dev-container

name	dev-container
description	Sets up and manages the isaaclab_arena Docker container — the single environment used for Arena's development, testing, training, and evaluation. Use when the user asks to set up the dev environment, bootstrap the project, get started on a fresh clone, start developing, build or rebuild the image, start or attach to the container, or run any command inside it. Also covers ./docker/run_docker.sh flag combinations (-r rebuild, -R rebuild without cache, -d/-m/-e custom dataset/model/eval mounts), docker exec usage, and the /isaac-sim/python.sh aliasing.
allowed-tools	Bash(./docker/run_docker.sh *) Bash(docker exec *) Bash(docker images *) Bash(docker ps *)

Dev Container

Arena uses a single Docker container (isaaclab_arena-latest) as the dev, test, training, and eval environment. There is no separate dev container.

Start or attach

./docker/run_docker.sh

Idempotent: builds the image if it does not exist, starts the container if it is not running, then attaches.

Common flag combinations

Flag	Purpose
-r	Force image rebuild
-R	Force image rebuild without cache
-d <path>	Mount a custom dataset directory
-m <path>	Mount a custom model directory
-e <path>	Mount a custom eval directory

Example with custom mounts:

./docker/run_docker.sh -d ~/datasets -m ~/models -e ~/eval

Run a command in the already-running container

docker exec isaaclab_arena-latest bash -c \
  "cd /workspaces/isaaclab_arena && <command>"

The repo root is mounted at /workspaces/isaaclab_arena inside the container.

Python invocation

Inside the container, python is aliased to /isaac-sim/python.sh. Both forms work, but prefer /isaac-sim/python.sh explicitly in docker exec invocations from outside the container, where the alias is not active.

Verify

A container is up and importable when:

docker exec isaaclab_arena-latest bash -c \
  "/isaac-sim/python.sh -c 'import isaaclab_arena; print(isaaclab_arena.__file__)'"

prints a path under /workspaces/isaaclab_arena/.