Doca Container Deployment Agent Skill

DOCA container deployment

Where to start: This skill is for *operating* the cross-cutting

DOCA container-deployment runtime — the shared pattern every DOCA

service on the BlueField uses to come up (kubelet standalone agent

on the BlueField Arm watching a static-pod manifests directory; the

operator drops a YAML pod spec into that directory; kubelet schedules

the pod and runs the container).

If the developer has NOT yet decided container vs. bare-metal

(*"I just got a BlueField, what now?"*, *"my code is built, how do I

run it?"*, *"how do I deploy this?"*), route them BACK to

doca-setup ## recognize first.

That is the front-door routing decision. The wrong failure mode is

to silently push every developer onto the container path because the

agent loaded this skill first. ## recognize detects the system

shape, asks the minimum residual question, and lands the developer on

either this skill (when the workload is a packaged DOCA service to

drop on a BlueField) or the bare-metal-path sibling

doca-bare-metal-deployment

(when the workload is a DOCA-linked application binary the developer

launches directly).

If the developer is already on the container path, open

TASKS.md and start at

## configure. If the question is *what shape

of runtime is this and what does the deployment contract look like*,

start at CAPABILITIES.md. For per-service

overlays, follow the per-service skill under skills/services/ that

layers on top of this one — the supported overlays are Argus, DMS,

Firefly, and UROM service. Flow-Inspector and OS-Inspector are

policy-excluded from this public bundle; route them through

doca-public-knowledge-map

instead of applying this runtime overlay. Externally-productized

NVIDIA services (BlueMan, HBN, SNAP, Virtio-net, DOCA Telemetry

Service as productized, …) are also out of scope and route through

that map. If DOCA is

not installed on the BlueField target yet, route to

doca-setup first.

Audience

This skill serves **external operators and platform teams who deploy

DOCA service containers on BlueField** — i.e., people who have a

BlueField with DOCA installed on the Arm side, a container runtime

plus the kubelet standalone agent already present per the BlueField

OS image, and the host-OS permissions the public DOCA Container

Deployment Guide names for the chosen service. The skill is the

shared deployment runtime; each per-service skill in the bundle

(see the list in ## Related skills) supplies

the service-specific config schema, paired-workload contract, and

"healthy" definition.

It is not for NVIDIA developers contributing to the BlueField

container runtime or to kubelet itself, and it is not a generic

Kubernetes tutorial. Kubelet runs on the BlueField in *standalone*

mode here — no full Kubernetes control plane, no kubectl against

a cluster API server — and the substantive answer to most

container-deployment questions on the BlueField is the public DOCA

Container Deployment Guide. This skill teaches the agent which

guide to quote, in what order to walk it, and how to map a symptom

to a layer; it does NOT re-invent kubelet flags, pod-spec field

names, or static-pod path strings. The shared deployment runtime

described here is the cross-cutting layer; the per-service skill

(doca-argus, doca-dms, doca-firefly,

doca-urom-svc) supplies the per-service

config schema, paired-workload contract, and "healthy" definition.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing **hands-on container

deployment of any DOCA service** on a BlueField target, or asking a

cross-service deployment question that is not specific to one

service's config schema. Concretely:

• Dropping a YAML pod spec into the documented static-pod manifests

directory on the BlueField Arm so kubelet standalone schedules the

pod and runs the DOCA service container.

• Inspecting pod status, container logs, and the documented

liveness signal for any supported in-bundle DOCA service container

— Argus, DMS, Firefly, or UROM service — so the

agent answers "did the container come up, and is the service

inside actually ready" the same way for every service.

• Walking the smoke-before-bulk loop (pod reaches Running;

ENTRYPOINT logs are clean; service answers a trivial liveness

probe) BEFORE the BlueField is put under workload.

• Diagnosing a deployment that is misbehaving — pod-spec YAML is in

the directory but the pod never schedules; pod schedules but

image-pull fails; image pulls but container ENTRYPOINT

immediately exits; container runs but the service inside never

answers; container is in a restart loop after a config edit; a

volume mount the pod spec names is missing on the host; a network

policy or host-firewall rule is blocking the service.

• Cross-service questions: *"can I have DMS and Firefly on the

same BlueField"*, *"how do I list every DOCA service pod that is

currently running"*, *"what is the documented stop / restart

semantics if I edit a pod-spec file in place"*.

Do not load this skill for per-service config schema questions

(those belong to the matching per-service skill); for installing

DOCA itself or preparing the BlueField env (use

doca-setup); for library-API

questions (use the matching libs/<library> skill); or for general

Kubernetes-cluster operations (this skill covers kubelet *standalone*

mode on the BlueField, not a full Kubernetes control plane).

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. Substantive material lives in two

companion files:

• CAPABILITIES.md — the cross-cutting DOCA container-deployment

runtime contract on the BlueField (kubelet standalone agent on

BlueField Arm watching a documented static-pod manifests

directory; YAML pod-spec drop is the unit of operator input; the

same pattern applies across every DOCA service), the BlueField

preconditions (DOCA install, container runtime, BFB version,

per-service firmware slot when the service emulates a device,

image-pull reachability to NGC, host-OS permissions), the

observability surface (kubelet status, container logs, service-

side liveness signal — three layers, each with its own owner),

the cross-cutting error taxonomy (pod-spec syntax → pod

scheduling → image pull → runtime → volume mount → network policy

→ version → cross-cutting host) covering exactly eight layers, and the

safety policy (smoke before bulk; failed pod is high-stakes —

clear the root cause before letting kubelet restart-loop the

pod; do NOT invent pod-spec field names / kubelet flags / image

tags from memory).

• TASKS.md — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope deployment

verbs: configure, build, modify, run, test, debug,

plus a Deferred task verbs block routing per-service config

questions, host-firmware-slot work, paired-workload work, and

full-Kubernetes-cluster work out to their owning skills.

The skill assumes a BlueField target where DOCA is already installed

on the Arm side, the BlueField OS image ships kubelet standalone +

the container runtime per the public DOCA Container Deployment

Guide, and the operator has the host-OS permissions that guide

names. It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through

doca-setup — and it does not

re-document the per-service config schema, which is the canonical

concern of each DOCA service's public guide reached through

doca-public-knowledge-map.

Loading order

• Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is in

scope (cross-cutting deployment runtime, NOT a per-service

config-schema question).

• **For the kubelet-standalone-mode runtime shape, the static-pod

manifests directory rule, the host-OS / BFB / firmware-slot /

image-pull preconditions, the eight-layer error taxonomy, the

observability surface, and the safety / smoke-before-bulk

policy, see CAPABILITIES.md.**

• **For step-by-step workflows — configure, build, modify, run,

test, debug — see TASKS.md.**

Example questions this skill answers well

See references/details.md.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

See references/details.md.

Related skills

See references/details.md.