doca-caps

license	Apache-2.0
name	doca-caps
description	Use this skill when the user wants to invoke the read-only doca_caps CLI to ask what DOCA sees on this host — listing DOCA devices and PCIe addresses, listing representor devices, asking which DOCA libraries are available on the current OS, checking per-device per-library capabilities, scoping output to a specific PCIe address, or capturing a side-effect-free capability snapshot for a debug session or install smoke-test. Trigger even when the user does not explicitly mention "doca_caps" or "capabilities print tool" — typical implicit phrasings include "what does DOCA actually see on this box", "is my BlueField PF visible to DOCA", "is Flow available on my RHEL host", "enumerate VF representors for pf0", "doca_caps: command not found", or "empty output for RDMA, is the tool broken". Refuse and route elsewhere for DOCA installation, library-internal capability matrices (Flow pipe creation, RDMA verbs features), streaming telemetry / DTS, or modifying the shipped binary — those belong to other skills.
metadata	{"kind":"tool"}
compatibility	Requires DOCA SDK ≥ 2.6.0 installed at /opt/mellanox/doca on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or RHEL/SLES) with a BlueField DPU or ConnectX NIC; runs identically on the host or on the BlueField Arm side. Invokes /opt/mellanox/doca/tools/doca_caps and reads `pkg-config doca-common` to confirm the install.

DOCA Capabilities Print Tool (doca_caps)

Where to start: This is a tool skill for invoking doca_caps, a side-effect-free CLI. Open TASKS.md and start at ## run for the documented invocations, or ## test when using doca_caps as an install smoke-test. Open CAPABILITIES.md when the question is what kinds of capability families doca_caps reports. If DOCA is not installed yet, route to doca-setup first.

Example questions this skill answers well

The CLASSES of doca_caps questions this skill is built to answer, each with one worked example. The class is the load-bearing piece; the worked example is one instance.

• "What DOCA devices does this host see?" — worked example: "is my BlueField PF visible to DOCA". Answered by the device enumeration in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes
  • the --list-devs invocation in TASKS.md ## run.
• "Which DOCA libraries are available on this OS?" — worked example: "is Flow available on my RHEL host". Answered by the library-availability surface in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes
  • the library-listing invocation in TASKS.md ## run.
• "Does this device support library X capability Y?" — worked example: "does this device support Flow hairpin?". Answered by the per-device per-library capability matrix in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes
  • the --pci-addr-scoped invocation in TASKS.md ## run.
• "What representors are visible to DOCA?" — worked example: "enumerate VF representors for pf0". Answered by the representor enumeration in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes
  • the --list-rep-devs invocation in TASKS.md ## run.
• "I want a snapshot of state to attach to my debug session." — worked example: "save device + library + capability output to a file". Answered by the snapshot workflow in TASKS.md ## test and consumed by doca-debug ## test step 3 (read-only triple) and doca-programming-guide ## debug.
• "doca_caps returned nothing for capability Y — what does that mean?" — worked example: "empty output for RDMA". Answered by the empty-output interpretation rules in TASKS.md ## debug + CAPABILITIES.md ## Error taxonomy.

Audience

This skill serves external operators, developers, and AI agents who need a side-effect-free way to ask "what does DOCA see on this host?" before doing anything that changes state. Concretely:

• An external developer who installed DOCA (or is using the public NGC DOCA container per doca-setup ## no-install) and wants to confirm the install can see hardware before writing code.
• A platform operator deploying a DOCA service who wants a documented, read-only snapshot of which DOCA libraries this host actually supports and which capabilities each DOCA device offers.
• An AI agent producing a capability snapshot artifact during the documented setup or programming-guide debug procedures (it's listed as the canonical first step in doca-setup ## test and doca-programming-guide ## debug).

It is not for users debugging doca_caps itself, and not a substitute for the live public Capabilities Print Tool guide.

doca_caps is shipped as a tool (a single CLI binary), not a library you link against. The skill uses the same kind: tool three-file shape as the rest of the bundle so the agent's task-verb contract (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug) is uniform across libraries, services, and tools — even when individual verbs collapse to a routing stub for a shipped read-only binary.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is — or the agent needs to — invoke doca_caps on a real host with DOCA installed (or inside the public NGC DOCA container). Concretely:

• Running doca_caps --list-devs to enumerate DOCA devices.
• Running doca_caps --list-rep-devs to enumerate representor devices.
• Scoping output to a specific PCIe address with --pci-addr.
• Listing the DOCA libraries the install reports as available on the current OS.
• Listing the available DOCA logger names.
• Capturing a documented, side-effect-free capability snapshot as prerequisite evidence for later ## debug workflows.

Do not load this skill for general DOCA orientation, library API work, or installation. For those, use doca-public-knowledge-map, the matching libs/<library> skill, or doca-setup.

What this skill provides

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

• CAPABILITIES.md — what doca_caps reports (the five documented capability families: devices, representors, libraries, library capabilities, loggers), version availability and execution environment, the tool's narrow error surface, its observability role inside other skills' workflows, and its read-only safety posture.
• TASKS.md — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope task verbs: configure (route to install), build (route to install), modify (refuse), run (the documented invocations), test (capability snapshot as install smoke-test), debug (what to do when the tool reports nothing or fails), plus a Deferred task verbs block routing out-of-scope questions.

The skill assumes a host where DOCA is already installed (or the public NGC DOCA container is running) and the operator has whatever permissions the public guide requires for doca_caps to enumerate devices on their platform.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

This skill is agent guidance, not a samples or scripts bundle. To keep the boundary clean, it deliberately does not contain — and pull requests should not add:

• Pre-baked example output. Output is install- and hardware-specific. A captured example pinned to one platform and one DOCA version misleads operators on a different platform / version.
• Wrappers, parsers, or scripts in any language that consume doca_caps output. The output format is documented; if a user wants to script against it, the right answer is "read the live guide, write the parser against your installed version".
• A samples/ or reference/ subtree. This is a thin loader for a documented CLI; substantive material lives on the public page and in --help.

Loading order

1. Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is in scope (the user actually wants to invoke doca_caps, not learn about DOCA in general).
2. For what doca_caps reports, version availability, error surface, and safety posture, see CAPABILITIES.md.
3. For the documented invocations and the capability-snapshot workflow — configure, build, modify, run, test, debug — see TASKS.md.

Related skills

• doca-public-knowledge-map — routing to the public Capabilities Print Tool guide and the rest of the public DOCA documentation set.
• doca-setup — env preparation, install verification (doca_caps is the canonical first step there), and the I have no install yet path with the public NGC DOCA container.
• doca-programming-guide — cross-library programming patterns, including the ## debug procedure where the saved doca_caps snapshot is consumed.
• The matching libs/<library> skill — for fine-grained, library-specific capability questions that go beyond what doca_caps exposes.