Alterlab Remote Compute

---
name: alterlab-remote-compute
description: Dispatch long-running GPU/CPU jobs to remote compute with a provider-agnostic submit → poll → harvest pattern across SLURM/HPC (sbatch, squeue, sacct) and managed APIs (Modal, RunPod, GCP Batch / Vertex AI). Use when submitting a batch job to a cluster, polling job status, retrieving result artifacts from a scheduler or cloud GPU provider, or writing a portable job-submission wrapper; the foundation-model skills (alterlab-alphafold, alterlab-boltz, alterlab-rfdiffusion, and siblings) dispatch their GPU work through this pattern. For Modal-specific serverless container deployment and autoscaling prefer alterlab-modal instead. Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.
license: MIT
allowed-tools: Read Write Edit Bash(python:*) Bash(uv:*)
compatibility: "Runs under `uv run python`; the portable dispatcher (`scripts/dispatch.py`) is stdlib-only. SLURM paths need `sbatch`/`squeue`/`sacct` on PATH (an HPC login node); managed backends need the provider CLI/SDK and account credentials read from environment variables (never hardcoded). No GPU is needed to submit/poll — only the remote job itself uses one."
metadata:
    skill-author: AlterLab
    version: "1.0.1"
    last_updated: "2026-09-23"
---

# Remote Compute

## Overview

Foundation-model workloads (protein folding, backbone diffusion, single-cell models) need a
GPU and can run for minutes to hours — too long to sit in a synchronous call. This skill is
the **provider-agnostic dispatch layer** the GPU skills build on: a single **submit → poll →
harvest** contract that works the same whether the backend is a SLURM cluster, Modal, RunPod,
or GCP. You describe the job once; the dispatcher submits it, returns a handle, polls status
to a terminal state, and harvests the output artifacts.

It does **not** wrap any single model — each model skill (`alterlab-alphafold`,
`alterlab-boltz`, `alterlab-proteinmpnn`, …) describes *what* to run; this skill describes
*where and how* to run it.

## When to Use This Skill

Use this skill when the user wants to:
- Submit a batch job to a SLURM/HPC cluster and track it to completion (`sbatch` → `sacct`).
- Run a GPU job on a managed provider (Modal, RunPod, GCP Batch / Vertex AI) and retrieve results.
- Write a portable job wrapper that runs the *same* payload across more than one backend.
- Poll a long-running remote job's status and harvest its output files/artifacts.

### Does NOT Trigger

| Scenario | Use instead |
|----------|-------------|
| Deploy a serverless container / autoscaling API specifically on **Modal** | `alterlab-modal` |
| Actually **fold a structure**, design a sequence, or run a specific model | the model's own skill (`alterlab-alphafold`, `alterlab-boltz`, `alterlab-proteinmpnn`, …) |
| Local single-machine data analysis with no remote dispatch | the relevant analysis skill (`alterlab-scanpy`, `alterlab-rdkit`, …) |
| Query a database over HTTP | the database connector skill (`alterlab-pdb`, `alterlab-uniprot`, …) |

## The submit → poll → harvest contract

Every backend implements three verbs. Keeping the payload backend-independent is what makes a
model skill portable across an HPC allocation and a cloud GPU:

1. **submit(spec) → handle** — enqueue the job; return an opaque handle (SLURM job id, Modal
   call id, RunPod job id, GCP operation name).
2. **poll(handle) → status** — map the backend's states to a common vocabulary:
   `PENDING | RUNNING | SUCCEEDED | FAILED | CANCELLED | UNKNOWN`. Poll on a backoff; never
   busy-loop.
3. **harvest(handle) → artifacts** — copy the declared output files back to a local `out/`
   directory (scp/rsync from HPC scratch; object-store download for cloud).

`scripts/dispatch.py` implements submit and poll (plus cancel for SLURM) for the SLURM and a
generic REST backend, and defines the status vocabulary so model skills can depend on it;
harvest is a copy step (rsync/scp or object-store download) shown in `references/providers.md`. Provider-specific command and
API detail lives in `references/providers.md` (loaded on demand).

