| name | hpc-cluster-tooling |
| description | Practitioner knowledge base for the practical workflow tooling of HPC clusters — the command-line skills around writing, building, debugging, profiling, and running scientific code at scale. Use when working on a cluster or HPC project's toolchain: Unix shell for HPC (pipes, grep/sed/awk, ssh/rsync, tmux, environment modules); build automation with Make (targets, rules, automatic variables, pattern rules, parallel make); the CMake build system (out-of-source builds, find_package, target-based commands, build types); git version control with HPC discipline (gitignore, LFS, reproducibility tagging); debugging with GDB (breakpoints, watchpoints, backtrace, core dumps); memory and parallel debugging (Valgrind, AddressSanitizer/ThreadSanitizer, MPI debugging, DDT/TotalView); profiling and benchmarking (gprof, perf, PAPI hardware counters, TAU parallel profiling/tracing); and SLURM batch job management (sbatch/squeue/scancel, #SBATCH directives, job arrays, dependencies, login vs compute nodes). Covers the cluster workflow and command-line tooling — not numerical algorithms or parallel-programming model APIs. |
| allowed-tools | ["Read","Grep"] |
| argument-hint | ["tool (slurm/cmake/gdb/tau)","topic","or chapter (e.g. ch08)"] |
HPC Cluster Tooling
Scope: Unix shell · Make · CMake · git · GDB · memory/parallel debugging · profiling (gprof/PAPI/TAU) · SLURM batch jobs | Chapters: 8 | Generated: 2026-06-09
How to Use This Skill
- Without arguments — load the core workflow below.
- With a tool — ask about
SLURM, CMake, GDB, TAU, Valgrind; I find and read the relevant chapter.
- With a topic — ask about
job arrays, watchpoints, hardware counters, out-of-source build; I find the chapter.
- With a chapter — ask for
ch08; I load that file.
When you ask about something not in the Core section, I read the relevant chapter (and cheatsheet.md / patterns.md / glossary.md).
Core Workflow
The cluster is a Unix terminal (Ch 1)
Everything happens at the shell: compose tools with pipes (grep | awk | sort), transfer data with rsync (incremental/resumable), run long work in tmux (survives disconnect), select the toolchain with module load. Record modules with results.
Build: Make → CMake (Ch 2, 3)
Make rebuilds incrementally by timestamp (target: prereqs + TAB recipe; $@/$</$^; make -j). CMake is the meta-build system: declarative CMakeLists.txt generates Make/Ninja; always build out-of-source (cmake -B build), use find_package + target-based commands, set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE. Don't hand-write Makefiles for portable projects.
Version control (Ch 4)
Version source + build recipe in git; keep artifacts/large data out (.gitignore/LFS). Commit often on branches; tag and record the commit hash + environment with every result — reproducibility = commit + modules.
Debug: correctness (Ch 5, 6)
GDB (build -g -O0): on a crash, gdb prog core → backtrace first; watch var for corruption; conditional breakpoints to skip to the failing iteration. Memory errors are silent in C/C++ — run sanitizers (-fsanitize=address/thread/undefined) routinely, Valgrind for exhaustive coverage. Parallel bugs (deadlock = mismatched blocking exchange; race = run TSan) — reproduce at the smallest rank count; GDB-per-rank (few) or DDT/TotalView (many).
Profile: performance (Ch 7)
Measure before optimizing (Amdahl). gprof/perf for where (hot functions), PAPI counters for why (cache/branch/FLOP), TAU for which rank/phase (parallel imbalance). Benchmark reproducibly: warm up, pin nodes, repeat, report spread.
Run: SLURM (Ch 8)
Never compute on the login node — submit a batch script (#SBATCH resource directives + module load + srun). sbatch/squeue/scancel. Realistic wall time (-t: shorter backfills sooner, overruns killed). Job arrays (--array) for parameter sweeps; --dependency=afterok to chain workflows. Record job id (%j) + commit for reproducibility.
Chapter Index
| # | Title | Key Topics |
|---|
| ch01 | Unix for HPC | pipes, grep/sed/awk, ssh/rsync, tmux, modules |
| ch02 | Make | targets/rules, automatic variables, pattern rules, -j |
| ch03 | CMake | out-of-source, find_package, target-based, build types |
| ch04 | Git | branches, .gitignore/LFS, reproducibility tagging |
| ch05 | Debugging with GDB | breakpoints, watchpoints, backtrace, core dumps |
| ch06 | Memory & Parallel Debugging | Valgrind, sanitizers, MPI debugging, DDT/TotalView |
| ch07 | Profiling & Benchmarking | gprof, perf, PAPI, TAU/ParaProf/Jumpshot |
| ch08 | SLURM & Batch Jobs | sbatch/squeue, #SBATCH, job arrays, dependencies |
Topic Index
- awk / sed / grep / pipes → ch01
- batch script / #SBATCH → ch08
- CMake / find_package / out-of-source → ch03
- core dump / post-mortem → ch05
- DDT / TotalView / parallel debugging → ch06
- GDB / breakpoints / watchpoints / backtrace → ch05
- git / .gitignore / LFS / reproducibility → ch04
- gprof / perf → ch07
- job arrays / dependencies → ch08
- Make / targets / automatic variables → ch02
- memory errors / sanitizers / Valgrind → ch06
- modules / environment → ch01
- PAPI / hardware counters → ch07
- rsync / ssh / tmux → ch01
- SLURM / sbatch / squeue / srun → ch08
- TAU / parallel profiling / tracing → ch07
Supporting Files
- glossary.md — every key term with its defining chapter
- patterns.md — concrete techniques (shell pipelines, out-of-source build, reproducibility tagging, post-mortem GDB, sanitizers-first, profile-then-optimize, batch submission, parameter sweeps)
- cheatsheet.md — command reference: Make/CMake/git/GDB/SLURM tables, debugging-tool picker, profiling-tool picker, #SBATCH directives
Scope & Limits
Covers the practical cluster workflow and command-line tooling of HPC — shell, build systems, version control, debugging, profiling, and the batch scheduler. For the numerical algorithms and theory, see hpc-numerics; for parallel-programming models (MPI/OpenMP/CUDA/Kokkos APIs), see gpu-multithreading / cpp-hpc / mpi-5.0 / openmp-6.0 / cuda-programming; for Fortran build tooling specifically, see fobis. Specific scheduler/tool options vary by site and version — verify against your cluster's documentation and man pages.
