DOCA Public Knowledge Map
Where to start: Reach for this skill whenever the question is "where does
the authoritative answer live?" — a docs page, the on-disk install layout, a
sample, or an NGC catalog entry. Read ## Public documentation entry points
first; then jump to the routing-table section that matches the user's intent.
When to load this skill
Load this skill whenever the user asks anything about NVIDIA DOCA where the
agent needs to locate authoritative information without access to the
DOCA source tree. That includes documentation-routing questions about
installing DOCA, building a sample, learning a DOCA library (Flow, DPA, Comm
Channel, GPUNetIO, …), debugging an error, finding an API or error reference,
finding a sample, release notes, or the developer forum. This skill locates
the authoritative answer; hands-on installation, building, tutorials, and
debugging route to the workflow-owning skills named in the frontmatter and
## Related skills.
This skill is intentionally a routing table, not a tutorial. Pick the entry that matches the user's intent, fetch the URL or inspect the local install path, and only then answer.
First-contact discovery — the four questions to ask before any drill-down
When a user opens with an open-ended orientation question ("I'm new with DOCA, how do I start?", "can you guide me?", "what's the easiest way to try DOCA?"), the agent does not have enough information yet to pick a path. Asking these four questions before drilling avoids wasted recommendations that the user cannot actually execute on their setup. Ask them as a single short message; do not interrogate one-at-a-time.
| Question | Why it matters | What it routes |
|---|---|---|
| 1. What OS are you on? macOS, Windows, Linux laptop, cloud VM, lab Linux box, BlueField OS itself? | DOCA installs natively only on supported Linux distributions; macOS / Windows users cannot install it at all. | Picks between the four DOCA acquisition paths in doca-setup ## no-install. macOS / Windows / no-Linux → Path 0 (NGC container). Supported Linux → Path A or B per the Installation Guide. |
| 2. What hardware do you have? No NVIDIA hardware, ConnectX SmartNIC, BlueField as a SmartNIC in a host, BlueField as a standalone DPU, not sure? | Real-traffic runtime needs a real NIC; build / read / learn does not. The user's hardware decides which DOCA libraries are even relevant. | Picks the runtime story (container is build-only without hardware). Filters which libraries make sense to learn (Flow needs a real port to do anything visible; Comch needs a host ↔ DPU pair). |
| 3. What's your goal? Just exploring, building a small first app on a specific library (Flow / RDMA / Comch / Telemetry / GPUNetIO / DPA / …), running an existing reference application, operating a service (DMS / DTS / BlueMan / Firefly), or something else? | The bundle's first-app workflow (doca-programming-guide ## modify) starts from a shipped C sample and edits down. The right sample depends on the library the user is targeting. | Picks which library skill (if any) to load next. If the user does not yet know which library — that itself is a routing answer (see the Library- and module-specific guides table above and let the user pick). |
| 4. Which language do you plan to write the program in? C / C++, Rust, Go, Python, other? | DOCA's public surface is a C ABI. Non-C consumers go through FFI / language bindings (doca-programming-guide CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes and the per-library skill). The C samples are the reference even when the user's language is not C. | Picks whether the agent's first-app guidance is direct C build or FFI / bindings against the C ABI. Does not change which sample the agent points at first. |
The four-question gate applies when an open-ended orientation, install, build, or run recommendation depends on the user's environment. For that class, never recommend a specific install path, container tag, or runnable sample without first having the answers to questions 1–3 (question 4 is needed for the first-app workflow but not for orientation itself). Pure documentation lookups — a URL, API reference, sample location, version reference, or stale-link recovery — skip this gate and route directly. If the user cannot or will not answer a required question, state which environment-dependent recommendation cannot be made, give only the safe version-agnostic umbrella documentation route, and do not guess the missing value. Volunteering specific commands before this is the single most common failure mode for DOCA orientation.
If the user has already volunteered some of the information in their first message, mark those questions answered and only ask the rest. Do not re-ask what the user has already told you.
Topic to "where to look first" routing table
When the user asks something, route as follows:
| User intent | First place to look |
|---|---|
| "How do I install DOCA?" | Installation Guide + Downloads page (Public documentation entry points). |
| "How do I start with DOCA — what's the very first thing?" | Developer Quick Start Guide if the user has BlueField + host hardware; otherwise doca-setup ## no-install Path 0 (NGC container). Use the four questions in First-contact discovery to pick. |
| "Do I need a BlueField? A SmartNIC? Or just DOCA-Host?" | Overview page (doca-overview/index.html) plus the Installation Guide's DOCA installation profiles section. The bundle does not pick the hardware for the user — these two pages do. |
| "Which package gives me library X?" | Installation Guide section on package matrix; then verify on the user's system with pkg-config --list-all. |
| "Show me a sample that uses library X." | /opt/mellanox/doca/samples/doca_<X>/ if installed; otherwise the per-library guide on docs.nvidia.com/doca/sdk/ (each library guide documents the samples shipped with it). |
| "How do I build a DOCA sample?" | Library guide + the sample's own meson.build inside /opt/mellanox/doca/samples/.... |
| "What is the API for X?" | Library guide; confirm by inspecting headers under $(pkg-config --variable=includedir doca-common) (commonly /opt/mellanox/doca/include/ on DOCA 3.3+; /opt/mellanox/doca/infrastructure/include/ on legacy / split-profile installs). |
"Why does my build fail with pkg-config not finding doca-...?" | "Layout of an installed DOCA package" (PKG_CONFIG_PATH), then load doca-setup for environment preparation and debugging; do not silently mutate the environment. |
| "What is the latest version / what changed?" | Release Notes. |
| "Is there a newer DOCA — should I upgrade / downgrade / roll back?" | doca-upgrade for the detect → report → ASK → guided-upgrade discipline (never auto-upgrade); Release Notes for what the target release contains. |
| "Is the component I depend on being sunset / deprecated?" | Release Notes (lifecycle / deprecation notices), reached via the doca-upgrade sunset-awareness check; do not assert deprecation from memory. |
| "What does the DOCA version number mean? Is LTS still supported?" | Compatibility Policy (Public documentation entry points table). |
| "How do I run DOCA on Kubernetes / provision a DPU?" | DOCA Platform Framework on GitHub. |
| "I have a behavior I cannot explain." | Release Notes (known issues) first; then the DOCA Developer Forum. Never go to the forum first. |
| Any intent not matched above | Start at the DOCA SDK index and the Libraries / Services / Tools umbrella page in references/map.md. If the authoritative route remains unresolved, say so and use the Developer Forum; do not invent a URL or component name. |
What this skill deliberately does not cover
This file is intentionally a map, not a tutorial. It does not contain:
- DOCA library tutorials (those live in the per-library guides).
- API reference (lives in headers and the per-library guides).
- Build-system deep-dives (lives in the Installation Guide and the sample
meson.buildfiles). - Performance tuning, driver-level setup, OFED interaction (lives in the Installation Guide and library-specific guides).
When the agent needs those, it should fetch the matching public document or read the matching installed file. As more focused skills are added, they should appear in SKILLS.md and link back here for the "where to look" lookups.
Related skills
For env preparation — install verification, build environment
(pkg-config, headers, hugepages, devlink), env-class debugging, and
the I have no install yet path with the public NGC DOCA container
(nvcr.io/nvidia/doca/doca) as the universal Stage-1 fallback for any
user on macOS, Windows, or Linux without DOCA — load
doca-setup. That skill stops at "the
install is healthy and the env is ready".
For general DOCA programming patterns shared across every library —
the canonical pkg-config doca-<library> build pattern (C/C++ direct
or non-C via FFI), the universal derive a custom first app from a
shipped sample workflow, the universal lifecycle (cfg-create → init → start → use → stop → destroy), the cross-library
DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy, and the program-side debug order — load
doca-programming-guide. Each
library skill extends its ## modify (first-app derivation) with
library-specific overrides.
For DOCA Flow internals — port and representor setup, pipe creation,
match/action specifications, pipe validation before hardware programming,
Flow counters and traces, Flow version compatibility, and debugging
DOCA_ERROR_* failures from the Flow API — load
doca-flow. That skill assumes this one is
available for shared documentation routing and install-layout lookups,
doca-setup for environment preparation, and doca-programming-guide
for the cross-library programming patterns it layers on top of.
Example questions this skill answers well
See references/map.md.
Library- and module-specific guides
See references/map.md.
DOCA services
See references/map.md.
DOCA tools
See references/map.md.
Externally-productized DOCA software — not in this bundle, but here is where to route
See references/map.md.
Public source code: GitHub
See references/map.md.
Layout of an installed DOCA package
See references/map.md.
Where to find the version
See references/map.md.
URL audit
See references/map.md.
Ground rules for any agent using this skill
See references/map.md.
Public documentation entry points
See references/map.md.