Doca Bare Metal Deployment
NVIDIAOfficialCreated by NVIDIA
- Skill
- Workflow
- Cloud and DevOps
- Apache-2.0
- Medium risk
AutoGineer summary
Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author
This skill provides a structured approach for running DOCA-linked application binaries directly on host x86 systems with BlueField NICs or on BlueField Arm cores. It covers the full lifecycle of bare-metal deployment, including launch modes, hardware resource binding, per-tenant isolation, and troubleshooting. It is designed for operators who need to manage binaries outside of containerized environments, focusing on stability, performance, and correct hardware interaction.
What it does
- Guides the configuration and launch of DOCA-linked binaries on bare-metal hardware.
- Provides methods for process supervision using direct execution, tmux, or systemd.
- Details hardware-resource binding for PCIe, NUMA, CPU, and IRQ affinity.
- Implements per-tenant isolation using cgroup-v2, network namespaces, and numactl.
- Offers a seven-layer error taxonomy for diagnosing launch and runtime failures.
- Manages BlueField platform lifecycle including BFB installation and recovery.
When to use it
- When deploying a DOCA-linked binary directly on hardware without containers or Kubernetes.
- When diagnosing launch failures, immediate exits, or device-access issues on BlueField.
- When setting up process isolation for multiple co-tenant DOCA applications.
- When determining the appropriate supervision strategy for long-running DOCA services.
- When recovering a BlueField DPU from an unhealthy state or failed BFB installation.
Advantages
- Ensures optimal performance through precise hardware and NUMA binding.
- Prevents resource contention between multiple DOCA processes on the same hardware.
- Provides a systematic, layered approach to debugging complex hardware-level failures.
- Standardizes deployment procedures across different host and DPU environments.
- Promotes safe operational practices for high-stakes bare-metal environments.
Usage examples
- “My DOCA-linked binary exits with status 1 immediately after launch. How do I debug this?”
- The agent will guide you through the seven-layer error taxonomy to isolate whether the failure is due to device binding, resource constraints, or environment configuration.
- “Should I run my DOCA application in tmux or as a systemd unit?”
- The agent will provide a decision framework based on your requirements for persistence, logging, and automatic recovery after reboots.
- “How do I pin my DOCA process to a specific NUMA node to improve performance?”
- The agent will provide the correct commands for CPU and NUMA binding using numactl and taskset to ensure the process aligns with the BlueField PCIe topology.
- “My BlueField DPU is unresponsive after a BFB install. What are the recovery steps?”
- The agent will walk you through the BlueField lifecycle classifier and the post-BFB recovery sequence to restore the DPU to a healthy state.
Install
Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/nvidia/doca-bare-metal-deployment/downloadUnzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:
mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip doca-bare-metal-deployment.zip -d .agents/skills
Documentation by NVIDIA
DOCA bare-metal deployment
Examples
"The binary exits 1 right after launch." — this is in scope. Treat it as a launch / device-bind / isolation failure before rewriting application code.
"systemd keeps restarting my DOCA app." — a restart loop on hardware is high-stakes. Debug the first exit before enabling Restart=always.
Instructions
Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for launch / supervise / recover, and the capabilities companion for the runtime contract. Do not open every companion file.
Where to start: This skill is the bundle's home for operating
a DOCA-linked application binary directly on hardware — no
container, no kubelet, no static-pod manifest. It is the parallel
of doca-container-deployment/SKILL.md
for the non-container path. If the user has a DOCA-linked binary
they built (per the canonical workflow in
doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md)
and they want to know how to actually run it on the host or on
the BlueField Arm cores correctly, open
the tasks companion and start at
## configure. If the question is what
shape does the bare-metal runtime even have and what is the
deployment contract, start at the capabilities companion.
If the user is not yet sure whether their target system shape is
the container path or the bare-metal path, route the recognition
step to doca-setup/SKILL.md first; only return
here once bare-metal is the confirmed shape.
