Add text repeater for use with LLM/VLM/VLA setups (#69)

* Add text repeater for use with LLM/VLM/VLA setups

* [UPDATE] updated text_repeater

* [UPDATE] updated text_repeater

---------

Co-authored-by: abhineetkumar <abhineetsoccer@gmail.com>

Author: cmower

ark/tools/language_input/text_repeater.py

@@ -0,0 +1,61 @@
+from ark.client.comm_infrastructure.base_node import BaseNode, main
+from arktypes import string_t
+from pathlib import Path
+import argparse
+
+class TextRepeaterNode(BaseNode):
+    def __init__(self, node_name: str, global_config):
+        super().__init__(node_name, global_config)
+        # Required keys in the global config
+        text_path = self.config.get("text_path", "")
+        text = self.config.get("text", "")
+        channel = self.config.get("channel", "user_input")
+        freq = self.config.get("freq", 1)
+
+        # Exactly one of 'text' or 'text_path' should be provided; both default to "".
+        if text and text_path:
+            raise ValueError("Pass only one of 'text' or 'text_path' (not both).")
+
+        if text_path:
+            p = Path(text_path)
+            if not p.is_file():
+                raise FileNotFoundError(f"'text_path' does not exist or is not a file: {p}")
+            self.text = p.read_text()
+        else:
+            self.text = text
+
+        self.text_msg = string_t()
+        self.text_msg.data = self.text
+
+        # Publisher on requested channel
+        self.pub = self.create_publisher(channel, string_t)
+
+        # Stepper that publishes at the requested frequency
+        self.publish_text = lambda: self.pub.publish(self.text_msg)
+        self.create_stepper(freq, self.publish_text)
+
+
+def get_args():
+    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
+        description="Publishes a text file as a string at a given frequency, using a global config.",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--node-name",
+        type=str,
+        required=True,
+        help="Name of this node.",
+    )
+    parser.add_argument(
+        "--config",
+        type=str,
+        required=True,
+        help="Path to global config file (.json or .yaml/.yml) containing: text_path, channel, freq.",
+    )
+    args = parser.parse_args()
+    return args.node_name, args.config
+
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    node_name, global_config = get_args()
+    # Pass exactly (node_name, global_config) to match TextRepeaterNode.__init__
+    main(TextRepeaterNode, node_name, global_config)