Nemotron Customizer Airgap

Use this skill to help an agent produce a connected-machine airgap bundle and then submit Nemotron Customizer steps from the airgapped side. Keep it grounded in the checked-in runner and manifests; do not invent a parallel packaging flow.

Read First

• deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/README.md for the operator flow.
• deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/airgap.yaml for the current image map.
• deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/runner.py when changing behavior.
• tests/deploy/test_airgap_runner.py before editing runner logic.
• deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/configs/ for runtime overlay configs.

For selected steps, inspect the catalog through the CLI:

uv run nemotron steps show <step_id> --json

Workflow

1. Establish the side of the workflow:

   • Connected machine: validate, build, save image tarballs.
   • Airgapped side: load images, set env profiles, run selected steps.

2. Gather the minimum inputs:

   • Target steps and config names, for example sft/megatron_bridge:tiny.
   • Target architecture or Docker platform, for example linux/amd64.
   • Available base images and whether the connected machine can pull them.
   • Airgapped env profile name, mounts, model/data/checkpoint locations.
   • Whether destructive or expensive actions such as --execute, Docker build, Docker volume cleanup, or state-file removal are explicitly allowed.

3. Plan with the runner first:

uv run python deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/runner.py \
  --config deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/airgap.yaml

Use --target <step_id>:<config> for one-off selections without editing YAML. The runner expands dependencies from dependencies, validates selected step files/configs, groups execution images, and prints selected execution images.

4. Edit airgap.yaml only where the runner expects configuration:

   • workflow.stages or CLI --target for selected customer steps.
   • dependencies for explicit upstream Nemotron Customizer step outputs.
   • step_execution_images for step-to-image mapping.
   • execution_images for base image, tag, tar, platform, and import probes.
   • launcher_image for the launcher container.

5. Execute only when the user asks for a real build:

uv run python deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/runner.py \
  --config deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/airgap.yaml \
  --execute

If a build fails midway, keep airgap-build-state.yaml and rerun the same command. Remove or move that state only when intentionally changing the plan.

6. On the airgapped side, use images from out/airgap-manifest.yaml under step_execution_images. Submit with the plural CLI:

uv run nemotron steps run <step_id> \
  -c <config-or-airgap-overlay> \
  -b <airgap-profile> \
  run.env.container_image=<image-from-manifest>

For sft/megatron_bridge, prefer the airgap overlay configs under deploy/nemotron-customizer/airgap/configs/; they clear runtime git auto-mounts because the runner bakes those repos into the execution image.

Guardrails

• Keep models, datasets, checkpoints, secrets, and customer files out of images. Put them on persistent storage and reference them through config overrides and run.env.mounts.
• Treat ${auto_mount:git+...} as a connected-machine build input. The runner bakes pinned repo overlays into execution images so airgapped jobs do not clone from GitHub.
• Do not add missing packages blindly. Let discover-execution-deps and import probes determine small additions; keep heavyweight framework deps in the base image choice.
• Preserve offline defaults unless the user has an internal mirror: HF_HUB_OFFLINE=1, TRANSFORMERS_OFFLINE=1, HF_DATASETS_OFFLINE=1, and WANDB_MODE=offline.
• Use nemotron steps ...; do not reintroduce nemotron step ....

Validation

After edits to runner logic, YAML structure, or airgap docs, run:

uv run pytest tests/deploy/test_airgap_runner.py -q

For CLI-facing examples, also smoke the command shape:

uv run nemotron steps --help
uv run nemotron steps show data_prep/sft_packing --json

Do not run Docker build/save stages during validation unless the user explicitly asked for a real connected-machine bundle build.