fix(gpu-offload): replace LeRobot git submodule with pinned PyPI dependency

Address PR review feedback that the vendored LeRobot submodule costs ~403 MiB
to initialize (git history + worktree) while the Docker build never patches
the source. Since lerobot==0.6.1 is published on PyPI with all required
entry points, depend on it directly via pyproject.toml/uv.lock instead of
vendoring the repository.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>

Author: dwhiteddsoft

.gitmodules

@@ -1,11 +1,7 @@
 .git
-.gitmodules
 **/.git
 **/.git/**
 **/__pycache__
 **/*.pyc
 data
 outputs
-upstream/.venv
-upstream/docs
-upstream/tests

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/.dockerignore

@@ -1,2 +1 @@
-LEROBOT_REPO=https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot.git
-LEROBOT_REF=v0.6.1
+LEROBOT_VERSION=0.6.1

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/.lerobot-version

@@ -5,22 +5,10 @@ ms.date: 2026-08-26
 ---
 
 This example packages a pinned
-[LeRobot](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot) checkout for SO-101 episode
+[LeRobot](https://github.com/huggingface/lerobot) release for SO-101 episode
 collection, fine-tuning, evaluation, and rollout. The image builds for both
 `linux/amd64` and `linux/arm64` and includes the Xavier remoting runtime.
 
-## 📋 Initialize
-
-Initialize the pinned LeRobot submodule after cloning:
-
-```bash
-git submodule update --init --recursive \
-  gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/upstream
-```
-
-The exact commit is stored by the Git submodule reference. `.lerobot-version` records
-the requested upstream tag, branch, or commit used by image tags and scripts.
-
 ## 📦 Build the image
 
 Build and load an image for the host architecture:
@@ -42,19 +30,21 @@ The amd64 image uses the CUDA-enabled PyTorch version from LeRobot's lock file.
 The arm64 image replaces it with CUDA 13 wheels required by NVIDIA Thor. The
 build reads the remoting package directly from `gpu-offload/runtime` through a
 BuildKit named context, so the image always contains the runtime from the same
-checkout.
+checkout. LeRobot itself is installed from the pinned
+[`lerobot`](https://pypi.org/project/lerobot/) PyPI package declared in
+`pyproject.toml` and locked in `uv.lock`.
 
 ## 🔄 Update LeRobot
 
-Update only to an explicit reviewed tag, branch, or commit:
+Update only to an explicit reviewed release:
 
 ```bash
-./scripts/update_upstream.sh v0.6.2
+./scripts/update_lerobot_version.sh 0.6.2
 ```
 
-The script updates `upstream/` and `.lerobot-version`. Review the upstream
-release notes, rebuild both architectures, run the workflows you use, and then
-commit both changed paths.
+The script updates `pyproject.toml`, `uv.lock`, and `.lerobot-version`. Review
+the release notes, rebuild both architectures, run the workflows you use, and
+then commit the changed paths.
 
 ## ⚙️ Configure SO-101
 
@@ -199,7 +189,7 @@ Move image conversion and the policy processor pipeline to the offload server:
 This mode sends compact `uint8` camera tensors instead of normalized `float32`
 tensors. The example-layer implementation in
 `docker/raw_observation_inference.py` moves image preparation and the policy
-processor pipeline to the server without changing the pinned LeRobot submodule.
+processor pipeline to the server without changing the pinned LeRobot package.
 It demonstrates an optional optimization that requires only a small integration
 wrapper when transparent method offload does not provide enough throughput.
 This mode applies only to synchronous inference and is disabled by default.

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/README.md

@@ -41,33 +41,13 @@ RUN apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
 
 WORKDIR /opt/lerobot
 
-COPY --chown=lerobot:lerobot upstream/setup.py upstream/pyproject.toml \
-  upstream/uv.lock upstream/README.md upstream/MANIFEST.in ./
+COPY --chown=lerobot:lerobot pyproject.toml uv.lock ./
 
