EnvHub

EnvHub is Nepher Robotics' Isaac Lab environments platform — a versioned library of OpenUSD simulation scenes used for fair tournament training, standardized evaluation, and community reuse.

Browse and download environments at https://envhub.nepher.ai.

Why EnvHub Exists

Tournament integrity depends on everyone — miners and validators — running against the same environments. EnvHub centralizes that:

• Standardized bundles — navigation, manipulation, humanoid, and locomotion categories
• Versioned releases — semantic versions with stable IDs (e.g. waypoint-benchmark-v1, waypoint-sample-v1)
• Reproducible evaluation — validators download the exact scenes miners train against
• OpenUSD assets — Omniverse-native scenes compatible with Isaac Sim 5.1+ / Isaac Lab 2.3+

Without EnvHub, benchmarks drift: different mesh versions, hidden scene tweaks, or unreproducible layouts undermine trust in leaderboard results.

How Environments Are Structured

Each environment is a ZIP bundle identified by a unique ID (e.g. waypoint-benchmark-v1) and organized by category (navigation, manipulation, humanoid, etc.).

Every bundle contains:

• manifest.yaml — required metadata describing scenes, version, and configuration
• Scene files — OpenUSD (.usd) scenes or programmatic preset scenes generated from Python configs

A single environment can hold multiple scenes — variations of terrain, obstacles, or waypoint layouts within the same theme. Scenes are what Isaac Lab actually loads during training or evaluation.

Scene Types

Type	Description
USD	Static 3D environments loaded from OpenUSD files; may include occupancy maps
Preset	Dynamically generated scenes from Python configuration with domain randomization

Benchmarks & Evaluation

Some environments are marked as benchmarks — standardized test sets used for tournament evaluation.

• Miners download training/sample environments (e.g. waypoint-sample-v1) during the contest period
• Benchmark environments (e.g. waypoint-benchmark-v1) are reserved for validators and only activated during the evaluation period — preventing overfitting to test scenes
• Validators query active evaluation benchmarks and download them when scoring begins

This is the mechanism that makes Tournament leaderboards fair and reproducible.

Using EnvHub as a Miner

Download environments before training or self-evaluation:

pip install nepher-cli
npcli login --api-key nepher_xxxxxxxx

# List available environments
npcli envhub list

# Download benchmark scenes for a navigation tournament
npcli envhub download waypoint-benchmark-v1
npcli envhub download waypoint-sample-v1

# Inspect local cache
npcli envhub cache list

Then train with the EnvHub-integrated task variant in your tournament repo:

# Example: Spot waypoint navigation (Isaac Lab 2.3.2 + Isaac Sim 5.1)
python scripts/rsl_rl/train.py --task=Nepher-Spot-WaypointNav-Envhub-v0

See task-spot-waypointnav for a complete integration example and the Miner Guide for the full workflow.

Using EnvHub as a Validator

Validators pull the same bundles during evaluation:

npcli envhub download waypoint-benchmark-v1 waypoint-sample-v1

Evaluation runs via eval-nav with env_scenes pointing to downloaded EnvHub IDs. See the Validator Guide.

Bundle Categories

Category	Use case
Navigation	Waypoint following, obstacle avoidance, indoor/outdoor terrains
Manipulation	Pick-and-place, articulated object interaction
Humanoid	Locomotion and whole-body tasks
Locomotion	Legged and wheeled mobility benchmarks

New categories are added as tournament tasks require them.

Contributing Environments

Creators can upload bundles (subject to admin review):

npcli envhub upload ./my-bundle --category navigation

Submission guidelines:

• OpenUSD scene files compatible with Isaac Sim 5.1+
• Valid manifest.yaml describing all scenes
• Compliant Python / Isaac Lab integration where applicable
• Clear documentation and preview media
• Passed QA for collision meshes, scale, and waypoint validity

Uploads enter a pending → approved/rejected workflow. Approved environments may appear in future tournaments or on SimStore.

Access & Quotas

Authenticated access uses Nepher API keys from https://account.nepher.ai.

Role	Typical access
Miner	Approved non-benchmark environments + own uploads
Validator	Active evaluation benchmarks during tournament eval periods
Admin	Full approval workflow and benchmark activation

Default quotas include 500 GB storage and 100 GB bandwidth per 30-day window for miners; validators receive higher bandwidth limits for evaluation workloads.

Recommended interface: Nepher CLI (npcli envhub).

Related

• Tournaments — competitions that consume EnvHub benchmarks
• NVIDIA Omniverse — OpenUSD and Isaac Lab foundation
• Miner Guide — full workflow including EnvHub setup
• eval-nav — evaluation framework referencing EnvHub scenes