Lab Environment Setup¶

Provision and validate all lab environments at least 12 hours before the session.

Track 01 Products¶

This track focuses on:

Environment Details¶

Requirement	Detail
Platform	IBM Cloud TechZone
Accounts needed	One per attendee
Pre-provisioned resources	watsonx Orchestrate instances watsonx.governance access IBM Bob
Network	Stable internet, no restrictive firewall Access to IBM Cloud domains Access to watsonx endpoints
Attendee machine	Any OS with a modern browser (Chrome/Firefox/Edge) Terminal access for CLI operations

Operating system

The Lab commands are built and tested on MacOS/Linux. There maybe slight discrepancies with windows powershell or cmd, hence subsystem for linux is recommended if using a windows PC.

Setup Steps¶

Step 1: Provision the TechZone Instance¶

For this pm-launchpad, we have created the Agentic AI pm-launchpad TechZone bundle, which has all the components needed for the hands-on labs, including:

watsonx.ai
Cloud Object Storage (COS) & watsonx.ai Runtime (formerly WML)
watsonx Orchestrate
IBM CodeEngine
watsonx.governance (for the demo)

Reserve any of the following instance to get started.

This instance will be valid for maximum of 5 days. Reserve the environment here: Reserve TechZone Instance

Important Note!

After the Techzone reservation is complete, you will receive an email about it from IBM Techzone. After this, you will receive another email from IBM Cloud inviting you to join a cloud account. Please note, you DO NOT have to create the Cloud account. Techzone reservation will create the account and you DO NOT have to put your credit card anywhere for this.

Incase you don't have access to the TechZone you most likely don't have and IBM ID. Create an IBM ID by following the instructions here: Create your IBMid

Step 2: Get the free trial of IBM Bob¶

You can signup for a free 30 days trial of IBM Bob here:

Get IBM Bob

Step 3: Access the TechZone Instance¶

Note

Follow these instructions for accessing your instance of the class environment in order to successfully complete the Agentic AI pm-launchpad.

When you are invited to the class environment, you'll receive an email. This message is from IBM Technology Zone noreply@techzone.ibm.com inviting you to join the account where your class environment is located.

In the email, look for the link in the sentence "Please go HERE to accept your invitation." (Highlighted in the screenshot below.)

Info

If you miss the email or don't receive it for any reason!

You can find the invitation on your IBM Cloud account: https://cloud.ibm.com/notifications?type=account

Please select the Join Now link.

Step 4: Setup watsonx Orchestrate ADK locally¶

Note

Follow these instructions for running wxo-client ADK locally in order to successfully complete the 201 and above labs.

Installing the ADK¶

Install the IBM watsonx Orchestrate ADK on your computer.

Installation prerequisites¶

Install the required software to enable the ADK installation:
- Python: The programming language that the ADK is written in. The ADK requires at least Python 3.12, and the latest compatible version is Python 3.13. For more information, see Python.
- Pip: Pip is Python’s package manager. In some operating systems, it’s included with Python’s installation. For more information, see Pip.
Optional: Create a virtual environment with venv to install the ADK. For more information, see venv Creation of virtual environments.

Installing the ADK¶

Install the ADK with pip.
```
pip install ibm-watsonx-orchestrate
```
Test the installation:
```
orchestrate --help
```

Note

Use the --help argument to get information about each command and its arguments in the ADK CLI.

Enabling the pm-launchpad environment¶

You would need following properties to activate "pm-launchpad" environment:
- IBM Cloud API Key
- WXO_INSTANCE_URL (Make sure you copy it from your wxO instance UI under the settings.)

Steps to get your wxO instance URL and IBM Cloud API Key¶

After login to https://cloud.ibm.com, go to resources page by clicking on the left side menu
Under the AI/Machine Learning click on your Watsonx Orchestrate Instance.
Now, click on Launch Watsonx Orchestrate button in blue color.
This would open wxO instance UI on a new tab.
On this page, click on your profile image at the top right and then click on Settings

On the Settings page, click on the API Details tab.
Copy the Service instance URL, which you need to provide in the above env add command.
Click on Generate API key and create a new API Key. You would need this key to activate the pm-launchpad env.

Run below commands to activate "pm-launchpad" environment and provide your IBM Cloud API Key once asked for the input.

orchestrate env add --name pm-launchpad --url <REPLACE_WITH_WXO_INSTANCE_URL> -t ibm_iam
orchestrate env activate pm-launchpad --api-key <YOUR_API_KEY>

Do not get confused with these credentials and DO NOT COPY THEM!

Pre-Lab Checklist¶

Before each lab session, verify:

watsonx Orchestrate instance created

watsonx.governance instance created

IBM Bob is accessible

Network connectivity is stable

Credentials are prepared and secured

Troubleshooting¶

Common issues and solutions:

Issue	Solution
Cannot access watsonx Orchestrate	Verify IBM Cloud authentication and region
Governance policies not loading	Check IAM permissions and policy sync
Bob integration failing	Verify network access and authentication tokens
API rate limits hit	Implement request throttling or increase limits

For additional support, see the Track 01 Troubleshooting Guide.