README.md

Flatland Challenge Starter Kit

Instructions to make submissions to the SBB CFF Flatland Challenge.

Participants will have to submit their code, with packaging specifications, and the evaluator will automatically build a docker image and execute their agent against an arbitrary number of pre-generated flatland environments.

Setup

• docker : By following the instructions here
• aicrowd-repo2docker

pip install aicrowd-repo2docker

• Anaconda (By following instructions here) At least version 4.5.11 is required to correctly populate environment.yml.
• flatland-rl (By following instructions here) IMPORTANT : Please note that you will need flatland-rl version >=0.3.5 to be able to submit which you can update in your anaconda env by :

pip install -U flatland-rl

• Your code specific dependencies

# If say you want to install PyTorch
conda install pytorch torchvision -c pytorch

Clone repository

git clone git@github.com:AIcrowd/flatland-challenge-starter-kit.git
cd flatland-challenge-starter-kit

Test Submission Locally

cd flatland-challenge-starter-kit
export IMAGE_NAME="flatland-random-agent"

# Build docker image for your submission
./debug_build.sh

# In a separate tab : run redis server
./run_redis.sh

# In a separate tab : run local grader
./run_local_grader.sh

# In a separate tab :
# Finally, run your agent locally by :
./docker_run.sh

How do I specify my software runtime ?

The software runtime is specified by exporting your conda env to the root of your repository by doing :

conda env export --no-build > environment.yml

This environment.yml file will be used to recreate the conda environment inside the Docker container. This repository includes an example environment.yml

What should my code structure be like ?

Please follow the structure documented in the included run.py to adapt your already existing code to the required structure for this round.

Important Concepts

Repository Structure

• aicrowd.json Each repository should have a aicrowd.json with the following content :

{
  "challenge_id": "flatland-challenge-2019",
  "grader_id": "flatland-challenge-2019",
  "authors": ["your-aicrowd-username"],
  "description": "sample description about your awesome agent",
  "license": "MIT",
  "debug": false
}

This is used to map your submission to the said challenge, so please remember to use the correct challenge_id and grader_id as specified above.

If you set debug to true, then the evaluation will run on a separate set of 20 environments, and the logs from your submitted code (if it fails), will be made available to you to help you debug.

Packaging of your software environment

You can specify your software environment by using all the available configuration options of repo2docker. (But please remember to use aicrowd-repo2docker to have GPU support)

The recommended way is to use Anaconda configuration files using environment.yml files.

# The included environment.yml is generated by the command below, and you do not need to run it again
# if you did not add any custom dependencies

conda env export --no-build > environment.yml

# Note the `--no-build` flag, which is important if you want your anaconda env to be replicable across all

Debugging the packaged software environment

If you have issues with your submission because of your software environment and dependencies, you can debug them, by first building the docker image, and then getting a shell inside the image by :

docker run --net=host -it $IMAGE_NAME /bin/bash

and then exploring to find the cause of the issue.

Code Entrypoint

The evaluator will use /home/aicrowd/run.sh as the entrypoint, so please remember to have a run.sh at the root, which can instantitate any necessary environment variables, and also start executing your actual code. This repository includes a sample run.sh file. If you are using a Dockerfile to specify your software environment, please remember to create a aicrowd user, and place the entrypoint code at run.sh.

Submission

To make a submission, you will have to create a private repository on https://gitlab.aicrowd.com/.

You will have to add your SSH Keys to your GitLab account by following the instructions here. If you do not have SSH Keys, you will first need to generate one.

Then you can create a submission by making a tag push to your repository on https://gitlab.aicrowd.com/. Any tag push (where the tag name begins with "submission-") to your private repository is considered as a submission
Then you can add the correct git remote, and finally submit by doing :

cd flatland-challenge-starter-kit
# Add AIcrowd git remote endpoint
git remote add aicrowd git@gitlab.aicrowd.com/:<YOUR_AICROWD_USER_NAME>/flatland-challenge-starter-kit.git
git push aicrowd master

# Create a tag for your submission and push
git tag -am "submission-v0.1" submission-v0.1
git push aicrowd master
git push aicrowd submission-v0.1

# Note : If the contents of your repository (latest commit hash) does not change,
# then pushing a new tag will **not** trigger a new evaluation.

You now should be able to see the details of your submission at : gitlab.aicrowd.com//<YOUR_AICROWD_USER_NAME>/flatland-challenge-starter-kit/issues

NOTE: Remember to update your username in the link above

In the link above, you should start seeing something like this take shape (each of the steps can take a bit of time, so please be patient too ) :

and if everything works out correctly, then you should be able to see the final scores like this :

Best of Luck

Author

Sharada Mohanty https://twitter.com/MeMohanty