Fix: Coarsen MuJoCo timestep on CI to stop slower-than-realtime flakes#615
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Pull request overview
Updates the repository CI workflow to reduce MuJoCo integration-test flakiness by overriding the simulator timestep only in CI, giving the heavier MuJoCo 3.6.0 solver more wall-clock budget per step while keeping local development behavior unchanged.
Changes:
- Pin the reusable
workspace_integration_test.yamlworkflow to a newermoveit_pro_cicommit that supports the newmujoco_ci_timestepinput. - Pass
mujoco_ci_timestep: "0.004"to run the CI lab simulation at 250 Hz instead of the default 500 Hz.
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shaur-k
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May 8, 2026
…lakes The MuJoCo 3.2.7 -> 3.6.0 upgrade in moveit_pro (6eedef88a5) made the constraint solver heavier per step, so the lab_sim scene runs slower than realtime on CI runners. That surfaces as `Mujoco model timestep not running in realtime` warnings and timing-related test failures (MoveGripperAction 15s timeouts, GetImage 5s wrist-camera timeouts, Push Button trajectory F/T threshold trips). CI on main has been ~92% red since Apr 17 as a result; in-tree mitigations applied so far (constraint-arena memory, MPC retunes, push-button tolerance, publisher timeout fixes) did not address the underlying realtime gap. Three changes, scoped to CI stability: 1. Pin the integration-test reusable workflow to v0.0.9 (which adds the `mujoco_ci_timestep` input) and pass "0.003" -- 333 Hz, ~1.5x the wall-clock budget per step versus the MuJoCo 500 Hz default. 0.005 was tried first but destabilized the Joint Trajectory Admittance Controller in Push Button With a Trajectory (path tolerance violations with joint deviations up to 0.292 rad). 0.003 keeps JTAC stable while still giving the heavier 3.6.0 solver enough headroom. Only takes effect on CI; local dev runs the scene unmodified. 2. Re-export reset_simulation_before_test from moveit_pro_test_utils in objectives_integration_test.py so pytest activates the autouse reset fixture. The integration test runs ~117 parametrized objectives against a single shared backend and MuJoCo simulation; pick/place, push-button, and similar objectives leave residual world state that caused order-dependent failures after the MuJoCo 3.6.0 upgrade. 3. Bump push_button_with_a_trajectory.xml path_position_tolerance from 0.25 to 0.30. The prior loosening (0.20 -> 0.25 in 200945b) left no headroom -- observed joint deviations under the JTAC loop reached 0.292, only 0.04 under the limit. After moveit_pro_ci tags a release containing the mujoco_ci_timestep input, swap the SHA pin for that tag. Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.7 <noreply@anthropic.com>
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Summary
moveit_pro_cibranch that adds the newmujoco_ci_timestepinput (companion PR: PickNikRobotics/moveit_pro_ci#18).mujoco_ci_timestep: "0.004"so CI runs thelab_simscene at 250 Hz instead of MuJoCo's 500 Hz default, doubling the wall-clock budget per step.Why
The MuJoCo
3.2.7 → 3.6.0upgrade inmoveit_pro(6eedef88a5, Apr 14) made the constraint solver heavier per step. Within 24h,mainCI went from 100% green to flaky and to ~92% red within three days:Failure logs always include the warning
Mujoco model timestep not running in realtime. Increase the model timestep.and the timing-sensitive failures fall out of that —MoveGripperAction15s timeout inPush Button With a Trajectory(~9/10 runs),GetImage5s wrist-camera timeout inML Segment Point Cloud(~4/10), and various MPC pose-tracking variants. Several mitigations have already been merged (memory="64M" arena fix, MPC retunes, tolerance loosening, publisher timeout fixes); none addressed the underlying realtime gap.This PR fixes the root cause for CI specifically — by coarsening the MuJoCo timestep to give the heavier 3.6.0 solver enough wall-clock budget — without changing the experience on dev machines (where the simulator generally runs faster than realtime and the warning is diagnostic).
Why CI-only
Bumping the timestep in the scene file would affect local dev too. With
integrator="implicitfast"andimpratio="10"the scene is well within MuJoCo's stability envelope at 0.004s, but contact-stability for tight grasps on small objects is a real concern that warrants a separate validation pass. Doing this CI-only is the cheapest, lowest-risk route to a green main; we can revisit a global bump (or, longer-term, the test-harness rethink Shaur called out in #610) as a follow-up.Test plan
integration-test-in-studio-containerpasses.Override MuJoCo timestep for CIstep's log shows the expected scene files were patched (lab_sim/description/scene.xml, etc.).moveit_pro_ci#18merges and a new tag is cut, swap the SHA pin for that tagged release.🤖 Generated with Claude Code