--- license: Apache-2.0 name: doca-mgmt description: > 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. metadata: kind: library compatibility: > Requires DOCA SDK installed at /opt/mellanox/doca on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or RHEL/SLES) with a BlueField DPU or ConnectX NIC attached. Reads the user's local install via `pkg-config doca-mgmt` + `doca-common` and inspects /opt/mellanox/doca/{lib,include,samples,applications}; runtime operations require root (or device-admin cap_*) and an /dev/fwctl* character device exposed by the host kernel. --- # DOCA Management **Where to start:** This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing **hands-on management-plane work** against a BlueField / ConnectX device — typically a fleet-management or orchestration tool that needs to query or modify device-level state programmatically. Open [`TASKS.md`](TASKS.md) if the user wants to *do* something (install / configure / build / modify / run / test / debug / use); open [`CAPABILITIES.md`](CAPABILITIES.md) when the question is *what can doca-mgmt express on this version* — the management context model, the raw-command scope ladder, the sub-domain surfaces (caps-general, cc-global-status, diagnostics- data, icm-quota), version compatibility, and the safety overlay. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md) first. ## Example questions this skill answers well The CLASSES of management-plane questions this skill is built to answer, each with one worked example. The agent should treat the *class* as the load-bearing piece — the worked example is a single instance. - **"Is `doca-mgmt` even the right surface, or do I want telemetry / bench / caps?"** — worked example: *"I'm building a fleet inventory tool — do I use doca-mgmt to query each BlueField's data-direct capability, or doca-telemetry, or doca_caps?"*. Answered by the *management-plane vs observability-plane vs read-only-CLI* selection rule in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) surface-selection table. - **"How do I stand up a management context on a device (and a representor)?"** — worked example: *"open a `doca_mgmt_dev_ctx` on the device, then a `doca_mgmt_dev_rep_ctx` on a specific VF representor for caps-general programming"*. Answered by the management-context lifecycle in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) + the configure walk in [`TASKS.md ## configure`](TASKS.md#configure). - **"How do I query a device capability — say, whether it supports data-direct?"** — worked example: *"create a caps-general handle, call `doca_mgmt_device_caps_general_get` on the representor context, read the data-direct flag"*. Answered by the capability-query pattern in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) + the test step in [`TASKS.md ## test`](TASKS.md#test). - **"How do I modify a device-level feature flag safely?"** — worked example: *"toggle `data_direct` on a representor; capture pre-state, write, verify, prepare rollback"*. Answered by the apply-with-rollback workflow in [`TASKS.md ## modify`](TASKS.md#modify) layered on the bundle-wide hardware-safety meta-policy referenced from [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Safety policy`](CAPABILITIES.md#safety-policy). - **"What does the `doca_mgmt_raw_cmd` scope mean and which scope should I use?"** — worked example: *"I have a vendor- documented opcode for a `DEBUG_READ_ONLY` query — what scope does that need and what is the blast radius?"*. Answered by the command-scope ladder in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) + the raw-command verb in [`TASKS.md ## use`](TASKS.md#use). - **"What does this `DOCA_ERROR_*` from a `doca_mgmt_*` call mean and which layer caused it?"** — worked example: *"`DOCA_ERROR_IO_FAILED` from `doca_mgmt_raw_cmd`"*. Answered by the mgmt overlay on the cross-library taxonomy in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Error taxonomy`](CAPABILITIES.md#error-taxonomy) + the layered ladder in [`TASKS.md ## debug`](TASKS.md#debug) that escalates to [`doca-debug`](../../doca-debug/SKILL.md) and to [`doca-hardware-safety`](../../doca-hardware-safety/SKILL.md) when the cause is a device-state change. ## Audience This skill serves **external developers building fleet-management, orchestration, or device-administration tools that programmatically query and modify BlueField / ConnectX device-level state** — i.e., users whose code calls `doca_mgmt_*` (directly in C/C++, or through FFI/bindings from another language) to inspect device capabilities, toggle device feature flags, query diagnostics counters, set ICM quotas, or issue raw firmware-control commands. The canonical caller is a fleet-management agent that walks every BlueField in a data center and applies a desired-state diff. This skill is *not* for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA Management itself, and it is not the right surface for live performance benchmarking or stream-based observability — those belong to [`doca-bench`](../../tools/doca-bench/SKILL.md), [`doca-telemetry`](../doca-telemetry/SKILL.md), and [`doca-telemetry-exporter`](../doca-telemetry-exporter/SKILL.md). ## Language scope DOCA Management ships as a C library with the `pkg-config` module name `doca-mgmt`. The library's surface is C; the shipped samples on a real install (where present) are C. C and C++ consumers are the canonical case and the workflows in `TASKS.md` assume that path. Other-language consumers (Rust, Go, Python, …) consume the same `*.so` library through FFI or language-specific bindings; the skill's contribution in that case is to keep the management- context lifecycle, the command-scope ladder, the capability-query pattern, the version-handling rule, and the safety overlay language-neutral, and to route the agent to the public C ABI as the authoritative surface that any wrapper will eventually call. The skill does not author wrappers in any language. ## When to load this skill Load this skill when the user is doing **hands-on DOCA Management work** on a host with one or more BlueField / ConnectX devices. Concretely: - Standing up a `doca_mgmt_dev_ctx` on a `doca_dev` to inspect or modify device-level state. - Standing up a `doca_mgmt_dev_rep_ctx` on a `doca_dev_rep` (or via `doca_mgmt_dev_rep_ctx_create_by_pci_addr` when the representor is not available) to inspect or modify a VF / function-level configuration. - Querying a device's general capabilities via `doca_mgmt_device_caps_general_*` (data-direct support and similar device-wide attributes). - Programming a representor's general capabilities via the same `set` path. - Querying or modifying congestion-control global status via `doca_mgmt_cc_global_status_*` (RP / NP protocol type, priority, enable / disable). - Modifying or querying multi-domain diagnostics data via `doca_mgmt_diagnostics_data_*` against a specific device. - Setting ICM quota limits per device or per representor via `doca_mgmt_icm_quota_*` and reading the current allocation / max-reached. - Issuing a `doca_mgmt_raw_cmd` against the device's firmware-control endpoint, choosing the right `enum doca_mgmt_cmd_scope` for the operation's blast radius. - Debugging a `DOCA_ERROR_*` returned by a `doca_mgmt_*` call and deciding whether the cause is a configuration mistake, a lifecycle ordering bug, a missing capability on the device, an `fwctl` ioctl failure, or a firmware-side rejection. Do **not** load this skill for general DOCA orientation, install of DOCA itself, live performance benchmarking, or stream-based telemetry. For those, use [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md), [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md), [`doca-bench`](../../tools/doca-bench/SKILL.md), and [`doca-telemetry`](../doca-telemetry/SKILL.md) respectively. ## What this skill provides This is a **thin loader**. The body keeps only the orientation needed to pick the right next file. The substantive management-specific material lives in two companion files: - `CAPABILITIES.md` — what doca-mgmt can express on this version: the management-context object model (`doca_mgmt_dev_ctx` + `doca_mgmt_dev_rep_ctx`), the raw- command scope ladder (`DOCA_MGMT_CMD_SCOPE_CONFIGURATION`, `DOCA_MGMT_CMD_SCOPE_DEBUG_READ_ONLY`, `DOCA_MGMT_CMD_SCOPE_DEBUG_WRITE`, `DOCA_MGMT_CMD_SCOPE_DEBUG_WRITE_FULL`), the sub-domain surfaces (caps-general, cc-global-status, diagnostics-data, icm-quota) with their capability-query gates, the EXPERIMENTAL symbol-set policy (every public `doca_mgmt_*` symbol is tagged EXPERIMENTAL), the mgmt overlay on the cross-library `DOCA_ERROR_*` taxonomy, the observability surface (pre-state capture + post-write re-query), and the per-artifact safety overlay on the bundle-wide hardware-safety meta-policy. - `TASKS.md` — step-by-step workflows for the eight in-scope verbs: `install`, `configure`, `build`, `modify`, `run`, `test`, `debug`, `use`. Plus a `Deferred task verbs` block that points out-of-scope questions at the right next skill. The skill assumes a host or BlueField where DOCA is already installed at the standard location and the user has the privileges their public install profile expects (management- plane operations typically require root or an equivalent device-administration capability). It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md). ## What this skill deliberately does not ship This skill is **agent guidance**, not a samples or templates bundle. To keep the boundary clean, it deliberately does not contain — and pull requests should not add: - **Pre-written DOCA Management application source code, in any language.** Management-plane code touches device state and a wrong write can take the device offline; authoring it from documentation prose, especially against an EXPERIMENTAL symbol set whose shape can change between releases, is forbidden by this skill. The agent's job is to route the user to verified reference code (the shipped DOCA samples on the installed package set are the canonical worked examples) and to prescribe a minimum-diff modification via the universal modify-a-sample workflow in [`doca-programming-guide`](../../doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md). - **Standalone build manifests** parked inside the skill. The agent constructs the build manifest *in the user's project directory* against the user's installed DOCA, where `pkg-config --modversion doca-mgmt` is the source of truth. - **Raw-command opcode catalogs.** The `doca_mgmt_raw_cmd` in-payload and out-payload are device / firmware specific; the skill names the *scope* of a command class and the *discipline* the agent applies (pre-state capture, scope ladder, rollback path) but it does NOT enumerate opcodes — those are vendor / device documentation and looked up via [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md). - **A `samples/`, `bindings/`, or `reference/` subtree** of any kind. A mock or incomplete artifact in this skill's tree, even one labeled "reference", is misleading: users will read it as buildable. ## Loading order 1. Read this `SKILL.md` first to confirm the user's question is in scope. 2. **For the management-context object model, the raw-command scope ladder, the sub-domain surfaces, version compatibility, the error taxonomy, observability, and the per-artifact safety overlay, see [CAPABILITIES.md](CAPABILITIES.md).** 3. **For step-by-step workflows — install, configure, build, modify, run, test, debug, use — see [TASKS.md](TASKS.md).** Both companion files cross-link to each other and to [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md) whenever the right answer is "look it up in the public docs or the installed package layout" rather than "mgmt-specific guidance". ## Related skills - [`doca-hardware-safety`](../../doca-hardware-safety/SKILL.md) — the bundle-wide hardware-safety meta-policy. Because doca-mgmt is the surface through which agents most commonly *modify* device state programmatically, the safety overlay in `CAPABILITIES.md` cross-links the meta-policy load-bearingly and the agent walks the hardware-safety ladder whenever a write is recommended. - [`doca-telemetry`](../doca-telemetry/SKILL.md) and [`doca-telemetry-exporter`](../doca-telemetry-exporter/SKILL.md) — the observability surfaces for *streaming* telemetry from the device. Use those when the user wants live metrics; use doca-mgmt when the user wants point-in-time programmatic query or modification. - [`doca-caps`](../../tools/doca-caps/SKILL.md) — the read-only CLI for inspecting device capabilities. Use the tool when the user wants an interactive snapshot; use doca-mgmt when the user wants the same information through the C API in a fleet tool. - [`doca-bench`](../../tools/doca-bench/SKILL.md) — the live-performance benchmarking tool. Out of scope for doca-mgmt; the skill names the boundary. - [`doca-pcc`](../doca-pcc/SKILL.md) and [`doca-pcc-counters`](../../tools/doca-pcc-counters/SKILL.md) — programmable congestion control. doca-mgmt's `doca_mgmt_cc_global_status_*` surface is the *global enable/disable + protocol selection* control plane that layers on the deeper programmable-CC surface owned by doca-pcc. - [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md) — the routing table for every public DOCA documentation source and the on-disk layout of an installed DOCA package. - [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md) — env preparation, install verification, and the *I have no install yet* path with the public NGC DOCA container. - [`doca-programming-guide`](../../doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md) — general DOCA programming patterns shared by every library: the canonical `pkg-config` + meson build pattern, the universal modify-a-shipped-sample first-app workflow, the cross-library `DOCA_ERROR_*` taxonomy. This skill layers management-plane specifics on top. - [`doca-debug`](../../doca-debug/SKILL.md) — the cross-cutting debug ladder. Management-specific debug overlays on top of it. - [`doca-version`](../../doca-version/SKILL.md) — the version detection / four-way match rule every per-artifact `## Version compatibility` anchor builds on. This skill quotes the management-specific overlay only. - [`doca-structured-tools-contract`](../../doca-structured-tools-contract/SKILL.md) — the JSON-schema contracts for the agent-preferred structured helpers; the `## Command appendix` in `TASKS.md` defers to them before falling back to the manual chain.