Agent skill · software engineering · nvidia
doca-compress
Hardware compression offload with DOCA Compress on a BlueField DPU, ConnectX NIC, or host: DEFLATE compress and decompress, plus LZ4 decompress (stream and block; LZ4 encode is NOT supported), instead of CPU zlib / zstd. Trigger on "offload this gzip", "decompress incoming network data on the NIC", "compress task returns INVALID_VALUE on alloc_init", "submitted a task but no completion arrives", or "decompress LZ4 on the BlueField", even without naming DOCA Compress. Covers enabling compress-deflate, decompress-deflate, decompress-lz4-stream and decompress-lz4-block tasks on a doca_compress context, sizing source / destination doca_buf against the per-task cap query, mmap permissions, offload vs CPU decisions, a round-trip smoke, and DOCA_ERROR_* from Compress calls. Refuse and route elsewhere for zstd / Snappy / brotli, LZ4 encode (a CPU LZ4 library), pure mmap-to-mmap copies (doca-dma), or DOCA Core lifecycle internals.
Why this skill is useful
Provides specific commands and integration patterns for using DOCA Compress with BlueField DPUs and ConnectX NICs that the AI wouldn't reliably generate on its own.
What it needs
Requires doca-sdk installed locally. About 8k tokens when loaded. Last updated 2026-08-07. 2,816 stars on the source repository.
What this skill does
DOCA Compress Examples "Offload this gzip on the BlueField." — this is in scope if the codec is DEFLATE (or LZ4 decompress). Do not invent LZ4 encode or zstd offload. "Compress task returns INVALIDVALUE on allocinit." — size the docabuf against the per-task cap query before changing the algorithm. Instructions Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for configure / test / debug. Open the capabilities companion for codec support and buffer-size policy. Do not open every companion file. Where to start: This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing hands-on Compress work (bulk DEFLATE compression or decompression) on a BlueField / ConnectX / host with DOCA. Open the tasks companion if the user wants to do something (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug); open the capabilities companion when the question is what can DOCA Compress express on this version. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup/SKILL.md first. If the user is asking "should I even offload this compression to the accelerator?", the size-threshold path-selection rule in Capabilities and modes is the first stop — bulk compress is the canonical fit, tiny one-shot is not. Example questions this skill answers well The CLASSES of DOCA Compress 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. "Should I offload this compression to DOCA Compress, or just zlib/zstd on the CPU?" — worked example: "I am compressing a 4 MiB log buffer before writing it to storage; is doca-compress worth the setup vs zlib on the CPU?". Answered by the size-threshold path-selection rule in Capabilities and modes the "when NOT to use doca-compress" bullets in Safety policy. …
How to use it
Reference it in AdaL, Claude Code, Cursor or any coding agent — nothing to install:
@skills nvidia/doca-compress