## Core Capabilities

### 1. SLURM / HPC clusters

The classic scheduler path. Submit a job script with resource directives, then poll with
`sacct` (authoritative for terminal state) rather than only `squeue` (which drops finished
jobs from its default view):

```bash
# Submit; capture the numeric job id from "Submitted batch job <id>"
JOBID=$(sbatch --parsable run.slurm)

# Poll to a terminal state (COMPLETED / FAILED / CANCELLED / TIMEOUT)
sacct -j "$JOBID" --format=State,ExitCode,Elapsed --noheader --parsable2
```

A minimal GPU job script (`run.slurm`) — one GPU, an 8-hour wall clock, results on scratch:

```bash
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --job-name=fold
#SBATCH --gres=gpu:1
#SBATCH --time=08:00:00
#SBATCH --output=%x-%j.out
srun uv run python run_model.py --in input.fasta --out "$SCRATCH/out"
```

Full directive reference, array jobs, and `squeue`/`scancel` usage: see
`references/providers.md`.

### 2. Modal — managed serverless GPU

For serverless containers, autoscaling, and `.remote()` dispatch, this skill defers to
`alterlab-modal`, which owns the Modal SDK surface. Use Modal when you want zero cluster
management and per-second GPU billing. This skill's role is only to treat a Modal call as one
`submit → poll → harvest` backend when a workflow needs to stay provider-agnostic.

### 3. RunPod — on-demand GPU pods

RunPod exposes GPU pods and a serverless endpoint API. Submit to a serverless endpoint and
poll the returned job id; the API key is read from `RUNPOD_API_KEY` and sent as a bearer token. Endpoint/run/status
paths and the pod vs. serverless trade-off are in `references/providers.md`.

### 4. GCP — Batch and Vertex AI

Google Cloud offers **Batch** (containerized batch jobs with GPU allocation) and **Vertex AI**
custom jobs (ML-oriented, managed). Both follow submit → poll (operation/job state) → harvest
(read outputs from a GCS bucket). Auth uses Application Default Credentials; the target bucket
comes from an env var. Command/SDK detail: `references/providers.md`.

### 5. Portable job wrapper

`scripts/dispatch.py` is a stdlib-only CLI that runs the same job spec across backends:

```bash
# Submit a SLURM job and print the handle
python scripts/dispatch.py submit --backend slurm --script run.slurm

# Poll a handle to a normalized status
python scripts/dispatch.py poll --backend slurm --handle 123456

# Generic REST backend (RunPod-style): endpoint + key from env
python scripts/dispatch.py submit --backend rest \
  --endpoint "$RUNPOD_ENDPOINT" --payload spec.json
```

It shells out to `sbatch`/`sacct` for SLURM and uses `urllib` for the REST backend — no
third-party dependencies, so it runs anywhere Python does.

## Validation and status semantics

- **Trust the accounting record, not the queue.** On SLURM, a job missing from `squeue` may
  have finished *or* failed — resolve terminal state with `sacct`/exit code, not absence.
- **Poll with backoff** (e.g. 10s → 30s → 60s, capped) so you neither hammer the scheduler
  nor miss a fast job.
- **Always check the exit code**, not just the state string; a job can report `COMPLETED`
  while the payload wrote no artifacts. Harvest, then verify the expected files exist.
- **Never hardcode credentials.** Read `RUNPOD_API_KEY`, GCP ADC, and cluster hosts from the
  environment; the dispatcher refuses to run if a required secret is unset.

## Resources

- `references/providers.md` — per-backend command/API detail (SLURM directives, RunPod
  endpoints, GCP Batch/Vertex, Modal cross-link) loaded on demand.
- `scripts/dispatch.py` — stdlib-only `submit`/`poll`/`cancel` CLI for SLURM + generic REST.

Part of the AlterLab Academic Skills suite.