DOCA Public Knowledge Map

Where to start: Reach for this skill whenever the question is "where does the authoritative answer live?" — a docs page, the on-disk install layout, a sample, or an NGC catalog entry. Read ## Public documentation entry points first; then jump to the routing-table section that matches the user's intent.

When to load this skill

Load this skill whenever the user asks anything about NVIDIA DOCA where the agent needs to locate authoritative information without access to the DOCA source tree. That includes: installing DOCA, building a sample, learning a DOCA library (Flow, DPA, Comm Channel, GPUNetIO, …), debugging an error, finding an API reference, finding a sample, finding release notes, or pointing the user at the developer forum.

This skill is intentionally a routing table, not a tutorial. Pick the entry that matches the user's intent, fetch the URL or inspect the local install path, and only then answer.

First-contact discovery — the four questions to ask before any drill-down

When a user opens with an open-ended orientation question ("I'm new with DOCA, how do I start?", "can you guide me?", "what's the easiest way to try DOCA?"), the agent does not have enough information yet to pick a path. Asking these four questions before drilling avoids wasted recommendations that the user cannot actually execute on their setup. Ask them as a single short message; do not interrogate one-at-a-time.

The agent's rule: never recommend a specific install path, container tag, or sample without first having the answers to questions 1–3 (question 4 is needed for the first-app workflow but not for orientation itself). Volunteering specific commands before this is the single most common failure mode for DOCA orientation.

If the user has already volunteered some of the information in their first message, mark those questions answered and only ask the rest. Do not re-ask what the user has already told you.

Topic to "where to look first" routing table

When the user asks something, route as follows:

What this skill deliberately does not cover

This file is intentionally a map, not a tutorial. It does not contain:

• DOCA library tutorials (those live in the per-library guides).
• API reference (lives in headers and the per-library guides).
• Build-system deep-dives (lives in the Installation Guide and the sample meson.build files).
• Performance tuning, driver-level setup, OFED interaction (lives in the Installation Guide and library-specific guides).

When the agent needs those, it should fetch the matching public document or read the matching installed file. As more focused skills are added, they should appear in SKILLS.md and link back here for the "where to look" lookups.

Related skills

For env preparation — install verification, build environment (pkg-config, headers, hugepages, devlink), env-class debugging, and the I have no install yet path with the public NGC DOCA container (nvcr.io/nvidia/doca/doca) as the universal Stage-1 fallback for any user on macOS, Windows, or Linux without DOCA — load doca-setup. That skill stops at "the install is healthy and the env is ready".

For general DOCA programming patterns shared across every library — the canonical pkg-config doca-<library> build pattern (C/C++ direct or non-C via FFI), the universal derive a custom first app from a shipped sample workflow, the universal lifecycle (cfg-create → init → start → use → stop → destroy), the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy, and the program-side debug order — load doca-programming-guide. Each library skill extends its ## modify (first-app derivation) with library-specific overrides.

For DOCA Flow internals — port and representor setup, pipe creation, match/action specifications, pipe validation before hardware programming, Flow counters and traces, Flow version compatibility, and debugging DOCA_ERROR_* failures from the Flow API — load doca-flow. That skill assumes this one is available for shared documentation routing and install-layout lookups, doca-setup for environment preparation, and doca-programming-guide for the cross-library programming patterns it layers on top of.

Example questions this skill answers well

See references/map.md.

Library- and module-specific guides

See references/map.md.

DOCA services

See references/map.md.

DOCA tools

See references/map.md.

Externally-productized DOCA software — not in this bundle, but here is where to route

See references/map.md.

Public source code: GitHub

See references/map.md.

Layout of an installed DOCA package

See references/map.md.

Where to find the version

See references/map.md.

URL audit

See references/map.md.

Ground rules for any agent using this skill

See references/map.md.

Public documentation entry points

See references/map.md.