> This page is for OpenFold2, version 2.6.0 (Latest) (default).
> For other versions, use one of these documentation indexes:
> - 2.6.0 (Latest) (default): https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.6.0/llms.txt
> - 2.5.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.5.0/llms.txt
> - 2.4.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.4.0/llms.txt
> - 2.3.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.3.0/llms.txt
> - 2.2.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.2.0/llms.txt
> - 2.1.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.1.0/llms.txt
> - 2.0.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/2.0.0/llms.txt
> - 1.2.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/1.2.0/llms.txt
> - 1.1.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/1.1.0/llms.txt
> - 1.0.0: https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/openfold2/1.0.0/llms.txt

> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/llms.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/nim/bionemo/_mcp/server.

# Getting Started

This section describes how to get the OpenFold2 NIM up and running.

1. Pull and Run the NIM
2. Submit Health Check Requests to the NIM
3. Run Inference
4. Stop the Container

<Note>
This page assumes you have installed and set up [Prerequisite Software](/nim/bionemo/openfold2/prerequisites) (Docker, NGC CLI, NGC registry access).
</Note>

## Pull and Run the NIM

1. Pull the NIM container.

```bash
docker pull nvcr.io/nim/openfold/openfold2:latest
```


2. Run the NIM container and expose port 8000, to which the user can submit requests.

The command below starts the NIM container and exposes port 8000, to which
the user can submit requests.
- Set the `LOCAL_NIM_CACHE` environment variable to a location on the local filesystem, on a disk with at least 15 GB of space.  Initially, the command below downloads model parameter sets to this location.  On subsequent executions, the command below checks for the presence of the data, and only repeats the download if the data is not found.  This download is approximately 5.2 GB.

```bash
export LOCAL_NIM_CACHE=~/.cache/nim
export NGC_API_KEY=<Your NGC API Key>
```

```bash
docker run --rm --name openfold2 \
    --runtime=nvidia \
    --gpus 'device=0' \
    -p 8000:8000 \
    -e NGC_API_KEY \
    -v $LOCAL_NIM_CACHE:/opt/nim/.cache \
    nvcr.io/nim/openfold/openfold2:latest
```


## Submit Health Check Requests to the NIM

1. Open a new terminal, leaving the current terminal open with the launched service.

2. Submit requests to the health check endpoint until you see
`{"object":"health.response","message":"ready","status":"ready"}`.  It takes under 3 minutes for the NIM to start up and download
the needed data files.

```bash
curl -X 'GET' \
    'http://localhost:8000/v1/health/ready' \
    -H 'accept: application/json'
```

You can also check the NIM's status with Python by using the `requests` module, installed using `pip install requests`.

```python
import requests

url = "http://localhost:8000/v1/health/ready"  # Replace with the actual URL
headers = {"content-type": "application/json"}

try:
    response = requests.get(url, headers=headers)

    # Check if the request was successful
    if response.ok:
        print("Request succeeded:", response.json())
    else:
        print("Request failed:", response.status_code, response.text)
except Exception as E:
    print("Request failed:", E)
```

When the response, `{"object":"health.response","message":"ready","status":"ready"}`, appears, the NIM is ready to accept a request with real inputs.

## Run Inference

Refer to [OpenFold2 NIM Example Requests](/nim/bionemo/openfold2/example-requests) for an example inference with realistic input.

## Stop the Container

When you are done, press `Ctrl+C` in the terminal running the container, or run `docker stop` with the container name set by the `--name` option of the `docker run` command. Because the command uses `--rm`, Docker removes the container after it stops.