Setup

Now that you understand the configuration parameters for GRPO training, it’s time to set up your environment. This involves launching containers, installing dependencies, and preparing your training data—the foundation for everything that follows.

Prerequisites

Make sure you have:

• ✅ Access to a Slurm cluster with GPU nodes
• ✅ A shared filesystem accessible from all nodes
• ✅ HuggingFace token for downloading models

1. Enter a GPU Node

Estimated time: ~5 minutes

Launch an interactive Slurm session to run training commands. Refer to the NeMo RL Cluster Setup documentation for more details.

If this is your first time downloading this Docker image, the srun command below will take 5-10 minutes.

$
mkdir -p "$(dirname "$CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH")"
$
enroot import -o "$CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH" "docker://${CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH}"
$
# Swap to local container path
$
CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH=./$CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH

$
# Use the official NeMo RL container from NGC
$
# See: https://catalog.ngc.nvidia.com/orgs/nvidia/containers/nemo-rl
$
CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH=nvcr.io/nvidia/nemo-rl:v0.4.0.nemotron_3_nano
$
$
NUM_ACTOR_NODES=1
$
ACCOUNT=<ACCOUNT_NAME>
$
PARTITION=<PARTITION>
$
$
CONTAINER_WORKDIR=$PWD
$
MOUNTS="$PWD:$PWD"
$
srun \
>
    --nodes=${NUM_ACTOR_NODES} \
>
    --ntasks=1 \
>
    --account=${ACCOUNT} \
>
    --partition=${PARTITION} \
>
    --time=04:00:00 \
>
    --gres=gpu:8 \
>
    --no-container-mount-home \
>
    --container-name=nemo-gym \
>
    --container-mounts="${MOUNTS}" \
>
    --container-image="${CONTAINER_IMAGE_PATH}" \
>
    --container-workdir=$CONTAINER_WORKDIR \
>
    --pty /bin/bash

✅ Success Check: You should be inside the container with a bash prompt.

2. Clone and Setup NeMo RL + NeMo Gym

Estimated time: ~5-10 minutes

For the first setup on your local filesystem:

$
# Clone NeMo RL repository
$
git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA-NeMo/RL
$
cd RL
$
$
# Initialize all submodules (Gym, Megatron, AutoModel, etc.)
$
git submodule update --init --recursive

✅ Success Check: No errors during installation and uv sync completes successfully.

3. Run Sanity Tests

Estimated time: ~5-10 minutes

Download the model used in the following tests:

$
HF_HOME=$PWD/.cache/ \
>
HF_TOKEN={your HF token} \
>
    hf download Qwen/Qwen3-0.6B

Validate your setup before training:

$
HF_HOME=$PWD/.cache/ \
>
    ./examples/nemo_gym/run_nemo_gym_single_node_sanity_tests.sh

The script runs a targeted set of tests that verify the full stack required for training with NeMo RL and NeMo Gym:

• vLLM generation — Confirms that the vLLM backend can generate text and serve an OpenAI-compatible HTTP endpoint, which NeMo Gym uses for model inference.
• Token retokenization — Tests edge cases in converting between OpenAI schema (text) and token IDs.
• Environment step — Runs a basic NeMo RL environment step to validate that the environment interface works independently of NeMo Gym.
• NeMo Gym integration — Verifies that NeMo Gym correctly integrates into NeMo RL as an Environment.
• End-to-end rollout — Exercises the rollout loop that NeMo Gym uses inside grpo_train, confirming that rollout collection works end to end.

✅ Success Check: All tests pass without errors.

$
pkill -f VLLM
$
ray stop --force
$
uv run python -c "import ray; ray.shutdown()"

4. Prepare NeMo Gym Data

Estimated time: ~5 minutes

The Workplace Assistant dataset must be downloaded from HuggingFace and prepared for training. This runs ng_prepare_data to download and validate the dataset, and to add an agent_ref property to each example that tells NeMo Gym which agent server should handle that example.

Clone and setup the Gym Python environment:

$
# Setup Gym local venv
$
cd 3rdparty/Gym-workspace/Gym
$
uv venv --python 3.12 --allow-existing .venv
$
source .venv/bin/activate
$
uv sync --active --extra dev

Add your HuggingFace token to download Gym datasets from HuggingFace. This command will store your HF token in a file that is excluded from Git, so it will never be committed or pushed:

$
echo "hf_token: {your HF token}" >> env.yaml

Prepare the data:

$
config_paths="responses_api_models/vllm_model/configs/vllm_model_for_training.yaml,\
>
resources_servers/workplace_assistant/configs/workplace_assistant.yaml"
$
$
ng_prepare_data "+config_paths=[${config_paths}]" \
>
    +output_dirpath=data/workplace_assistant \
>
    +mode=train_preparation \
>
    +should_download=true \
>
    +data_source=huggingface

Return to the NeMo RL Python environment and directory:

$
deactivate
$
cd ../../..

✅ Success Check: Dataset files are created in 3rdparty/Gym-workspace/Gym/data/workplace_assistant/.

Next Steps

With your environment set up and data prepared, run your first training session: