npx skills add ...
npx skills add nvidia/skills --skill deepstream-import-vision-model
Use this skill to bring a supported object-detection vision model from HuggingFace or NVIDIA NGC into an NVIDIA DeepStream pipeline with end-to-end automation: ONNX download, SafeTensors export, TRT engine build, custom nvinfer bbox parser, multi-stream benchmark, and PDF report. Object detection models only.
npx skills add nvidia/skills --skill deepstream-import-vision-model
When this skill is active, read the relevant reference document before starting each phase. Do not rely on memory — reference documents contain exact script paths, bash variable conventions, log filename contracts, and critical parsing rules.
Current scope: Object detection models only. Fail fast on classification, segmentation, or other architectures detected in config.json.
Before preflight, browsing, downloads, or file creation, present exactly these two choices. Do not start with only an open-ended model-source prompt. If the user's request already clearly selects a model, confirm the matching choice instead of asking redundantly.
Use the validated Hugging Face RT-DETR model:
Ask for one supported source:
organization/model) or full model URL.Explain that the skill currently rejects classification, segmentation, and other non-detection
architectures after inspecting config.json. Do not invent or silently substitute a model when the
custom source is missing or unsupported.
For a dry run, present the same two choices and simulate discovery, build, benchmark, and report stages without browsing, downloading, launching Docker, writing files, or starting processes.
| Step | Phase | Reference | What it does |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–3 | Model Acquire | references/model-acquire.md | Browse HF/NGC, detect format, download ONNX or export SafeTensors |
| 4–5 | Engine Build | references/engine-build.md | Build dynamic TRT engine, run trtexec BS=1 and BS=MAX_BS |
| 6–7 | DS Pipeline | references/pipeline-run.md | Custom bbox parser, nvinfer config, single-stream + multi-stream benchmarks |
| 8 | Report | references/report-generation.md | 5 charts, HTML, PDF benchmark report |
Run the full pipeline autonomously without pausing for confirmation at each step.
Every step runs INSIDE the DeepStream container. The host needs only Docker + the NVIDIA
driver — no host python/venv/torch/trtexec/make/wkhtmltopdf. This works identically on Linux and
Windows (Docker Desktop + WSL2 backend, required for --gpus). The per-shell bind-mount
token is the only OS difference — -v "$PWD":/work (bash), -v "${PWD}:/work" (PowerShell),
-v "%cd%:/work" (cmd); full guide in references/windows.md. All venv/ONNX/
engine/parser/config/report artifacts live under the mounted working root and persist between the
ephemeral --rm containers.
1. One-time bootstrap — builds build/.venv_optimum (torch/onnx/onnxruntime/report deps; the
venv name is historical, optimum is no longer used) +
installs wkhtmltopdf, all in-container. From the working root:
2. Preflight — GPU + venv + trtexec, run THROUGH the container (container-mode auto-detects):
Every subsequent phase runs the same way — issue the model's commands via
docker run … --entrypoint bash … -lc '<commands>' (or the
.claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/dsrun.sh wrapper:
bash .claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/dsrun.sh '<in-container command>'),
using PY=build/.venv_optimum/bin/python and
trtexec at /usr/src/tensorrt/bin/trtexec inside the container. deepstream-app,
gst-launch-1.0, and /opt/nvidia/deepstream/… sample paths all exist in the image.
TensorRT build+runtime share one image, so there is no version skew (the concern the old
"build on the host" rule tried to avoid — see references/engine-build.md).
sample_720p.mp4 ships in the image; set DS_VIDEO only to override.
Create once MODEL_NAME is known (Step 1). Never dump files flat.
{model}_dynamic_b{MAX_BS}.engine. Never bare model_dynamic.engine.batch-size and stream count are always equal.trtexec_b1.log, trtexec_b${MAX_BS}.log, ds_s${N}_run1.log, ds_s${N}_run2.log. No timestamps. Report generation reads exact paths.NvDsInferObjectDetectionInfo obj = {};. Required for DS 9.1 OBB support; bare obj; leaves rotation_angle uninitialized, causing tilted bounding boxes.build/.venv_optimum reused across all models. Never create per-model venvs.--noDataTransfers — GPU-only compute matches DeepStream's GPU-to-GPU data flow..claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/report/md-to-html-pdf.py. Never write a custom HTML generator or call wkhtmltopdf directly.config.json before building anything.x264enc and openh264enc are prohibited. On NVENC-unavailable systems, use theoraenc + oggmux (LGPL; ships in gst-plugins-base; output is .ogv). If theoraenc/oggmux are absent, skip video creation (DS_SINGLE_STREAM_MODE=skipped). Report which mode was used: nvv4l2h264enc / theoraenc-fallback / skipped.sample_720p.mp4 (1280×720). Never autonomously substitute sample_1080p_h264.mp4 or any other file. Only use a different video when the user explicitly provides a path (via DS_VIDEO env var or script argument).Default model, end to end. Bootstrap once, then run the full pipeline:
SafeTensors model with no published ONNX. Step 2b exports it first; the wrapper reports which backend produced the graph and fails loudly if the batch dimension was baked in:
Pin a Hub revision for a reproducible build — any exporter flag passes straight through:
Wrap every step:
Track PIPELINE_START (before Step 1) and PIPELINE_END (after Step 8). Report all durations in the benchmark report.
benchmark_report.md — markdown source (12 mandatory sections)benchmark_report.html — styled HTML (charts base64-inlined, no local file access)benchmark_report_{model_name}.pdf — via md-to-html-pdf.py; verify charts are embedded by counting data:image/png occurrences in the HTML output: grep -o 'data:image/png' benchmark_report.html | wc -l should equal 5Run charts and report scripts with the shared venv active: source build/.venv_optimum/bin/activate.
IMPORTANT: Read the relevant reference before starting each phase. Do NOT generate code from memory.
| Document | Use When |
|---|---|
| references/model-acquire.md | Steps 1–3: HF/NGC URL parsing, format detection, ONNX download, SafeTensors export, label extraction |
| references/engine-build.md | Steps 4–5: trtexec engine build, benchmarks, PEAK_GPU_STREAMS derivation, iterative scaling |
| references/pipeline-run.md | Steps 6–7: custom bbox parser, nvinfer config, single-stream validation, KITTI dump, multi-stream benchmark |
| references/report-generation.md | Step 8: benchmark_data.json, 5 charts, 12-section markdown report, HTML + PDF |
Installed into .claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/ by install.sh.
| Script | Phase | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
model/hf-list-files.sh | 1–3 | List HuggingFace repo files |
model/hf-download-config.sh | 1–3 | Download config.json from HF |
model/ngc-list-files.sh | 1–3 | List NGC model files |
model/ngc-download.sh | 1–3 | Download NGC model archive |
model/safetensors-to-onnx.sh | 1–3 | Export SafeTensors → ONNX via torch.onnx.export (wrapper) |
model/safetensors_to_onnx.py | 1–3 | The exporter — dynamo backend, TorchScript fallback, verifies dynamic batch |
model/inspect-onnx.py | 1–5 | Inspect ONNX input/output shapes |
model/make-static-batch-onnx.py | 4–5 | Bake batch dim into ONNX |
model/cleanup.sh | Any | Remove staging dirs, preserve shared venv |
engine/benchmark-trtexec.sh | 4–5 | Run trtexec with standard flags |
deepstream/ds-single-stream.sh | 6–7 | Single-stream visual validation (NVENC primary; theoraenc+oggmux fallback; skip if neither) |
deepstream/ds-sweep.sh | 6–7 | 2-phase batch size sweep |
deepstream/benchmark-ds.sh | 6–7 | Fixed-stream DS benchmark |
deepstream/ds-kitti-dump.sh | 6–7 | KITTI detection dump via deepstream-app |