Audience
This skill serves external DOCA developers and operators who have a DOCA-linked application binary they built and want to run it directly on hardware — i.e., people who already have:
a DOCA-linked application binary they built per
doca-programming-guide ## build,a real BlueField NIC and a host that talks to it (the host x86 path — DOCA host install on the host talks to the BlueField NIC over PCIe), OR a BlueField with a console or SSH to the Arm side (the BlueField Arm bare-metal path — DOCA installed on the DPU Arm cores; the binary runs there directly), and
a desire to RUN that binary directly on the hardware, not inside a kubelet-standalone-managed container.
It is not for:
kernel-driver developers contributing to
mlx5_*or the BlueField OS,DOCA library contributors (library changes are outside the scope of a bare-metal deployment),
full-Kubernetes-cluster operators managing a fleet of BlueFields (the bundle covers
doca-container-deployment/SKILL.mdfor the single-host kubelet-standalone shape; fleet/production-scale deployment is fleet-orchestration scope — route to the orchestration entry-point indoca-public-knowledge-map ## Deploying DOCA services at scale(DPF / Network Operator / Launch Kit), not hand-rolled static-pod loops),fresh-laptop-no-hardware users with no DOCA install yet — those belong on
doca-setup ## no-install.
The skill teaches the agent the bare-metal-deployment procedure
and the rules for quoting documented commands from the public DOCA
Programming Guide and the public BlueField / DPU User Manual via
doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md;
it does not invent flag names, PCI BDFs, NUMA numbers, devlink
paths, representor strings, or systemd Restart= mode names from
memory.
When to load this skill
Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on bare-metal deployment of a DOCA-linked application binary on either of the two supported host modes (host x86 or BlueField Arm), or asking a cross-cutting bare-metal question that is not specific to one library's API. Concretely:
Launching a DOCA-linked binary for the first time on a host with a BlueField NIC in a PCIe slot, with DOCA installed on the host.
Launching a DOCA-linked binary on the BlueField Arm cores directly (BlueField Arm bare-metal mode), with DOCA installed on the Arm side per the BlueField OS image.
Deciding which launch mode to use (direct foreground for interactive debug; tmux/screen for long-running with manual reattach; systemd-supervised for restart-after-reboot, journald-integrated logs, and Restart= policy).
Binding the DOCA process to the right PCIe function, the right representor, the right NUMA node, and the right CPU set — and pinning IRQs to match — without inventing the addresses or the flag names.
Setting up per-tenant isolation (cgroup-v2 cpu / memory / io controllers, network namespaces for multi-tenant deployments,
numactl/tasksetfor CPU + NUMA binding) so multiple DOCA processes co-tenant on the same BlueField without crushing each other.Diagnosing a bare-metal launch that is misbehaving — won't start, starts and exits immediately, runs but can't find the device, attaches to the device but the workload errors, OOMs or is signal-killed, is in a restart loop under a supervisor, or is being interfered with by a co-tenant.
Cross-cutting questions: "should I run this in tmux or as a systemd unit", "what is the smoke-before-bulk loop for a binary on bare metal", "my binary works in a container on the BlueField but not when I run it directly on the Arm — what changed".
Do not load this skill for the container-path equivalent
(those questions go to
doca-container-deployment/SKILL.md);
for full-Kubernetes-cluster operations (out of scope per the
bundle's non-goals); for library-API questions (route to the
matching libs/<library> skill); for env-preparation questions
including hugepages, IOMMU, pkg-config, and devlink mode flips
(use doca-setup/SKILL.md); for any
hardware-state-changing operation including mlxconfig writes
and BFB reflashes (route to
doca-hardware-safety/SKILL.md for the
cross-cutting meta-policy); or for cross-library programming
questions (use
doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md).
