"""Orchestrate the staged curriculum (see TRAINING.md's "Curriculum training" section): run each stage, evaluate the result against a reference bot, and either advance to the next stage or retry the same one. State is persisted to curriculum_state.json (committed to git) so the script is safe to Ctrl-C and re-run — it picks up exactly where it left off. Each attempt reuses run_training.sh (pull, train, export, commit+push) so every attempt's checkpoint, log, and exported policy is versioned like any other run; this script additionally evaluates the result and commits the updated eval_history.json + curriculum_state.json. The gate is deliberately lenient ("block only on a clear regression," not "require improvement") — see TRAINING.md. A 40-episode eval can call a real improvement a regression on sample noise alone (this happened with run11: it was the first model to deliberately score, but lost its head-to-head evals). A strict improvement-required gate would have retried that stage forever for the wrong reason. When a stage does fail MAX_RETRIES times in a row, the script stops and asks for a human look rather than retrying indefinitely or silently advancing past a bad stage. This is generation 2 of the curriculum. Generation 1 (6 stages: score, defend, no_draws, mechanics, aggression, unmask) ran 2026-07-21 through 2026-07-26 and is archived in curriculum_state_gen1.json — its final stage ("unmask", full 3D flight on top of the aggression retune) failed 3 straight attempts, monotonically worsening (25% -> 20% -> 15% win rate vs curric-s5-aggression) because every retry resumed the same drifting checkpoint under identical flags instead of actually changing anything. Rather than let generation 1's stage numbering grow indefinitely (unmask-retry4, retry5, ...), generation 2 starts a fresh stage 1 seeded directly from curric-s5-aggression's own checkpoint (FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT below) — the last stage that actually passed cleanly — carrying over its trained progress without re-running stages 1-5. See TRAINING.md for the full generation 1 history and generation 2's design. Every experiment name this script generates is timestamped (YYYYMMDD-HHMM-, applied once in run_stage_attempt) so runs stay unique across restarts/generations and sort chronologically in TensorBoard and checkpoints/ — plain names like "curric-s1-score" from generation 1 would otherwise collide with generation 2's own stage 1. Usage: .venv/bin/python curriculum.py # run/resume the curriculum .venv/bin/python curriculum.py --seed-checkpoint checkpoints/run11/final.zip .venv/bin/python curriculum.py --force-retry # after fixing something, retry the blocked stage .venv/bin/python curriculum.py --skip-to-next-stage # human judgment call: good enough, move on anyway Typically started via curriculum.sh, which runs this in a detached tmux session the way start_training.sh does for a single run. """ import argparse import json import pathlib import subprocess import sys from datetime import datetime TRAINING_DIR = pathlib.Path(__file__).resolve().parent STATE_PATH = TRAINING_DIR / "curriculum_state.json" EVAL_HISTORY_PATH = TRAINING_DIR / "eval_history.json" ROOKIE_REFERENCE = TRAINING_DIR.parent / "Game" / "bots" / "rookie.json" # Generation 1's last cleanly-passing checkpoint (see curriculum_state_gen1.json) # — generation 2's stage 1 builds on this directly instead of re-running # stages 1-5. FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT = "curric-s5-aggression" # Groundedness (locomotion-mask state) for experiments that predate this # generation's own log, so _grounded_for_experiment can still answer for # them — see that function. LEGACY_GROUNDED = { "rookie": False, FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT: True, } MAX_RETRIES = 2 EVAL_EPISODES = 100 # "Clear regression" = the reference beats the candidate by at least this # many percentage points of win rate. Below this, noise in a 100-episode # sample is a more likely explanation than the stage actually failing (see # module docstring) — advance rather than retry. REGRESSION_MARGIN = 0.15 # Standing flags applied to every attempt, mirroring next_run.sh: reset-std # reopens exploration every attempt (harmless on fresh starts — train.py # only applies it on --resume), ent-coef keeps it from re-collapsing. STANDING_ARGS = ["--reset-std", "0.3", "--ent-coef", "0.001"] STAGES = [ { "name": "unmask", # Re-opens full 3D controls (no more --no-allow-vertical/ # --no-allow-pitch-roll) on top of the aggression retune, instead of # keeping