deepstream/ds-perf-run.sh | 7 | Step 7c two-run benchmark — wraps deepstream-app with enable-perf-measurement=1, writes fixed-name log for the report parser |
deepstream/extract-frame.sh | 6–7 | Extract sample frames from output video (.mp4 NVENC path or .ogv theoraenc fallback) |
report/generate-benchmark-charts.py | 8 | Generate 5 benchmark PNG charts |
report/md-to-html-pdf.py | 8 | Markdown → styled HTML → PDF (canonical benchmark report path) |
report/md-to-pdf.sh | Any | Markdown → PDF via pandoc/pdflatex — for design docs and references only, NOT for benchmark reports (use md-to-html-pdf.py for those) |
report/report-style.css | 8 | CSS for HTML report |
report/render-mermaid-for-pdf.py | 8 | Mermaid diagram → PNG |
report/mermaid-puppeteer.json | 8 | Vetted Puppeteer config for Mermaid (sandboxed; non-root) |
report/mermaid-puppeteer-root.json | 8 | Vetted Puppeteer config for Mermaid (used when running as root) |
| Error | Fix |
|---|---|
| Tilted/diagonal bounding boxes | Parser struct not zero-initialized — use NvDsInferObjectDetectionInfo obj = {}; |
| Zero KITTI files | gie-kitti-output-dir not read by nvinfer — use ds-kitti-dump.sh (wraps deepstream-app) |
| Engine rebuilds every DS run | model-engine-file path wrong — check relative path from config/ dir |
setDimensions negative dims | Add infer-dims=3;H;W to nvinfer config for dynamic ONNX models |
--memPoolSize workspace 0.03 MiB | Use M suffix not MiB — e.g. --memPoolSize=workspace:32768M |
| ForeignNode build failure (DETR) | Run onnxsim — see references/engine-build.md. Not reproduced on TRT 10.16 with either export backend |
| ONNX has a static batch dim | Both export backends specialized it — see the gotchas in references/model-acquire.md |
| Zero detections | Wrong net-scale-factor — check model family table in references/pipeline-run.md |
No module named 'pyservicemaker' | Install into venv: pip install /opt/nvidia/deepstream/.../pyservicemaker*.whl |
docker run --rm -it --gpus all --shm-size=16g -v "$PWD":/work -w /work \
--entrypoint bash nvcr.io/nvidia/deepstream:9.1-triton-multiarch \
.claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/setup.shdocker run --rm --gpus all -v "$PWD":/work -w /work \
--entrypoint bash nvcr.io/nvidia/deepstream:9.1-triton-multiarch \
.claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/preflight.sh # proceed only on PASSmodels/{model_name}/
model/ <- ONNX file(s)
parser/ <- .cpp, Makefile, .so
config/ <- nvinfer config, ds-app config, labels.txt
scripts/ <- run helper scripts
benchmarks/
engines/ <- _dynamic_b{MAX_BS}.engine, timing.cache, build logs
b1/ <- trtexec BS=1 log
b{MAX_BS}/ <- trtexec BS=MAX_BS log
ds/ <- DS benchmark logs
reports/ <- benchmark_report.md, .html, .pdf, benchmark_data.json
charts/ <- chart_*.png (5 charts)
samples/ <- output .mp4 or .ogv (theoraenc fallback), test frames
kitti_output/ <- KITTI detection .txt filesmkdir -p models/$MODEL_NAME/{model,parser,config,scripts,benchmarks/engines,benchmarks/ds,reports/charts,samples/kitti_output}docker run --rm -it --gpus all --shm-size=16g -v "$PWD":/work -w /work \
--entrypoint bash nvcr.io/nvidia/deepstream:9.1-triton-multiarch \
.claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/setup.sh
# then: "Use deepstream-import-vision-model to run PekingU/rtdetr_r50vd"bash .claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/model/safetensors-to-onnx.sh \
models/$MODEL_NAME/hf_model models/$MODEL_NAME/onnx_export/
# [export] backend=dynamo
# [export] dynamo produced a static batch dimension; trying the next backend
# [export] backend=legacy-torchscript
# [export] pixel_values shape=['batch', 3, 640, 640]bash .claude/skills/deepstream-import-vision-model/scripts/model/safetensors-to-onnx.sh \
PekingU/rtdetr_r50vd models/rtdetr/onnx_export --revision <commit-sha> --opset 18STEP_START=$(date +%s.%N)
# ... step commands ...
STEP_END=$(date +%s.%N)
STEP_DURATION=$(python3 -c "print(round($STEP_END - $STEP_START, 2))") # bc is not in the container; python3 always is
echo "[Step N] completed in ${STEP_DURATION}s"