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lerobot/docs/source/annotation_pipeline.mdx
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Pepijn 80b7708a61 feat(annotate): attach camera keyframes to module prompts; default to Qwen3.6-27B-FP8
Closes the visual-grounding gap flagged after the initial PR review:
modules now decode actual camera frames at the relevant timestamps and
attach them as `{"type":"image", "image":<PIL>}` content blocks to the
VLM prompts.

- New `frames.py`:
  - `FrameProvider` Protocol; `VideoFrameProvider` decodes from the
    dataset's first `observation.images.*` stream via
    `LeRobotDatasetMetadata.get_video_file_path` and
    `decode_video_frames`, with the same `from_timestamp` shift the main
    dataset uses.
  - Per-process LRU cache so co-timestamped Module 1 plan-update + Module
    2 calls share decode work.
  - `make_frame_provider` falls back to a null provider when the dataset
    has no video tracks → text-only prompts (graceful absence).
- Modules 1/2/3 take an optional `frame_provider` (default null) and
  prepend image blocks before the text block.
  - Module 1 attaches `keyframes_per_episode` keyframes to the subtask
    decomposition prompt.
  - Module 2 attaches the frame at the interjection timestamp.
  - Module 3 attaches the exact emission frame to each VQA pair.
- VlmConfig: backend now defaults to `vllm`; default model is
  `Qwen/Qwen3.6-27B-FP8`. New knobs: `--vlm.tensor_parallel_size`,
  `--vlm.camera_key` (override the keyframe stream).
- `_make_vllm_client` honours `tensor_parallel_size` so 27B-FP8 sharded
  on 2× GPUs works out of the box.
- `test_module3_attaches_frame_image_block_to_prompt` asserts modules
  emit one image block per VQA prompt at the exact emission timestamp.
- Docs: example switched to `imstevenpmwork/super_poulain_draft` +
  Qwen3.6-27B-FP8 + tensor_parallel_size=2; documents the keyframe
  attachment behaviour and the no-video fallback.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-04-27 16:58:45 +02:00

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# Annotation Pipeline
`lerobot-annotate` populates the two language columns introduced by the
[Language Columns and Recipes](./language_and_recipes) page —
`language_persistent` and `language_events` — directly into
`data/chunk-*/file-*.parquet`. There is no flavor namespace and no sidecar
file tree: multiple revisions of a dataset mean multiple dataset copies.
## What the pipeline produces
Three modules write into a per-episode staging tree, then a single writer
rewrites the data shards in place:
| Style / atom | Column | Module |
| ------------------------------------------- | --------------------- | -------- |
| `subtask` (Pi0.7-style "how, not what") | `language_persistent` | Module 1 |
| `plan` (initial + refresh on interjection) | `language_persistent` | Module 1 |
| `memory` (MEM-style compression) | `language_persistent` | Module 1 |
| `interjection` | `language_events` | Module 2 |
| speech tool-call atom (`style=null`, `say`) | `language_events` | Module 2 |
| `vqa` (user / assistant pair) | `language_events` | Module 3 |
The writer also adds a dataset-level `tools` column carrying the JSON schema
for the `say` tool call, and drops the legacy `subtask_index` column.
## How to run it locally or on SLURM
Install the extra and invoke the console script:
```bash
uv sync --extra annotations
uv run lerobot-annotate \
--repo_id=imstevenpmwork/super_poulain_draft \
--vlm.backend=vllm \
--vlm.model_id=Qwen/Qwen3.6-27B-FP8 \
--vlm.tensor_parallel_size=2
```
The pipeline attaches camera keyframes to every Module 1/2/3 prompt by
default, decoded from the dataset's first `observation.images.*` stream.
Override with `--vlm.camera_key=observation.images.<name>` to pin a
specific viewpoint. Datasets with no video tracks fall back to text-only
prompts automatically.
The executor picks `LocalPipelineExecutor` for small datasets and
`SlurmPipelineExecutor` for large ones based on
`--executor.auto_threshold` (default 32 episodes). Force local with
`--executor.force_local=true`. SLURM jobs honour `--executor.slurm_partition`,
`--executor.slurm_gpus`, and `--executor.slurm_time`.
