WIP: Modal nightly cron — stacked on Greene PR (do not merge)

scripts/modal/Dockerfile

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+# Base image for PufferDrive nightly training on Modal.
+#
+# Matches the NYU Greene Singularity sif as closely as possible:
+#   - CUDA 12.8.1 + cuDNN runtime
+#   - Ubuntu 24.04
+#   - Python 3.12
+#
+# The actual repo (and the built .so files) are baked into the image at deploy
+# time by scripts/modal/modal_app.py via copy_local_dir + run_commands. This
+# Dockerfile only handles the slow, version-stable layer: system libs, Python,
+# torch.
+#
+# Build context is the repo root (not scripts/modal/). Don't reference
+# repo files here — modal_app.py copies them in afterward so changes don't
+# invalidate the slow base.
+
+FROM nvidia/cuda:12.8.1-cudnn-devel-ubuntu24.04
+
+ENV DEBIAN_FRONTEND=noninteractive \
+    PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=1 \
+    PYTHONUNBUFFERED=1 \
+    PYTHONNOUSERSITE=1 \
+    PIP_NO_CACHE_DIR=1 \
+    PIP_DISABLE_PIP_VERSION_CHECK=1 \
+    # Multi-arch so the same image runs on T4 (sm_75), A100 (sm_80), L4/L40S
+    # (sm_89), and H100/H200 (sm_90). Build is ~3-4x slower than single-arch
+    # but lets us swap Modal gpu= strings without rebuilding the image.
+    TORCH_CUDA_ARCH_LIST="7.5;8.0;8.9;9.0"
+
+RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
+        build-essential \
+        clang \
+        ccache \
+        ca-certificates \
+        curl \
+        git \
+        ninja-build \
+        pkg-config \
+        # OpenMP for the drive C extension
+        libomp-dev \
+        # EGL + GL for the headless render path in drive.h (eval.validation_gigaflow)
+        libegl1 \
+        libegl-dev \
+        libgles2-mesa-dev \
+        libgl1-mesa-dev \
+        libglvnd-dev \
+        # Raylib's X11 deps — used by the GLFW fallback when EGL isn't picked
+        libx11-dev \
+        libxcursor-dev \
+        libxinerama-dev \
+        libxi-dev \
+        libxrandr-dev \
+        # Headless display server for the GLFW fallback path
+        xvfb \
+        # ffmpeg for validation_gigaflow video encoding
+        ffmpeg \
+        # Python toolchain
+        python3.12 \
+        python3.12-dev \
+        python3.12-venv \
+        python3-pip \
+    && rm -rf /var/lib/apt/lists/*
+
+# Install uv — faster, deterministic resolver, replaces pip + venv + the
+# constraints-file dance. Modal disallows the Dockerfile ADD directive, so
+# fetch via curl.
+RUN curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh
+ENV PATH="/root/.local/bin:${PATH}"
+
+# Project venv at /opt/venv (kept off the overlay/image filesystem in
+# spirit — symbolic of the cluster's /scratch/$USER/venvs layout).
+RUN uv venv /opt/venv --python 3.12
+ENV PATH="/opt/venv/bin:${PATH}" \
+    VIRTUAL_ENV="/opt/venv"
+
+RUN uv pip install setuptools wheel
+
+# torch from pypi is built against CUDA 13; pull the cu128 wheel instead so it
+# matches the base image's CUDA toolkit. setup.py's CUDAExtension path checks
+# this and refuses to build if torch and host CUDA disagree.
+RUN uv pip install --index-url https://download.pytorch.org/whl/cu128 torch
+
+# Pin numpy<2 and pandas<2.2 here so the later `uv pip install -e .` resolve
+# can't drag numpy 2 in via pandas 3 and break the C extension's numpy 1 ABI
+# (NPY_NO_DEPRECATED_API=NPY_1_7_API_VERSION in setup.py). uv's resolver
+# respects these caps when computing the install_requires solution, unlike
+# pip which would gladly upgrade pre-installed pandas during -e .
+RUN uv pip install "numpy<2" "pandas<2.2"
+
+WORKDIR /workspace

scripts/modal/README.md

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+# Modal nightly training
+
+Nightly cron that launches PufferDrive training on Modal — 3 seeds of
+`single_agent_speed_run.yaml` plus 3 seeds of `nightly_best.yaml`, all on
+1× A100-80GB in parallel. Single-agent runs log to wandb project
+`nightly-single`; multi-agent to `nightly-multi`. In each project the
+`wandb_group` is today's UTC date so a night's 3 seeds cluster together in
+the UI. All under the `emerge_` org.
+
+## Files
+
+| File | Purpose |
+|---|---|
+| `Dockerfile` | CUDA 12.8.1 + cuDNN + Ubuntu 24.04 base, system libs, Python 3.12, torch. Slow layer — rarely rebuilt. |
+| `modal_app.py` | Modal app — bakes the repo + builds C extensions on top of the Dockerfile, defines the per-seed `train` function and the `nightly` cron entrypoint. |
+
+The training yamls themselves live in `scripts/cluster_configs/` and are shared
+with the Greene-side launcher.
+
+## One-time setup
+
+```bash
+# Install + auth Modal CLI (host machine)
+pip install modal
+modal token new
+
+# Create the wandb secret. Paste the API key from https://wandb.ai/authorize.
+modal secret create wandb-emerge WANDB_API_KEY=<key>
+```
+
+## Deploy the nightly cron
+
+```bash
+modal deploy scripts/modal/modal_app.py
+```
+
+Modal hashes the source — re-run after any code change to rebuild the image
+and update the deployed cron. The first deploy builds the Dockerfile (~5 min);
+subsequent deploys only rebuild the `pip install -e .` layer when repo files
+change (~1 min).
+
+The cron is `0 4 * * *` (04:00 UTC daily). Adjust the `modal.Cron(...)` arg in
+`modal_app.py` to change the wall-clock time.
+
+## Trigger runs manually
+
+```bash
+# Run the full 6-job fan-out now (without waiting for cron):
+modal run scripts/modal/modal_app.py::nightly
+
+# Run a single seed/config (useful for smoke tests):
+modal run scripts/modal/modal_app.py::train \
+    --yaml-path scripts/cluster_configs/single_agent_speed_run.yaml \
+    --seed 0 --run-name local_smoke --wandb-group smoke
+```
+
+## Inspect / cancel
+
+```bash
+modal app list                                      # show deployed apps
+modal app logs pufferdrive-nightly                  # tail logs (running app)
+modal app stop pufferdrive-nightly                  # remove the cron
+```
+
+Per-container logs (one per training run) appear in the Modal dashboard
+under the `pufferdrive-nightly` app.
+
+## Cost note
+
+A100-80GB on Modal is ~$3.20/h. A 12 h training run × 6 jobs = ~$230/night.
+Bring down by lowering `train.total_timesteps` in the yamls, dropping the
+`--gpu` to `A100` (40GB), or limiting to fewer seeds.