Skip to navigation
Isaac LabLocal Installation

Installing Isaac Lab through Pip

View as Markdown

From Isaac Lab 2.0, pip packages are provided to install both Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab extensions from pip. Note that this installation process is only recommended for advanced users working on additional extension projects that are built on top of Isaac Lab. Isaac Lab pip packages does not include any standalone python scripts for training, inferencing, or running standalone workflows such as demos and examples. Therefore, users are required to define their own runner scripts when installing Isaac Lab from pip.

To learn about how to set up your own project on top of Isaac Lab, see Build your Own Project or Task.

If you use Conda, we recommend using Miniconda.

  • To use the pip installation approach for Isaac Lab, we recommend first creating a virtual environment. Ensure that the python version of the virtual environment is Python 3.11.
conda create -n env_isaaclab python=3.11
conda activate env_isaaclab
  • Before installing Isaac Lab, ensure the latest pip version is installed. To update pip, run
pip install --upgrade pip
  • Next, install a CUDA-enabled PyTorch 2.7.0 build for CUDA 12.8.
pip install torch==2.7.0 torchvision==0.22.0 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu128
  • If using rl_games for training and inferencing, install the following python 3.11 enabled rl_games fork.
pip install git+https://github.com/isaac-sim/rl_games.git@python3.11
  • Then, install the Isaac Lab packages, this will also install Isaac Sim.
pip install isaaclab[isaacsim,all]==2.1.0 --extra-index-url https://pypi.nvidia.com

Currently, we only provide pip packages for every major release of Isaac Lab. For example, we provide the pip package for release 2.0.0 and 2.1.0, but not 2.0.2. In the future, we will provide pip packages for every minor release of Isaac Lab.

Verifying the Isaac Sim installation

  • Make sure that your virtual environment is activated (if applicable)

  • Check that the simulator runs as expected:

# note: you can pass the argument "--help" to see all arguments possible.
isaacsim
  • It’s also possible to run with a specific experience file, run:
# experience files can be absolute path, or relative path searched in isaacsim/apps or omni/apps
isaacsim isaacsim.exp.full.kit

When running Isaac Sim for the first time, all dependent extensions will be pulled from the registry. This process can take upwards of 10 minutes and is required on the first run of each experience file. Once the extensions are pulled, consecutive runs using the same experience file will use the cached extensions.

The first run will prompt users to accept the Nvidia Omniverse License Agreement. To accept the EULA, reply Yes when prompted with the below message:

By installing or using Isaac Sim, I agree to the terms of NVIDIA OMNIVERSE LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)
in https://docs.isaacsim.omniverse.nvidia.com/latest/common/NVIDIA_Omniverse_License_Agreement.html
Do you accept the EULA? (Yes/No): Yes

If the simulator does not run or crashes while following the above instructions, it means that something is incorrectly configured. To debug and troubleshoot, please check Isaac Sim documentation and the forums.

Running Isaac Lab Scripts

By following the above scripts, your python environment should now have access to all of the Isaac Lab extensions. To run a user-defined script for Isaac Lab, simply run

python my_awesome_script.py

Generating VS Code Settings

Due to the structure resulting from the installation, VS Code IntelliSense (code completion, parameter info and member lists, etc.) will not work by default. To set it up (define the search paths for import resolution, the path to the default Python interpreter, and other settings), for a given workspace folder, run the following command:

python -m isaaclab --generate-vscode-settings

The command will generate a .vscode/settings.json file in the workspace folder. If the file already exists, it will be overwritten (a confirmation prompt will be shown first).