Agent skill · NVIDIA
doca-dpa
Use this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA DPA host-side work on a BlueField — creating the `doca_dpa` Core context, loading a DPACC-compiled DPA app image (`doca_dpa_app`), creating DPA threads, launching kernels via `doca_dpa_kernel_launch_update_*`, draining `doca_dpa_completion`, running `doca_dpa_cap_*` discovery, choosing between the DPA comm component (inter-DPA messaging) and the DPA verbs component (in-kernel RDMA), or debugging `DOCA_ERROR_*` from `doca_dpa_*`. Trigger even without "DOCA DPA" or "Data-Path Accelerator": "run compute on the DPA from my host", "DPA kernel hangs, no completion", "DOCA_ERROR_DRIVER on launch", "DOCA/DPACC version skew", or "does this BlueField expose a DPA". Route elsewhere for DPA-side kernel programming itself, DPACC compiler internals, host↔DPU messaging (doca-comch), host-side RDMA (doca-rdma), and GPU-initiated networking (doca-gpunetio).
What it needs
About 11k tokens when loaded.
What this skill does
DOCA DPA Where to start: This skill assumes DOCA is already installed, the user's BlueField has a DPA processor and the host can see it through DOCA, and the user is doing hands-on DPA work from the host side — i.e. using doca-dpa to load a DPA application image, launch DPA kernels, and exchange data with the DPA processor. Open TASKS.md if the user wants to do something (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug); open CAPABILITIES.md when the question is what can the host-side DPA API express on this version + this BlueField generation. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup first; if the user is asking how to write the DPA-side kernel itself (the code that runs on the DPA processor, compiled by dpacc), that is a different scope — route via doca-public-knowledge-map to the public DOCA DPA / DPACC / DPA-Comms / DPA-Verbs guides (this skill does not redefine those DPA-side surfaces). Example questions this skill answers well The CLASSES of DPA 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. "How do I run a piece of compute on the DPA processor from my host program?" — worked example: "load a DPA kernel that counts events in a loop and reports the count back to the host". Answered by the two-side-program model + the host-side launch workflow in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes the bring-up steps in TASKS.md ## configure. "Does this BlueField even have a DPA, and which DPA features does my DOCA install expose?" — worked example: "my host has a BlueField; can I use the DPA on it for a programmable control workload?". Answered by the dual-axis capability rule (BlueField-generation axis via docadpacap against the active docadevinfo plus the DOCA-install axis via pkg-config --modversion doca-dpa) in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes the device-enumeration step in TASKS.md ## configure. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills NVIDIA/doca-dpa