 RUN chown lerobot:lerobot /opt/lerobot
 
 USER lerobot
 
-RUN uv sync --locked \
-      --extra core_scripts \
-      --extra feetech \
-      --extra training \
-      --extra evaluation \
-      --extra smolvla \
-      --extra pusht \
-      --no-install-project \
-      --no-cache
-
-COPY --chown=lerobot:lerobot upstream/ ./
-
-RUN uv sync --locked \
-      --extra core_scripts \
-      --extra feetech \
-      --extra training \
-      --extra evaluation \
-      --extra smolvla \
-      --extra pusht \
-      --no-cache
+RUN uv sync --locked --no-cache
 
 USER root
 

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/docker/Dockerfile

@@ -0,0 +1,8 @@
+[project]
+name = "lerobot-so101-runtime"
+version = "0.1.0"
+description = "Pinned LeRobot dependency lock for the SO-101 GPU-offload example image"
+requires-python = ">=3.12"
+dependencies = [
+  "lerobot[core-scripts,feetech,training,evaluation,smolvla,pusht]==0.6.1",
+]

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/pyproject.toml

@@ -62,8 +62,8 @@ require_positive_integer() {
 
 pinned_version() {
   local version
-  version="$(sed -n 's/^LEROBOT_REF=//p' "${LEROBOT_DIR}/.lerobot-version")"
-  [[ -n "${version}" ]] || die "LEROBOT_REF is missing from ${LEROBOT_DIR}/.lerobot-version"
+  version="$(sed -n 's/^LEROBOT_VERSION=//p' "${LEROBOT_DIR}/.lerobot-version")"
+  [[ -n "${version}" ]] || die "LEROBOT_VERSION is missing from ${LEROBOT_DIR}/.lerobot-version"
   printf '%s\n' "${version#v}"
 }
 

gpu-offload/examples/so101-real-hardware/scripts/common.sh

@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+#!/usr/bin/env bash
+# Copyright (c) Microsoft Corporation.
+# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
+#
+# Update the pinned LeRobot PyPI package version.
+
+set -euo pipefail
+
+SCRIPT_DIR="$(cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")" && pwd -P)"
+readonly SCRIPT_DIR
+# shellcheck source=common.sh
+source "${SCRIPT_DIR}/common.sh"
+
+usage() {
+  cat <<'EOF'
+Usage: update_lerobot_version.sh VERSION
+
+Update the pinned LeRobot version in pyproject.toml and .lerobot-version,
+then re-lock dependencies. Review the release notes, rebuild both
+architectures, run the workflows you use, and then commit pyproject.toml,
+uv.lock, and .lerobot-version together.
+EOF
+}
+
+main() {
+  local version="${1:-}"
+  local version_file="${LEROBOT_DIR}/.lerobot-version"
+  local pyproject_file="${LEROBOT_DIR}/pyproject.toml"
+  local temporary_file
+
+  if [[ "${version}" == "-h" || "${version}" == "--help" ]]; then
+    usage
+    return 0
+  fi
+  [[ -n "${version}" && $# -eq 1 ]] || {
+    usage >&2
+    return 2
+  }
+
+  require_command uv
+
+  temporary_file="$(mktemp)"
+  sed -E "s/^(  \"lerobot\[[^]]*\])==[^\"]+(\",)\$/\1==${version}\2/" \
+    "${pyproject_file}" >"${temporary_file}"
+  if diff -q "${pyproject_file}" "${temporary_file}" &>/dev/null; then
+    rm -f "${temporary_file}"
+    die "no lerobot dependency line matched in ${pyproject_file}"
+  fi
+  mv "${temporary_file}" "${pyproject_file}"
+
+  temporary_file="$(mktemp)"
+  sed "s|^LEROBOT_VERSION=.*|LEROBOT_VERSION=${version}|" "${version_file}" >"${temporary_file}"
+  mv "${temporary_file}" "${version_file}"
+
+  (cd "${LEROBOT_DIR}" && uv lock)
+
+  printf 'Updated LeRobot to %s\n' "${version}"
+  git -C "${LEROBOT_REPO_ROOT}" status --short \
+    "${LEROBOT_DIR#"${LEROBOT_REPO_ROOT}/"}/.lerobot-version" \
+    "${LEROBOT_DIR#"${LEROBOT_REPO_ROOT}/"}/pyproject.toml" \
+    "${LEROBOT_DIR#"${LEROBOT_REPO_ROOT}/"}/uv.lock"
+}
+
+main "$@"