locomotion masked indefinitely. The mask blocked *thrust*- # driven flight outright; airborne_penalty (dense, scaled by height # above the floor — see ship_ai_controller.gd) is meant to teach the # policy to prefer staying grounded through incentives rather than a # hard constraint, so it can start learning when the other axes are # actually useful (aerial saves, wall recoveries) instead of never # touching them. # # Generation 1 ran this exact transition 3 times (unmask, retry1, # retry2) with identical flags and got monotonically worse each time # (25% -> 20% -> 15% win rate vs curric-s5-aggression) — a blind # retry just continues training the same drifting policy for # longer, it was never going to converge differently. An adversarial # review of a first patch (two modest new flags, still resuming the # drifted retry2 checkpoint) found that insufficient too: the resume # target was the worst of the three already-degraded checkpoints, # and the new weights were too small to compete with the unchanged # ball-pursuit terms. Generation 2's stage 1 instead: # - resumes from FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT (curric-s5-aggression) # directly (resume_from_experiment below) for the first attempt. # - raises velocity_to_ball_weight and ball_distance_penalty # further (the actual ball-chasing terms, unchanged since stage # 5 despite three failed attempts) and ball_touch_reward # alongside them. # - raises ball_velocity_to_goal_weight (reward for moving the # ball toward the goal, not just touching it) and goal_reward # (the terminal reward for scoring) — both newly exposed via # train.py, previously only reachable as raw Godot cmdline args. # - adds draw_penalty (proven effective in generation 1's stage 3 # against passivity), which this transition had never set: # previously all carrot for scoring, no stick for never scoring. "flags": [ "--opponent-mode", "self_play", "--velocity-to-ball-weight", "0.08", # up from 0.05 "--ball-distance-penalty", "0.01", # up from 0.006 "--ball-touch-reward", "0.7", # up from 0.5 "--airborne-penalty", "0.003", "--ball-velocity-to-goal-weight", "0.06", # up from 0.02 (0.004 default) "--goal-reward", "80", # up from 60 (40 default) "--draw-penalty", "5", ], # 2026-07-29: generation 2's own first two attempts (both independently # resumed from FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT under reset_retry_checkpoint, # identical flags/budget) landed at 32% and 27% win rate — a real # regression either way, but with enough run-to-run spread that # "identical fresh restart" isn't a controlled test of anything. The # first attempt's own trajectory (ep_rew_mean climbing from -10.86 # toward ~0 by the 240M-step cutoff, briefly touching positive) looked # closer to convergence than the second's, so rather than another # independent restart from foundation, retries now continue *that* # attempt's own checkpoint for another full timesteps budget — an # actual test of "did it just need more time," not another coin flip. # A third, unrelated attempt crashed immediately (see train.py's # GoalRateCallback KeyError fix) before contributing any real signal # and was discarded rather than counted. "grounded": False, "timesteps": 240_000_000, # ~24h at the standing n-parallel/speedup (20M took ~2h) "resume_from_experiment": FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT, "reference_experiment": FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT, }, ] def load_state() -> dict: if STATE_PATH.exists(): return json.loads(STATE_PATH.read_text()) return {"stage_index": 0, "attempt": 0, "status": "in_progress", "log": []} def save_state(state: dict) -> None: STATE_PATH.write_text(json.dumps(state, indent=2) + "\n") def experiment_name(stage_index: int, attempt: int) -> str: name = f"curric-s{stage_index + 1}-{STAGES[stage_index]['name']}" return name if attempt == 0 else f"{name}-retry{attempt}" def _logged_experiment_name(stage_index: int, attempt: int) -> str: """The actual (timestamped) experiment name recorded when this attempt ran — needed anywhere a *past* attempt's real name matters, since experiment_name() alone no longer identifies a run on disk (see run_stage_attempt's timestamp prefix).""" state = load_state() for entry in state["log"]: if entry["stage_index"] == stage_index and entry["attempt"] == attempt: return entry["experiment"] raise RuntimeError(f"No logged experiment for stage {stage_index} attempt {attempt}") def resume_checkpoint(stage_index: int, attempt: int, seed_checkpoint: str | None) -> str | None: if attempt > 0 and not