Installation using Isaac Lab Pip Packages

Installation using Isaac Lab Pip Packages#

From Isaac Lab 2.0, pip packages are provided to install both Isaac Sim and Isaac Lab extensions from pip. Note that this installation process is only recommended for advanced users working on additional extension projects that are built on top of Isaac Lab. Isaac Lab pip packages does not include any standalone python scripts for training, inferencing, or running standalone workflows such as demos and examples. Therefore, users are required to define their own runner scripts when installing Isaac Lab from pip.

To learn about how to set up your own project on top of Isaac Lab, please see Create new project or task.

Note

Currently, we only provide pip packages for every major release of Isaac Lab. For example, we provide the pip package for release 2.1.0 and 2.2.0, but not 2.1.1. In the future, we will provide pip packages for every minor release of Isaac Lab.

Preparing a Python Environment#

Creating a dedicated Python environment is strongly recommended. It helps:

  • Avoid conflicts with system Python or other projects installed on your machine.

  • Keep dependencies isolated, so that package upgrades or experiments in other projects do not break Isaac Sim.

  • Easily manage multiple environments for setups with different versions of dependencies.

  • Simplify reproducibility — the environment contains only the packages needed for the current project, making it easier to share setups with colleagues or run on different machines.

You can choose different package managers to create a virtual environment.

  • UV: A modern, fast, and secure package manager for Python.

  • Conda: A cross-platform, language-agnostic package manager for Python.

  • venv: The standard library for creating virtual environments in Python.

Caution

The Python version of the virtual environment must match the Python version of Isaac Sim.

  • For Isaac Sim 5.X, the required Python version is 3.11.

  • For Isaac Sim 4.X, the required Python version is 3.10.

Using a different Python version will result in errors when running Isaac Lab.

The following instructions are for Isaac Sim 5.X, which requires Python 3.11. If you wish to install Isaac Sim 4.5, please use modify the instructions accordingly to use Python 3.10.

  • Create a virtual environment using one of the package managers:

    To install uv, please follow the instructions here. You can create the Isaac Lab environment using the following commands:

    # create a virtual environment named env_isaaclab with python3.11
uv venv --python 3.11 env_isaaclab
# activate the virtual environment
source env_isaaclab/bin/activate

    :: create a virtual environment named env_isaaclab with python3.11
uv venv --python 3.11 env_isaaclab
:: activate the virtual environment
env_isaaclab\Scripts\activate

    To install conda, please follow the instructions here <https://docs.conda.io/projects/conda/en/latest/user-guide/install/index.html>__. You can create the Isaac Lab environment using the following commands.

    We recommend using Miniconda, since it is light-weight and resource-efficient environment management system.

    conda create -n env_isaaclab python=3.11
conda activate env_isaaclab

    To create a virtual environment using the standard library, you can use the following commands:

    # create a virtual environment named env_isaaclab with python3.11
python3.11 -m venv env_isaaclab
# activate the virtual environment
source env_isaaclab/bin/activate

    :: create a virtual environment named env_isaaclab with python3.11
python3.11 -m venv env_isaaclab
:: activate the virtual environment
env_isaaclab\Scripts\activate

  • Ensure the latest pip version is installed. To update pip, run the following command from inside the virtual environment:

    pip install --upgrade pip

    python -m pip install --upgrade pip

Installing dependencies#

Note

In case you used UV to create your virtual environment, please replace pip with uv pip in the following commands.

  • Install a CUDA-enabled PyTorch 2.7.0 build for CUDA 12.8:

    pip install torch==2.7.0 torchvision==0.22.0 --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu128

  • If you want to use rl_games for training and inferencing, install the its Python 3.11 enabled fork:

    pip install git+https://github.com/isaac-sim/rl_games.git@python3.11

  • Install the Isaac Lab packages along with Isaac Sim:

    pip install isaaclab[isaacsim,all]==2.2.0 --extra-index-url https://pypi.nvidia.com

Verifying the Isaac Sim installation#

  • Make sure that your virtual environment is activated (if applicable)

  • Check that the simulator runs as expected:

    # note: you can pass the argument "--help" to see all arguments possible.
isaacsim

  • It’s also possible to run with a specific experience file, run:

    # experience files can be absolute path, or relative path searched in isaacsim/apps or omni/apps
isaacsim isaacsim.exp.full.kit

Note

When running Isaac Sim for the first time, all dependent extensions will be pulled from the registry. This process can take upwards of 10 minutes and is required on the first run of each experience file. Once the extensions are pulled, consecutive runs using the same experience file will use the cached extensions.

Attention

The first run will prompt users to accept the Nvidia Omniverse License Agreement. To accept the EULA, reply Yes when prompted with the below message:

By installing or using Isaac Sim, I agree to the terms of NVIDIA OMNIVERSE LICENSE AGREEMENT (EULA)
in https://docs.isaacsim.omniverse.nvidia.com/latest/common/NVIDIA_Omniverse_License_Agreement.html

Do you accept the EULA? (Yes/No): Yes

If the simulator does not run or crashes while following the above instructions, it means that something is incorrectly configured. To debug and troubleshoot, please check Isaac Sim documentation and the forums.

Running Isaac Lab Scripts#

By following the above scripts, your Python environment should now have access to all of the Isaac Lab extensions. To run a user-defined script for Isaac Lab, simply run

python my_awesome_script.py

Generating VS Code Settings#

Due to the structure resulting from the installation, VS Code IntelliSense (code completion, parameter info and member lists, etc.) will not work by default. To set it up (define the search paths for import resolution, the path to the default Python interpreter, and other settings), for a given workspace folder, run the following command:

python -m isaaclab --generate-vscode-settings

Warning

The command will generate a .vscode/settings.json file in the workspace folder. If the file already exists, it will be overwritten (a confirmation prompt will be shown first).