Implementation:Facebookresearch Habitat lab HITL HydraUtils

Knowledge Sources	Facebookresearch_Habitat_lab
Domains	Embodied_AI, Human_in_the_Loop
Last Updated	2026-02-15 00:00 GMT

Overview

HITL_HydraUtils provides Hydra configuration plugin registration and a utility function for converting OmegaConf configuration objects to plain Python objects for faster runtime field access.

Description

This module contains three key components:

• HabitatHitlConfigPlugin: A Hydra SearchPathPlugin that appends the habitat_hitl/config package path to the Hydra configuration search path, enabling HITL-specific configuration files to be discovered.
• register_hydra_plugins(): A convenience function that registers the Habitat, Habitat-Baselines, and Habitat-HITL Hydra config plugins in one call.
• omegaconf_to_object(): A recursive function that converts an OmegaConf DictConfig or ListConfig into plain Python objects (ConfigObject instances with attribute access, or lists). This conversion eliminates the approximately 50x overhead of accessing OmegaConf config fields at runtime versus plain Python object attributes.

The helper class ConfigObject is a simple dynamic object that converts dictionary entries into instance attributes via __dict__.update.

Usage

Use register_hydra_plugins() at application startup to ensure all Habitat configuration search paths are registered. Use omegaconf_to_object() to convert OmegaConf configuration to fast Python objects when config fields will be accessed frequently at runtime.

Code Reference

Source Location

• Repository: Facebookresearch_Habitat_lab
• File: habitat-hitl/habitat_hitl/core/hydra_utils.py
• Lines: 1-61

Signature

class HabitatHitlConfigPlugin(SearchPathPlugin):
    def manipulate_search_path(self, search_path: ConfigSearchPath) -> None:
        ...

def register_hydra_plugins():
    ...

class ConfigObject:
    def __init__(self, **entries):
        ...

def omegaconf_to_object(cfg):
    ...

Import

from habitat_hitl.core.hydra_utils import (
    HabitatHitlConfigPlugin,
    register_hydra_plugins,
    omegaconf_to_object,
    ConfigObject,
)

I/O Contract

Inputs (omegaconf_to_object)

Name	Type	Required	Description
cfg	omegaconf.Config (DictConfig, ListConfig, or primitive)	Yes	The OmegaConf configuration to convert to a Python object.

Outputs (omegaconf_to_object)

Name	Type	Description
return value	ConfigObject, list, or primitive	A Python object representing the configuration. DictConfig becomes ConfigObject with attribute access, ListConfig becomes a list, and primitives are returned as-is.

Usage Examples

Registering Hydra Plugins

from habitat_hitl.core.hydra_utils import register_hydra_plugins

# Register all Habitat Hydra plugins at startup
register_hydra_plugins()

Converting OmegaConf to Python Objects

from omegaconf import DictConfig
from habitat_hitl.core.hydra_utils import omegaconf_to_object

# Given an OmegaConf config
cfg = DictConfig({
    "networking": {
        "enable": True,
        "port": 8080,
    },
    "agents": [{"name": "agent_0"}, {"name": "agent_1"}],
})

# Convert to fast Python objects
obj = omegaconf_to_object(cfg)

# Access fields as attributes (much faster than OmegaConf access)
print(obj.networking.enable)  # True
print(obj.networking.port)    # 8080
print(obj.agents[0].name)     # "agent_0"