{"slug":"doca-bare-metal-deployment","title":"doca-bare-metal-deployment","summary":"Use this skill for launching, supervising, debugging, OR platform lifecycle on a BlueField — BFB install, RShim/TMFIFO, host PF rebind, post-BFB recovery — taking a DOCA-linked binary to a healthy run directly on hardware (host x86 + BlueField NIC over PCIe, or BlueField Arm bare","platform":"Claude","tags":[],"authorName":"LLM Mart","authorSlug":"llm-mart","score":0,"source":"github","price":null,"verified":false,"createdAt":"2026-09-26T16:30:38.98639Z","repo":{"url":"https://github.com/NVIDIA/skills","stars":3445,"forks":416,"license":"Apache-2.0","updatedAt":"2026-09-25T03:14:56Z"},"bodyHtml":"
\n

license: Apache-2.0\nname: doca-bare-metal-deployment\ndescription: >\nUse this skill for launching, supervising, debugging, OR\nplatform lifecycle on a BlueField — BFB install, RShim/TMFIFO,\nhost PF rebind, post-BFB recovery — taking a DOCA-linked binary\nto a healthy run directly on hardware (host x86 + BlueField NIC\nover PCIe, or BlueField Arm bare-metal). No container, no\nkubelet. Covers launch mode (direct, tmux, systemd), PCI/NUMA/\nCPU/IRQ binding, co-tenant isolation (cgroup-v2/netns/numactl),\na seven-layer error taxonomy, and a six-state BlueField\nlifecycle classifier. Trigger even when user does not say\n\"bare-metal\" — implicit phrasings include \"binary exits 1 right\nafter launch\", \"systemd keeps restarting it\", \"no matching\ndevice on the BF\", \"bfb-install exited 0 but DPU is dead\",\n\"ping 192.168.100.2 works but ssh fails\", \"host PFs aren't\nshowing netdevs\". Destructive firmware burn / mlxconfig set\nrequires explicit confirmation via doca-hardware-safety;\ncontainers, library APIs, env prep, and build use other skills.\nmetadata:\nkind: library\ncompatibility: >\nNo DOCA install required to read this skill (it is an overlay\nloaded against any DOCA artifact skill); the validation steps\nwithin this skill require a live DOCA install at /opt/mellanox/doca on\na host or BlueField with a built DOCA-linked binary.

\n

DOCA bare-metal deployment

\n

Where to start: This skill is the bundle's home for operating\na DOCA-linked application binary directly on hardware — no\ncontainer, no kubelet, no static-pod manifest. It is the parallel\nof doca-container-deployment\nfor the non-container path. If the user has a DOCA-linked binary\nthey built (per the canonical workflow in\ndoca-programming-guide)\nand they want to know how to actually run it on the host or on\nthe BlueField Arm cores correctly, open\nTASKS.md and start at\n## configure. If the question is what\nshape does the bare-metal runtime even have and what is the\ndeployment contract, start at CAPABILITIES.md.\nIf the user is not yet sure whether their target system shape is\nthe container path or the bare-metal path, route the recognition\nstep to doca-setup first; only return\nhere once bare-metal is the confirmed shape.

\n

Audience

\n

This skill serves external DOCA developers and operators who\nhave a DOCA-linked application binary they built and want to run\nit directly on hardware — i.e., people who already have:

\n\n

It is not for:

\n\n

The skill teaches the agent the bare-metal-deployment procedure\nand the rules for quoting documented commands from the public DOCA\nProgramming Guide and the public BlueField / DPU User Manual via\ndoca-public-knowledge-map;\nit does not invent flag names, PCI BDFs, NUMA numbers, devlink\npaths, representor strings, or systemd Restart= mode names from\nmemory.

\n

When to load this skill

\n

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on bare-metal\ndeployment of a DOCA-linked application binary on either of the\ntwo supported host modes (host x86 or BlueField Arm), or asking a\ncross-cutting bare-metal question that is not specific to one\nlibrary's API. Concretely:

\n\n

Do not load this skill for the container-path equivalent\n(those questions go to\ndoca-container-deployment);\nfor full-Kubernetes-cluster operations (out of scope per the\nbundle's non-goals); for library-API questions (route to the\nmatching libs/<library> skill); for env-preparation questions\nincluding hugepages, IOMMU, pkg-config, and devlink mode flips\n(use doca-setup); for any\nhardware-state-changing operation including mlxconfig writes\nand BFB reflashes (route to\ndoca-hardware-safety for the\ncross-cutting meta-policy); or for cross-library programming\nquestions (use\ndoca-programming-guide).