STAGES[stage_index].get("reset_retry_checkpoint"): # Retry: keep training the same stage's own last attempt. prev = _logged_experiment_name(stage_index, attempt - 1) return str(TRAINING_DIR / "checkpoints" / prev / "final.zip") if stage_index == 0 and seed_checkpoint: return seed_checkpoint if stage_index == 0 and not STAGES[0].get("resume_from_experiment"): # Deliberately fresh by default: the curriculum exists because # resuming self-play across a regime change (run10, run11) didn't # work, so a from-scratch stage 1 starts from a random policy under # its own regime unless --seed-checkpoint or resume_from_experiment # says otherwise. return None # Either a later stage chaining off its predecessor, or # reset_retry_checkpoint: this stage's own retries have been drifting # rather than converging (see the "unmask" stage's comment) — resume # from the stage's normal resume source instead of compounding the last # failed attempt's drift. prev_experiment = _resume_source_experiment(stage_index) return str(TRAINING_DIR / "checkpoints" / prev_experiment / "final.zip") def reference_bot(stage_index: int) -> str: if stage_index == 0 and not STAGES[0].get("reference_experiment"): return str(ROOKIE_REFERENCE) prev_experiment = _reference_source_experiment(stage_index) return str(TRAINING_DIR.parent / "Game" / "bots" / f"{prev_experiment}.json") # A stage normally chains off "whatever passed at the previous index," but a # stage can instead name an explicit resume_from_experiment/reference_experiment # to skip a since-regressed branch, or (stage 0) to seed from a fixed # foundation checkpoint instead of a from-scratch policy. def _resume_source_experiment(stage_index: int) -> str: override = STAGES[stage_index].get("resume_from_experiment") return override if override else _passing_experiment_for_stage(stage_index - 1) def _reference_source_experiment(stage_index: int) -> str: override = STAGES[stage_index].get("reference_experiment") return override if override else _passing_experiment_for_stage(stage_index - 1) def _passing_experiment_for_stage(stage_index: int) -> str: state = load_state() for entry in state["log"]: if entry["stage_index"] == stage_index and entry["decision"] == "pass": return entry["experiment"] raise RuntimeError(f"No passing attempt recorded for stage {stage_index} ({STAGES[stage_index]['name']})") def _grounded_for_experiment(experiment: str) -> bool: if experiment in LEGACY_GROUNDED: return LEGACY_GROUNDED[experiment] state = load_state() for entry in state["log"]: if entry["experiment"] == experiment: return STAGES[entry["stage_index"]]["grounded"] raise ValueError(f"Unknown experiment for groundedness lookup: {experiment}") def run_stage_attempt(stage_index: int, attempt: int, args) -> str: # Timestamped so names stay unique across restarts/generations and sort # chronologically in TensorBoard/checkpoints — see module docstring. exp = f"{datetime.now().strftime('%Y%m%d-%H%M')}-{experiment_name(stage_index, attempt)}" resume = resume_checkpoint(stage_index, attempt, args.seed_checkpoint) # A stage can override the run's timesteps budget (see "floor-lock", # which deliberately runs much longer than the ~20M/~2h every stage so # far has used); otherwise it falls back to curriculum.py's own --timesteps. timesteps = STAGES[stage_index].get("timesteps", args.timesteps) cmd = [ "./run_training.sh", exp, "--timesteps", str(timesteps), "--n-parallel", str(args.n_parallel), "--speedup", str(args.speedup), *STANDING_ARGS, *STAGES[stage_index]["flags"], ] if resume: cmd += ["--resume", resume] print(f"\n=== Stage {stage_index + 1}/{len(STAGES)} ({STAGES[stage_index]['name']}), " f"attempt {attempt + 1}/{MAX_RETRIES + 1}: {exp} ===") print(" ".join(cmd)) subprocess.run(cmd, cwd=TRAINING_DIR, check=True) return exp def reference_grounded(stage_index: int) -> bool: if stage_index == 0 and not STAGES[0].get("reference_experiment"): # rookie.json predates the locomotion mask entirely — always full 3D. return False return _grounded_for_experiment(_reference_source_experiment(stage_index)) def evaluate_attempt(experiment: str, reference: str, episodes: int, stage_index: int) -> dict: candidate = TRAINING_DIR.parent / "Game" / "bots" / f"{experiment}.json" cmd = [".venv/bin/python", "evaluate.py", str(candidate), reference, "--episodes", str(episodes)] # Must match how each side was actually trained — see ai_ship_controller.gd's # allow_vertical/allow_pitch_roll and evaluate.py's --grounded-a/-b. if STAGES[stage_index]["grounded"]: cmd.append("--grounded-a") if