return {"params": self.parameters()}
+
+    def predict_action_chunk(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor], **kwargs) -> torch.Tensor:
+        """Return the full action chunk (B, chunk_size, action_dim) for the current observation."""
+        ...
+
+    def select_action(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor], **kwargs) -> torch.Tensor:
+        """Return a single action for the current timestep (called at inference)."""
+        ...
+
+    def forward(self, batch: dict[str, torch.Tensor]) -> dict[str, torch.Tensor]:
+        """Compute the training loss.
+
+        `batch["action_is_pad"]` is a bool mask of shape (B, horizon) that marks
+        timesteps padded because the episode ended before `horizon` steps, you
+        can exclude those from your loss.
+        """
+        actions = batch[ACTION]
+        action_is_pad = batch.get("action_is_pad")
+        ...
+        return {"loss": ...}
 ```
 
 ## Step 4: Add Data Processors
 
-Create processor functions:
+Create processor functions. For a concrete reference, see [processor_act.py](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/blob/main/src/lerobot/policies/act/processor_act.py) or [processor_diffusion.py](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot/blob/main/src/lerobot/policies/diffusion/processor_diffusion.py).
 
 ```python
 # processor_my_custom_policy.py
 from typing import Any
 import torch
 
+from lerobot.processor import PolicyAction, PolicyProcessorPipeline
+
 
 def make_my_custom_policy_pre_post_processors(
     config,
+    dataset_stats: dict[str, dict[str, torch.Tensor]] | None = None,
 ) -> tuple[
     PolicyProcessorPipeline[dict[str, Any], dict[str, Any]],
     PolicyProcessorPipeline[PolicyAction, PolicyAction],
 ]:
-    """Create preprocessing and postprocessing functions for your policy."""
+    preprocessor = ...   # build your PolicyProcessorPipeline for inputs
-    pass  # Define your preprocessing and postprocessing logic here
+    postprocessor = ...  # build your PolicyProcessorPipeline for outputs
-
+    return preprocessor, postprocessor
 ```
 
+**Important - function naming:** LeRobot discovers your processor by name. The function **must** be called `make_{policy_name}_pre_post_processors` (matching the string you passed to `@PreTrainedConfig.register_subclass`).
+
 ## Step 5: Package Initialization
 
 Expose your classes in the package's `__init__.py`: