Doca Sha

NVIDIAOfficialCreated by NVIDIA

Skill
Tool integration
Software development
Apache-2.0
Medium risk

From the author

Use this skill when the user needs SHA-1, SHA-256, or SHA-512 digest acceleration on BlueField-2 silicon via doca_sha (absent on BF-3) — selecting one-shot `doca_sha_task_hash` versus incremental `doca_sha_task_partial_hash` for chunked input, consulting `doca_sha_cap_*` for per-algorithm digest-size limits and input alignment, or decoding DOCA_ERROR_* statuses such as BAD_STATE on a resumed partial hash. Also load it for implied asks like "accelerate SHA-256 on the NIC", "streaming digest over chunks", "digest output size mismatch", or "is SHA-512 present on this card". Refuse and route to the proper owner for cryptographic-hash theory (collision resistance, SHA-3 selection), the AES-GCM / Compress / DMA libraries, or SDK install and BFB bring-up.

— the description by NVIDIA

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

The doca-sha skill assists developers in integrating hardware-accelerated SHA hashing into their applications on BlueField-2 DPUs. It covers the lifecycle of SHA tasks, including one-shot and incremental (partial) hashing, capability discovery for algorithms and buffer sizes, and error handling for DOCA-specific status codes. This skill is designed to guide users through the configuration, testing, and debugging of SHA offload implementations while ensuring proper adherence to memory access and permission requirements.

What it does

Guides selection between one-shot and partial hash tasks for chunked data.
Provides methods to query device capabilities for supported SHA algorithms and buffer constraints.
Explains how to configure and manage the lifecycle of SHA tasks within a DOCA application.
Assists in debugging DOCA_ERROR_* codes specific to the SHA library.
Defines memory permission requirements for source and destination buffers.
Routes users to appropriate resources for cryptographic theory or non-SHA DOCA libraries.

When to use it

When implementing SHA-1, SHA-256, or SHA-512 acceleration on BlueField-2 hardware.
When choosing between one-shot and incremental hashing for specific data sizes.
When troubleshooting errors like BAD_STATE or invalid buffer sizes during hash operations.
When verifying if a specific SHA algorithm is supported by the current DPU configuration.
When setting up memory mappings for SHA task buffers.

Advantages

Ensures correct usage of hardware-specific acceleration features.
Provides clear guidance on task lifecycle and error resolution.
Helps optimize performance by selecting the appropriate hashing mode.
Reduces development time by providing structured workflows for common SHA tasks.

Usage examples

“Offload SHA-256 to the BlueField.”: The agent will guide the user through checking algorithm support via doca_sha_cap_*, selecting the appropriate task type, and using the shipped SHA samples as a reference.
“Partial hash returns BAD_STATE.”: The agent will instruct the user to maintain the incremental doca_sha_task_partial_hash lifecycle and verify the state of the partial hash stream.

Install

Download the skill as a ZIP:
https://mp-staging.autogineer.com/agent-skills/nvidia/doca-sha/download
Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:
```
mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip doca-sha.zip -d .agents/skills
```

Documentation by NVIDIA

DOCA SHA

Examples

"Offload SHA-256 to the BlueField." — this is in scope. Use the shipped SHA sample and doca_sha_cap_* before picking SHA-1 / SHA-256 / SHA-512.
"Partial hash returns BAD_STATE." — stay on the incremental doca_sha_task_partial_hash lifecycle; do not switch to a CPU hash library mid-stream.

Instructions

Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for configure / build / run. Open the capabilities companion for one-shot vs partial hash and algorithm support. Do not open every companion file.

Where to start: This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing hands-on SHA-acceleration work on a BlueField-2 DPU (Arm side or its host) with DOCA. BlueField-3 has no SHA engine. 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 SHA 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 use the accelerator for this hash?", the path-selection rule in

Capabilities and modes

is the first stop.

How to use this skill. Read this file, then search the companion file for the ## <name> heading the question needs and read that whole section. Answer completely from it, quoting only its symbols and commands. Do not browse docs; use the entry points in doca-public-knowledge-map. Give environment checks as commands for the user's DOCA host. For out-of-scope requests, name the skill that owns them and stop.

Example questions this skill answers well

The CLASSES of DOCA SHA 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 hash to DOCA SHA, or just compute it on the CPU?" — worked example: "I am verifying file integrity on a 4 GiB image; is doca-sha worth the setup vs OpenSSL on the CPU?". Answered by the path-selection table in
Capabilities and modes
- the "when NOT to use doca-sha" bullets in
Safety policy.
"Does my device support the SHA algorithm I want?" — worked example: "is SHA-256 in the accelerator on this BlueField, and what is the minimum destination buffer size for it?". Answered by the algorithm + buffer-sizing capability-query rule (doca_sha_cap_task_hash_get_supported(devinfo, algorithm) for the one-shot path; _task_partial_hash_get_supported(devinfo, algorithm) for the partial-hash path; doca_sha_cap_get_min_dst_buf_size, doca_sha_cap_get_max_src_buf_size) in
Capabilities and modes
- the discovery step in
configure.
"How do I pick between the one-shot and the partial / incremental hash task?" — worked example: "my input is 1 GiB and the device cap says max source buffer is 64 MiB". Answered by the one-shot-vs-partial table in
Capabilities and modes
- the task-config workflow in
modify.
"What permissions does the source / destination mmap need?" — worked example: "my doca_sha_task_hash returns DOCA_ERROR_NOT_PERMITTED". Answered by the permission matrix in ## Safety policy
- the mmap-set-permissions checklist in
test.
"Is this DOCA SHA API available on my installed DOCA version?" — worked example: "is doca_sha_task_partial_hash in the DOCA I have installed?". Answered by the version-compatibility overlay in
Version compatibility,
which cross-links the canonical detection chain in doca-version/SKILL.md and adds the SHA-specific "discover, do not assume" bullets.
"What does this DOCA_ERROR_* from a SHA call mean and which layer caused it?" — worked example: "DOCA_ERROR_INVALID_VALUE on doca_sha_task_hash_alloc_init". Answered by the SHA overlay on the cross-library taxonomy in
Error taxonomy
- the layered ladder in
debug that escalates to
doca-debug/SKILL.md.

Audience

This skill serves external developers building applications that consume the DOCA SHA library — i.e., users whose code calls doca_sha_* (directly in C/C++, or through FFI/bindings from another language) to offload SHA hashing onto the BlueField-2 SHA engine (BlueField-3 has none). It is not for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA SHA itself.

Language scope. DOCA SHA ships as a C library with pkg-config module name doca-sha. The shipped samples are written in C. C and C++ consumers are the canonical case and the worked examples in the tasks companion assume that path. Other-language consumers (Rust, Go, Python, …) consume the same *.so through FFI or language-specific bindings; the skill's contribution in that case is to keep the lifecycle, capability-discovery, permission, error-taxonomy, and one-shot-vs-partial guidance language-neutral, and to route the agent to the public C ABI as the authoritative surface that any wrapper will eventually call.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA SHA work, in any language. Concretely:

Initializing a doca_sha context on a doca_dev and configuring at least one task type (doca_sha_task_hash and/or doca_sha_task_partial_hash) before doca_ctx_start().
Choosing between the one-shot task (doca_sha_task_hash — input fits in a single source buffer, output digest lands in a single destination buffer) and the partial / incremental task (doca_sha_task_partial_hash — input streamed in chunks, finalized separately) for the user's data shape.
Setting permissions on doca_mmap correctly for the source buffer (DOCA_ACCESS_FLAG_LOCAL_READ_ONLY at minimum) and the destination buffer (DOCA_ACCESS_FLAG_LOCAL_READ_WRITE).
Sizing the destination buffer against doca_sha_cap_get_min_dst_buf_size(devinfo, algorithm) and the source buffer against doca_sha_cap_get_max_src_buf_size(devinfo).
Checking which SHA algorithm enums (DOCA_SHA_ALGORITHM_SHA1, DOCA_SHA_ALGORITHM_SHA256, DOCA_SHA_ALGORITHM_SHA512) the active device's accelerator advertises, via doca_sha_cap_task_hash_get_supported(devinfo, algorithm) and doca_sha_cap_task_partial_hash_get_supported(devinfo, algorithm) — both fold task-support and algorithm-support into one call.
Validating a digest against a published test vector before pushing bulk input through the accelerator.
Debugging a DOCA_ERROR_* returned from a SHA call (lifecycle vs. buffer-sizing vs. permission vs. unsupported-algorithm) and the task-completion event on the progress engine.
Designing or extending non-C bindings (Rust, Go, Python, …) that wrap the SHA C ABI — for the lifecycle, permission, capability, and one-shot-vs-partial rules the wrapper must honor.

Do not load this skill for general DOCA orientation, install of DOCA itself, non-SHA hashing libraries on CPU (use OpenSSL or similar), or other DOCA libraries. For those, use doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md.