## Style-to-recipe consumer mapping
The pipeline produces exactly the styles consumed by
`src/lerobot/configs/recipes/pi05_hirobot.yaml`:
- `low_level_execution`, `high_level_subtask`, `memory_update` consume
`subtask`/`plan`/`memory` from `language_persistent`.
- `user_interjection_response` consumes `interjection` events plus the
paired speech atom (merged into one assistant target turn via
`tool_calls_from`) and the same-timestamp `plan` refresh.
- `ask_vqa` consumes the `(vqa, user)` and `(vqa, assistant)` pairs from
`language_events`.
## Why the design is scoped to the canonical recipe
Two things drive the scope:
1. **Persistent state vs exact-event split.** Persistent rows (`subtask`,
`plan`, `memory`) broadcast per episode and answer "what state is in
force at this frame?". Event rows (`interjection`, `vqa`, speech) only
appear on the exact frame whose timestamp matches the emission. The
pipeline writes timestamps taken straight from the source parquet — no
floating-point recomputation.
2. **One Qwen-VL pass.** All three modules share a single VLM client
(vLLM if available, transformers fallback) so the cost is one model
load per dataset, not three.
## Module independence and staged reruns
Each module writes its raw output to
`<root>/.annotate_staging/episode_{N:06d}/<module>.jsonl`. That makes
prompt iteration cheap — re-running one module overwrites only its own
JSONL file before the writer composes the final parquet. Modules can be
disabled via `--module_1.enabled=false` (and similarly for 2 and 3) to
test them in isolation.
## Validation/report checks before final write
Before the writer runs, `StagingValidator` checks:
- exact frame-timestamp alignment for every event row;
- no orphan speech / interjection pairs;
- `plan` is refreshed at every interjection timestamp;
- `memory` rows fall on subtask boundaries (warning, not error);
- VQA assistant `content` parses as JSON in one of the
bbox / keypoint / count / attribute / spatial shapes;
- every row routes to the column dictated by `column_for_style(style)`.
Errors abort the writer (`--skip_validation=true` overrides for debugging).
## Paper inspirations per module
- **Module 1 — subtasks.** Hi Robot ([Shi 2025](https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.19417))
atom granularity ("pick up one piece of lettuce", "place bowl to box");
Pi0.7 ([Physical Intelligence 2025](https://pi.website/pi07)) "how, not
what" detail.
- **Module 1 — memory.** MEM ([Torne 2026](https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.03596))
compression directive: keep only minimal relevant information; functional
outcomes preserved, specific attributes dropped.
- **Module 2 — interjections.** Hi Robot scenario taxonomy: negative task,
situated correction, specific constraint, preference. Speech is a
tool-call-only atom (`tool_calls=[{type:function, function:{name:"say",
arguments:{text:...}}}]`).
- **Module 3 — VQA.** ECoT ([Zawalski 2024](https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.08693))
grounded features (bounding boxes in pixel `[x_min, y_min, x_max, y_max]`,
keypoints) and Steerable Policies' multi-abstraction grounding.
Future maintainers should adjust the prompt templates in
`src/lerobot/annotations/steerable_pipeline/prompts/` against these
references rather than rewriting from scratch.
## Compute and list-size estimates
Per episode, the pipeline issues O(`max_steps`) Module 1 calls,
O(`max_interjections_per_episode`) Module 2 calls, and
O(`vqa_emission_hz × episode_seconds`) Module 3 calls. With defaults
(8 subtasks, 1 interjection, 1 Hz × 3 pairs) and 30-second episodes, that
is ~50 VLM calls per episode. `language_persistent` per episode is ~10s of
KB at most (parquet dictionary-encodes one entry per episode);
`language_events` is empty on most frames and is bounded by the number of
emissions, not `num_frames × num_emissions`.
## Reproducibility via seed and prompt hashes
`--seed` (default 1729) feeds the per-episode RNGs that select interjection
timestamps and VQA question types. Combined with the deterministic prompt
templates checked into `prompts/`, two runs at the same seed against the
same dataset and the same model checkpoint produce byte-identical staging
artifacts. Prompt edits are recorded by file hash; future tooling can pin
expected `(seed, prompt_hash)` pairs into the dataset card.