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name: deployment description: "Guides VLA-Adapter inference servers, MsgPack or JSON action payloads, ALOHA fake-client checks, and real robot deployment boundaries." disable-model-invocation: true metadata: disco-role: operating license: MIT

Deployment (external-checkout adapter)

This sub-skill documents deployment contracts and renders commands for a separate native checkout. It contains only documentation and safe command or synthetic-payload helpers; it does not contain prismatic/, vla-scripts/, or experiments/robot/, and it never starts a server, client, or robot.

Before using any native entrypoint, set and enter the absolute checkout root:

export VLA_ADAPTER_REPO_ROOT=/abs/path/to/VLA-Adapter
cd "$VLA_ADAPTER_REPO_ROOT"
python -m pip install -e "$VLA_ADAPTER_REPO_ROOT"

External prerequisites depend on the selected operation: base package plus CUDA/checkpoint for a server; FastAPI/uvicorn and the matching JSON or MsgPack serialization packages for HTTP serving; the native ALOHA fake-client and its runtime for a fake check; and ROS, cv_bridge, sensor/message packages, camera inputs, hardware, and a human operator for a real client. Install these in the native/robot environment, not in this generated skill.

Read and render

• Read references/server-client-contracts.md for JSON/MsgPack schemas and native command expectations.
• Read references/aloha-real-robot.md before any real Cobot Magic/ALOHA deployment.
• Read references/troubleshooting.md for HTTP, serialization, checkpoint, CUDA, and ROS failures.
• Render commands with scripts/build_aloha_launch.py using --repo-root "$VLA_ADAPTER_REPO_ROOT". build_aloha_launch only prints cd <absolute-repo-root> && ... commands; it does not execute or validate a server/client.
• Run scripts/validate_msgpack_payload.py only to inspect a deterministic synthetic payload. It checks keys, image dtype/shape, state shape, and non-empty strings; it is not a server, client, HTTP probe, or connectivity test. --write-msgpack additionally requires external msgpack and msgpack-numpy packages.

Native source entrypoints

After review, native commands must be run from cd <absolute-repo-root> and use the external source files below (the adapter does not invoke them):

Operation	Native source entrypoint
MsgPack server	experiments/robot/server_deploy/deploy.py
JSON server	vla-scripts/deploy.py
Fake ALOHA client	experiments/robot/aloha/run_fake_cobot_client.py
Real ROS client	experiments/robot/aloha/run_cobot_client.py

Deployment workflow

1. Validate the checkpoint and server contract against the linked references.
2. Confirm CUDA and operation-specific package/ROS prerequisites.
3. Decide whether the client/server should use MsgPack (ALOHA primary) or JSON.
4. Inspect a synthetic payload with the bundled validator; this does not contact a server.
5. Review the rendered native command, then run a native fake-client sanity check before any real robot client.
6. For real robots, confirm ROS topics, emergency stop, operator procedure, action scaling, and unnorm_key before publishing commands.

Safety boundaries

• Never run a real robot client from an automated agent without explicit human operator approval and a safe physical setup.
• Do not expose a VLA action server on an untrusted network without access controls; the basic repo server is a research utility, not a hardened service.
• Treat unnorm_key mismatch as a safety issue because it changes action scale.