What this skill provides
This is a thin loader. Substantive material lives in two companion files:
the capabilities companion — the bare-metal deployment runtime contract for a DOCA-linked binary: the two host modes (host x86 vs BlueField Arm bare-metal), the three launch modes (direct, tmux/screen, systemd-supervised), the hardware-resource-binding surface (PF / VF / representor enumeration; NUMA topology discovery; CPU pinning rationale; IRQ affinity rules), the per-tenant isolation surface (cgroup-v2 cpu / memory / io, network namespaces,
numactl/taskset), the restart and recovery semantics (documentedsystemdRestart=modes vs crash-and-investigate vs supervisor-driven restart), the bare-metal-specific version overlay on the four-way version match owned bydoca-version/SKILL.md, the cross-cutting error taxonomy (seven layers, walked in order), the observability surface (stdout/stderr discipline by launch mode; device-state introspection viadevlink/sysfs/mlxconfigquery; per-tenant resource visibility), and the safety policy (overlay ondoca-hardware-safety/SKILL.md: smoke-before-bulk for binaries; failed bare-metal process is HIGH-STAKES; do not invent PCI addresses, NUMA numbers, representor names, devlink paths, or systemdRestart=mode names; confirm tenant-isolation primitives BEFORE the workload starts).the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope bare-metal verbs:
configure,build,modify,run(with an explicit### isolationsub-anchor covering cgroup-v2 / namespaces / numactl per-tenant primitives),test,debug,bluefield-lifecycle(the BFB-install → RShim/TMFIFO → post-BFB-recovery operational sequencing ladder, with the six-statebluefield-state-classifiersub-anchor), theCommand appendix(documented commands the agent may quote, each cross-linked to its public-doc source — no invented commands), and theDeferred task verbsblock routing container-path / cluster / library-API / env-prep / hardware-state-change / cross-library questions out to their owning skills. (The change-application discipline for any mutating burn invoked from## bluefield-lifecycleis still meta-policy owned bydoca-hardware-safety/SKILL.md, loaded alongside.)
The skill assumes a host or BlueField target where:
DOCA is already installed and healthy (per
doca-setup ## test),the user has a DOCA-linked application binary they built (per
doca-programming-guide ## build),the user has the host-OS permissions to enumerate devices, reserve hugepages, write systemd units (if they choose that launch mode), and bind processes to NUMA nodes.
It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through
doca-setup/SKILL.md — and it does not cover
building the binary — that path goes through
doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md.
Loading order
Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope (bare-metal launch of a DOCA-linked binary on host x86 or BlueField Arm; NOT the container path, NOT a full cluster, NOT a library-API question).
For the runtime contract (two host modes, three launch modes, hardware-binding surface, per-tenant isolation, version overlay, seven-layer error taxonomy, observability surface, bare-metal safety overlay), see the capabilities companion.
For step-by-step workflows —
configure,build(routing stub),modify(routing stub),run(with### isolationsub-anchor),test,debug,bluefield-lifecycle(BFB install + RShim/TMFIFO + post-BFB recovery + the six-statebluefield-state-classifier), plus theCommand appendixand theDeferred task verbsblock — see the tasks companion.
Example questions this skill answers well
What this skill deliberately does not ship
Related skills
Files
- ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer936 B
- BENCHMARK.md10.4 KiB
- CAPABILITIES.md39.9 KiB
- LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer11.2 KiB
- SKILL.md11.0 KiB
- TASKS.md61.6 KiB
- evals/evals.json3.2 KiB
- references/details.md10.2 KiB
- skill-card.md4.9 KiB
- skill.oms.sig5.1 KiB
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Requirements and compatibility
Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta
“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.
Needs: Needs Node.js
The author says: No DOCA install required to read this skill (it is an overlay loaded against any DOCA artifact skill); the validation steps within this skill require a live DOCA install at /opt/mellanox/doca on a host or BlueField with a built DOCA-linked binary.
Security
What our scanner noticed· Medium risk
- Large base64-encoded blobs
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Attribution and licence
- Created by
- NVIDIA
- Publisher
- NVIDIA (Official)
- Source
- NVIDIA/skills · skills/doca-bare-metal-deployment · commit fce3cca
- Licence
- Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)
- LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE-APACHE)
- ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
- Synced
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