Note for --no-build-isolation for CUDA version mismatch

[mnabian]

PhysicsNeMo Pull Request

Description

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• I am familiar with the Contributing Guidelines.
• New or existing tests cover these changes.
• The documentation is up to date with these changes.
• The CHANGELOG.md is up to date with these changes.
• An issue is linked to this pull request.
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[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

Added a documentation note to help users troubleshoot CUDA version mismatch errors when installing extras like gnns. The note recommends using the --no-build-isolation flag with uv sync, which is consistent with how the Dockerfile handles similar packages that require PyTorch at build time (e.g., natten, torch_sparse).

• Clear and helpful troubleshooting guidance for a common installation issue
• Includes specific error message example for easy identification
• Provides concrete command example with the fix
• Well-placed in the installation section after the extras installation instructions

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
README.md	Added helpful troubleshooting note about --no-build-isolation flag for CUDA version mismatch errors

_{Last reviewed commit: aaf6b47}

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_{1 file reviewed, no comments}

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[mnabian]

/blossom-ci

[ktangsali]

I think we should refine the language here - --no-build-isolation should be the way to install these packages correctly. Without that, it can cause a version mismatch.

[ktangsali]

cc. @peterdsharpe @coreyjadams for viz.

[mnabian]

How about this?

Note: Extras such as gnns, nn-extras, and transformer-engine pull in packages that either ship only source distributions or require wheels built for a specific PyTorch and CUDA version. These should be installed with --no-build-isolation, e.g. uv sync --extra cu13 --extra gnns --no-build-isolation.

[ktangsali]

I like this better, thanks!

[peterdsharpe]

Oh cool, awesome find!

I wonder - can we specify this in pyproject.toml so it happens automatically for users?

uv has support for new syntax using no-build-isolation-package, which instructs specific package(s) to not isolate when building.

@mnabian if you have a moment, would you be able to try adding this to pyproject.toml to see if it works?

[tool.uv]
no-build-isolation-package = ["torch_sparse", "torch_geometric"]

(Not sure which other GNN packages require no-build-isolation, but we should add those too)

If this works, then we might be able to make this "just work" with uv sync --extra cu13 --extra gnns. If it doesn't, then I agree that this docs-based approach is a perfectly fine alternative too!

[mnabian]

Oh cool, awesome find!

I wonder - can we specify this in pyproject.toml so it happens automatically for users?

uv has support for new syntax using no-build-isolation-package, which instructs specific package(s) to not isolate when building.

@mnabian if you have a moment, would you be able to try adding this to pyproject.toml to see if it works?

[tool.uv]
no-build-isolation-package = ["torch_sparse", "torch_geometric"]

(Not sure which other GNN packages require no-build-isolation, but we should add those too)

If this works, then we might be able to make this "just work" with uv sync --extra cu13 --extra gnns. If it doesn't, then I agree that this docs-based approach is a perfectly fine alternative too!

@peterdsharpe I tested this out and ran into some other issues. We might be able to get it working, but right before the release, I’d prefer not to make big changes to the build unless you want to give this a try.

[mnabian]

/blossom-ci