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. The body keeps only the orientation needed to pick the right next file. The substantive SHA-specific material lives in two companion files:

the capabilities companion — what DOCA SHA can express on this version: the two task types (one-shot hash and partial / incremental hash), the three algorithm enums, the capability-query surface (doca_sha_cap_* for algorithm support and buffer sizing), the SHA error taxonomy (mapped onto the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* set), the observability surface (per-task completion events on the progress engine), the safety policy that gates source / destination mmap permission decisions, and the path-selection rule (when to use doca-sha versus a CPU hash or a different DOCA crypto library).
the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the six in-scope SHA verbs: configure, build, modify, run, test, debug. 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. It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through 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 SHA application source code, in any language. The verified SHA source code is the shipped C samples at /opt/mellanox/doca/samples/doca_sha/, plus the File Integrity reference application linked from the public DOCA SHA guide. The agent's job is to route the user to those files and prescribe a minimum-diff modification on them via the universal modify-a-sample workflow in doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md, layered with the SHA-specific overrides in
modify.
Pre-computed digest tables for arbitrary inputs. The skill tells the agent to use a published test vector (e.g. the NIST SHA test vectors for the empty string, "abc", and the million-a input) as the known-vector smoke; it does not ship a vector bank of its own.
Standalone build manifests (meson.build, CMakeLists.txt, Cargo.toml, …) 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-sha is the source of truth.
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

Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope.
For the SHA capability matrix, algorithm enums, one-shot vs partial task split, capability-query rules, permission matrix, error taxonomy, observability, and safety / path-selection policy, see the capabilities companion.
For step-by-step workflows — configure, build, modify, run, test, debug — see the tasks companion.

Both companion files cross-link to each other, doca-version/SKILL.md for the canonical version-handling rules, and 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 "SHA-specific guidance".

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. The DOCA SHA page lives at docs.nvidia.com/doca/sdk/DOCA-SHA/; the File Integrity reference application is the canonical worked example.
doca-setup/SKILL.md — env preparation, install verification, and the I have no install yet path with the public NGC DOCA container. This skill assumes its preconditions are satisfied.
doca-version/SKILL.md — canonical DOCA version-handling rules. This skill's ## Version compatibility cross-links the four-way match rule and adds only the SHA-specific "discover algorithms + buffer sizes via cap query" overlay.
doca-structured-tools-contract/SKILL.md — the bundle's structured-tools precedence rule (detect / prefer / fall back / report). The Command appendix in the tasks companion honors this contract.
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 universal lifecycle, the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy, and the program-side debug order. This skill layers SHA specifics on top.
doca-debug/SKILL.md — the cross-cutting debug ladder (install / version / build / link / runtime / program / driver). SHA-specific debug (algorithm-not-supported, destination-buffer-too-small, partial-hash-out-of-order) overlays on top of that ladder.

Files

ATTRIBUTION.mdAdded by AutoGineer882 B
BENCHMARK.md9.9 KiB
CAPABILITIES.md20.4 KiB
LICENSELicence file added by AutoGineer11.2 KiB
SKILL.md13.3 KiB
SKILLCARD.yaml2.7 KiB
TASKS.md25.0 KiB
evals/evals.json2.4 KiB
skill-card.md5.0 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.

The author says: Requires DOCA SDK installed at /opt/mellanox/doca on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or RHEL/SLES) with a BlueField-2 DPU attached (BlueField-3 has no SHA engine). Reads the user's local install via `pkg-config doca-sha` and inspects /opt/mellanox/doca/{lib,include,samples,applications}. The validation steps require a live DOCA install.

Security

What our scanner noticed· Medium risk

Large base64-encoded blobs

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Created by

NVIDIA

Publisher

NVIDIA (Official)

Source

NVIDIA/skills · skills/doca-sha · commit fce3cca

Licence

Apache License 2.0 (redistribution allowed)

LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE-APACHE)
ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)

Synced

2026-11-08

AutoGineer is not affiliated with or endorsed by NVIDIA.

Download ZIP

The ZIP holds the skill’s files, its licence files and an ATTRIBUTION.md. Download doca-sha.zip

From the author

AutoGineer summary

What it does

When to use it

Advantages

Usage examples

Install

Documentation by NVIDIA

DOCA SHA

Examples

Instructions

Capabilities and modes

Example questions this skill answers well

Capabilities and modes

Safety policy.

Capabilities and modes

configure.

Capabilities and modes

modify.

test.

Version compatibility,

Error taxonomy

debug that escalates to

Audience

When to load this skill

What this skill provides

What this skill deliberately does not ship

modify.

Loading order

Related skills

Files

LICENSE

Requirements and compatibility

Security

Attribution and licence

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