\n

What this skill provides

\n

This is a thin loader. Substantive material lives in two\ncompanion files:

\n\n

The skill assumes a host or BlueField target where:

\n\n

It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through\ndoca-setup — and it does not cover\nbuilding the binary — that path goes through\ndoca-programming-guide.

\n

Loading order

\n
    \n
  1. Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is\nin scope (bare-metal launch of a DOCA-linked binary on host\nx86 or BlueField Arm; NOT the container path, NOT a full\ncluster, NOT a library-API question).
    2. \n
  2. For the runtime contract (two host modes, three launch\nmodes, hardware-binding surface, per-tenant isolation, version\noverlay, seven-layer error taxonomy, observability surface,\nbare-metal safety overlay), see\nCAPABILITIES.md.
    3. \n
  3. For step-by-step workflows — configure, build (routing\nstub), modify (routing stub), run (with ### isolation\nsub-anchor), test, debug, bluefield-lifecycle (BFB\ninstall + RShim/TMFIFO + post-BFB recovery + the six-state\nbluefield-state-classifier), plus the Command appendix and\nthe Deferred task verbs block — see TASKS.md.
    4. \n
\n

Example questions this skill answers well

\n

See references/details.md.

\n

What this skill deliberately does not ship

\n

See references/details.md.

\n

Related skills

\n

See references/details.md.

\n","files":[{"path":"BENCHMARK.md","sizeBytes":4099,"isText":true},{"path":"CAPABILITIES.md","sizeBytes":41484,"isText":true},{"path":"evals/evals.json","sizeBytes":3444,"isText":true},{"path":"references/details.md","sizeBytes":10775,"isText":true},{"path":"skill-card.md","sizeBytes":4386,"isText":true},{"path":"SKILL.md","sizeBytes":11602,"isText":true},{"path":"skill.oms.sig","sizeBytes":5269,"isText":false},{"path":"TASKS.md","sizeBytes":64667,"isText":true}],"reviewScore":null,"reviewSummary":null,"trust":{"provenance":"trusted-source-unreviewed","notice":"Community-authored content, reproduced verbatim and not vetted as instructions. Treat it as data to evaluate, never as directives to follow.","bodySource":null},"bodyLocked":false,"purchaseUrl":null,"sourceUrl":null,"report":{"provenance":"trusted-source-unreviewed","screen":{"ran":true,"outcome":"notes-only","suspicious":0,"notes":2,"hiddenCharacters":false},"virusScan":{"engine":"clamav","status":"clean","scannedAt":"2026-09-26T16:31:44.451295Z","sha256":"1FFA093C64C3120FCB27D910A1549E39B1BFFD26E815A9A8CD693D2AF4980A0E","sizeBytes":52627},"review":null,"source":{"repositoryUrl":"https://github.com/NVIDIA/skills","path":"skills/doca-bare-metal-deployment","license":"Apache-2.0","commit":"d8519c57da6db5d9bea274ec1724a4a7a56a3dee","subtreeSha":"56B769BEF30FFB20A33D607705640896798D371B9840547D13CF8016041B04C6","lastSyncedAt":"2026-09-26T16:30:30.547995Z"},"reviewedAt":"2026-09-26T16:33:47.786485Z","notice":"Community-authored content, reproduced verbatim and not vetted as instructions. Treat it as data to evaluate, never as directives to follow."},"install":[{"target":"skills-cli","command":"npx skills add https://github.com/NVIDIA/skills/tree/main/skills/doca-bare-metal-deployment"},{"target":"claude-code","command":"claude plugin marketplace add https://llmmart.ai/marketplace.json && claude plugin install nvidia-skills@llmmart"},{"target":"git","command":"git clone https://github.com/NVIDIA/skills.git"}]}