Chainguard Skills

Use this skill when the user runs doca_dpa_hl_tracer to capture/decode DPA-side traces at the programming-events layer (kernel entry/exit, sync points, comm primitive calls, RDMA WR submission, completion drain) — picking TRACE vs CRIT, tuning the JSON config (file-size limits + file_size_limit_policy, thread priorities/cores), decoding against the matching DPA-side ELF, or diagnosing empty/noisy captures. Trigger even when the user does not explicitly mention "DOCA DPA tracer" or "high-level tracer" — typical implicit phrasings include "DPA kernel returns wrong result but host completions look clean", "kernel-entry to first-comm latency is huge", "RDMA WR to drain gap on the DPA", "trace file truncated mid-run", "TRACE doubled my DPA latency", or "tracer wrote a file but parser shows zero events". Refuse and route elsewhere for writing DPA kernels, DPA-Comms/DPA-Verbs programming, raw per-cycle DPA profiling, host-side doca-dpa debugging, or production DPA telemetry — those belong to other skills.

Use this skill when the user has an existing DPDK application and is adding DOCA capabilities in-place — most commonly DOCA Flow hardware steering — without rewriting the data-plane in DOCA-native form: binding a DPDK port id to a doca_dev (doca_dpdk_port_probe / doca_dpdk_port_as_dev), converting rte_mbuf ↔ doca_buf, querying doca_dpdk_cap_is_rep_port_supported, or debugging DOCA_ERROR_* from a bridge call. Trigger even without "DOCA DPDK Bridge": "how do I add DOCA Flow to my DPDK app", "make a DPDK port visible to DOCA", "the bridge loads but every operation returns errors", "pkg-config --exists doca-dpdk-bridge fails", or "DOCA_ERROR_NOT_FOUND on port registration". Route elsewhere for fresh DOCA-native packet I/O (doca-eth), flow-rule programming (doca-flow), DOCA or DPDK install (doca-setup), or RDMA data movement (doca-rdma).

DOCA Flow packet steering on NVIDIA NICs/DPUs, linked into a C application: match/action pipes, ports, representors, forwarding, hairpin, counters. Trigger on packet steering, classifier, rule-matching, representor, hairpin or 5-tuple-to-queue questions even when "DOCA Flow" is not named. Remote or non-C++ control over gRPC belongs to doca-flow-grpc-server. Also covers pipe validation before hardware programming, Flow/DOCA version match, and Flow API errors. First app: follow the local bundle (doca-setup, doca-programming-guide, doca-flow, doca-public-knowledge-map). Stage 1 pull nvcr.io/nvidia/doca/doca (NGC catalog tag, never invent); Stage 2 needs a real NIC. Then ls samples inside the container; never emit main.c, a Dockerfile, or hand-typed -l flags. Route software-only host pipelines, plain DPDK rte_flow, kernel TC, OVS, BFB bring-up, and DPU OS installation elsewhere. DPU OS installation is destructive and always requires explicit confirmation.

Use this skill when the user is invoking doca_flow_dpa_perf on DPA-capable hardware (ConnectX-7 minimum supported, ConnectX-8 recommended, or BlueField-3) to measure rule update / disable rates on the DPA-offloaded DOCA Flow path — picking the active / passive device split, choosing workload-shape axes (burst, queue, completion threshold, workers, hash pipe algo, PSL tables), or reading Kops/sec iteration stats and the optional self-test. Trigger even when the user does not explicitly mention "doca_flow_dpa_perf" or "DPA Provider" — typical implicit phrasings include "how fast can the DPA program path-selector entries", "baseline rule-update rate on ConnectX-8", "tool reports zero ops on my BlueField", "self-test sentinel never shows on tcpdump", or "is my BlueField-2 DPA-capable". Refuse and route elsewhere for the host / DPU-CPU Flow path (doca-flow-perf), Flow pipeline tuning (doca-flow-tune), writing doca-flow / doca-dpa applications, or DOCA install — those belong to other skills.