reference_grounded(stage_index): cmd.append("--grounded-b") print(" ".join(cmd)) subprocess.run(cmd, cwd=TRAINING_DIR, check=True) history = json.loads(EVAL_HISTORY_PATH.read_text()) return history[-1] def decide(record: dict) -> str: win_rate_candidate = record["wins_a"] / record["episodes"] win_rate_reference = record["wins_b"] / record["episodes"] if win_rate_reference - win_rate_candidate >= REGRESSION_MARGIN: return "fail" return "pass" def commit_progress(experiment: str) -> None: subprocess.run(["git", "add", "curriculum_state.json", "eval_history.json"], cwd=TRAINING_DIR, check=True) result = subprocess.run(["git", "diff", "--cached", "--quiet"], cwd=TRAINING_DIR) if result.returncode == 0: return subprocess.run( ["git", "commit", "-m", f"chore(training): curriculum progress after {experiment}"], cwd=TRAINING_DIR, check=True, ) subprocess.run(["git", "push"], cwd=TRAINING_DIR, check=True) def main(): parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(description=__doc__, formatter_class=argparse.RawDescriptionHelpFormatter) parser.add_argument("--timesteps", type=int, default=20_000_000) parser.add_argument("--n-parallel", type=int, default=14) parser.add_argument("--speedup", type=int, default=16) parser.add_argument( "--seed-checkpoint", default=None, help="Resume stage 1 from this checkpoint instead of its default resume source " "(FOUNDATION_EXPERIMENT's checkpoint)", ) parser.add_argument("--force-retry", action="store_true", help="Retry a blocked stage after human review") parser.add_argument("--skip-to-next-stage", action="store_true", help="Human judgment call: treat the blocked stage as good enough, advance anyway") args = parser.parse_args() state = load_state() if state["status"] == "blocked": if args.skip_to_next_stage: print(f"Human override: advancing past stage {state['stage_index'] + 1} " f"({STAGES[state['stage_index']]['name']}) despite exhausted retries.") skipped_experiment = _logged_experiment_name(state["stage_index"], state["attempt"]) state["log"].append({ "stage_index": state["stage_index"], "experiment": skipped_experiment, "attempt": state["attempt"], "decision": "pass", "override": "skip_to_next_stage", }) state["stage_index"] += 1 state["attempt"] = 0 state["status"] = "in_progress" save_state(state) # If this was the last stage, the while loop below never runs # (stage_index now == len(STAGES)), so this override's state # change would otherwise never get committed/pushed. commit_progress(skipped_experiment) elif args.force_retry: print(f"Human override: retrying stage {state['stage_index'] + 1} " f"({STAGES[state['stage_index']]['name']}) after review.") state["attempt"] += 1 state["status"] = "in_progress" save_state(state) else: print(f"BLOCKED at stage {state['stage_index'] + 1} ({STAGES[state['stage_index']]['name']}) " f"after {MAX_RETRIES + 1} attempts — see curriculum_state.json's log for eval results.") print("Re-run with --force-retry (after adjusting flags/timesteps) or " "--skip-to-next-stage (advance anyway) once you've looked at why.") sys.exit(1) last_experiment = None while state["stage_index"] < len(STAGES): stage_index = state["stage_index"] attempt = state["attempt"] experiment = run_stage_attempt(stage_index, attempt, args) last_experiment = experiment reference = reference_bot(stage_index) record = evaluate_attempt(experiment, reference, EVAL_EPISODES, stage_index) decision = decide(record) print(f"{experiment}: candidate {record['wins_a']}-{record['wins_b']} reference " f"({record['draws']} draws) over {record['episodes']} episodes -> {decision}") state["log"].append({ "stage_index": stage_index, "experiment": experiment, "attempt": attempt, "eval": record, "decision": decision, }) if decision == "pass": state["stage_index"] += 1 state["attempt"] = 0 state["status"] = "in_progress" save_state(state) commit_progress(experiment) continue if attempt >= MAX_RETRIES: state["status"] = "blocked" save_state(state) commit_progress(experiment) print(f"\nBLOCKED: stage {stage_index + 1} ({STAGES[stage_index]['name']}) failed " f"{MAX_RETRIES + 1} attempts in a row. Stopping for human review — see " f"curriculum_state.json. Re-run with --force-retry or --skip-to-next-stage.") sys.exit(1) state["attempt"] += 1 save_state(state) commit_progress(experiment) print("\nCurriculum complete — all stages passed.") state["status"] = "done" save_state(state) if last_experiment is not None: # None only if the loop above never ran at all (e.g. re-invoking # after the curriculum was already "done") — nothing new to commit # in that case. commit_progress(last_experiment) if __name__ == "__main__": main()