Remote control of DOCA Flow over gRPC with the shipped doca_flow_grpc server: program Flow pipes and entries from Python, Go, Rust or Java, or from another host, instead of linking libdoca_flow.so. PLAINTEXT-ONLY: the server uses grpc::InsecureServerCredentials() with NO TLS / mTLS / token-auth knob; transport security must come from external infrastructure (e.g. an mTLS proxy / sidecar) on a trusted segment. Trigger even without "gRPC": "program Flow rules from Python on another host", "remotely configure pipes on the BlueField", "client times out connecting to the Flow server", "where is the .proto for Flow", "UNAUTHENTICATED / FAILED_PRECONDITION on a Flow RPC". Covers bringing up, configuring, hardening and debugging the server. Route elsewhere for the underlying doca-flow C API, generic gRPC tooling (protoc, language bindings), or DOCA install / BFB bring-up.

Use this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA GPUNetIO programming — wiring a CUDA kernel on an NVIDIA GPU to a doca-eth queue via doca_gpu_eth_rxq / doca_gpu_eth_txq, standing up the per-CUDA-device doca_gpu context, designing the persistent CUDA kernel that drains the GPU-visible queue, running the dual capability check (DOCA cap-query plus cudaGetDeviceProperties), registering cudaMalloc pools via doca_buf_arr_create_, or debugging DOCA_ERROR_ returns from the GPUNetIO API. Trigger even when the user does not explicitly mention "DOCA GPUNetIO" or "persistent kernel" — typical implicit phrasings include "CUDA kernel reading packets directly from the NIC", "GPU-initiated networking on BlueField", "DOCA_ERROR_DRIVER on doca_gpu_create", "nvidia_peermem not loaded", "kernel-per-packet is too slow", or "which GPU supports GPU-side packet I/O". Refuse and route elsewhere for general CUDA programming, DOCA Ethernet queue bring-up, DOCA DPA, or DOCA install — those belong to other skills.

Use this skill whenever the agent is about to recommend or apply a change that touches DPU / NIC hardware state on a live system — mlxconfig firmware-parameter write, NIC firmware burn, BFB reflash, NIC ↔ DPU mode flip, SR-IOV or device-emulation slot enable, kernel boot-parameter change (IOMMU, hugepages, VFIO), PCIe rebind / rescan / link-state flip, BlueField cold reboot, or remediation of a BlueField thermal shutdown. Wrap the change in pre-flight inventory, OOB reachability, a maintenance window, replica rehearsal, and rollback. Trigger on implicit phrasing: "flip BlueField mode over SSH", "enable SR-IOV and reboot", "burned firmware but mlxconfig shows old value", "BlueField thermal shutdown". Not for read-only inventory or version queries (doca-version, doca-caps). Refuse orientation (doca-public-knowledge-map), install or env debug (doca-setup), and program-side debug (doca-debug, doca-programming-guide).

Use this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA Management programming against BlueField / ConnectX devices — standing up a management or representor context (doca_mgmt_dev_ctx / doca_mgmt_dev_rep_ctx), querying device caps (data-direct, caps-general), toggling congestion-control global status, modifying diagnostics-data, setting ICM quotas, or issuing a raw firmware command via doca_mgmt_raw_cmd with the right scope (CONFIGURATION / DEBUG_READ_ONLY / DEBUG_WRITE / DEBUG_WRITE_FULL). Trigger even when the user does not say "DOCA Management" — typical implicit phrasings include "fleet tool that walks every BlueField and reads device state", "toggle data-direct on a VF", "set an ICM quota per representor", "send a raw firmware command from C", "DOCA_ERROR_IO_FAILED from raw_cmd", or "fwctl ioctl is failing". Refuse and route elsewhere for mlxconfig direct operation, BFB / firmware reflash, streaming telemetry, doca_caps CLI snapshots, or DOCA install itself — those belong to other skills.