doca-verbs

DOCA Verbs

STOP — most RDMA tasks do NOT belong here

If the task is general RDMA data movement (send / receive / read / write / atomic between endpoints) and the user did not name a specific raw QP / CQ / work-request / SRQ / Address-Handle attribute that the higher-level API genuinely cannot express, this skill is out of scope. Route to doca-rdma and follow its non-negotiable: the deliverable links libdoca_rdma and calls doca_rdma_*.

Loading this raw-verbs skill is never a license to hand-roll libibverbs / librdmacm. "Raw verbs is fewer lines" or "the high-level binding is more work" is not a reason. A general-RDMA deliverable whose ldd shows no libdoca_rdma is a failed task — exactly the same rule doca-rdma enforces. Raw doca_verbs_* is in scope only for the narrow attribute-level needs enumerated below; everything else climbs back up to the matching higher-level library.

Where to start: This skill is the raw-verbs escape hatch beneath the higher-level DOCA libraries (doca-rdma for RDMA workloads, doca-eth for Ethernet queues, doca-rmax for timing-precise media). The agent's first job, before anything else, is to confirm the user actually needs to drop down — most users do not, and the right answer is almost always "stay in the higher-level library". Open CAPABILITIES.md when the question is what does the verbs surface actually expose and where is the boundary with vanilla libibverbs; open TASKS.md when the user has already confirmed they need raw verbs and wants the configure / build / modify / run / test / debug workflow for them. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup first.

The decision this skill exists to gate

The single load-bearing decision every conversation that loads this skill must make, FIRST, before any code-level discussion:

1. Has the user confirmed that the matching higher-level DOCA library does not expose the semantic they need? If no — stop here, route back to the matching higher-level library: doca-rdma for general RDMA work (Send / Receive / Read / Write / Atomic / Sync-Event task patterns); doca-eth for Ethernet TX / RX queue patterns; doca-rmax for timing-precise media / data-over-IP streaming. The most common baseline-agent failure for raw verbs is recommending them unnecessarily because the user said the word "verbs" or "QP" without checking whether the higher-level surface already covers their case.
2. Is the semantic the user needs a specific verb / opcode / work-request flag / QP attribute / SRQ option that the matching higher-level library genuinely does not expose? Examples: a specific raw WR flag the doca_rdma_task_* abstractions do not surface; custom completion-queue handling beyond what the DOCA progress engine exposes; an esoteric QP attribute (path MTU, PSN tuning, ECE attributes); explicit SRQ control; congestion- control group (doca_verbs_cc_group_*) attachment to QPs; Address-Handle attribute tuning (DGID / DLID / SL / SGID index / hop limit / traffic class / UDP source port). If yes — this skill is in scope.
3. Is the user porting existing libibverbs code into the DOCA Core model? This skill is in scope, AND the agent must teach the porting path (replace libibverbs handles with doca_verbs_* handles, integrate with the DOCA Core lifecycle through doca_verbs_context_create, drive completions via the DOCA progress engine instead of polling CQ directly) rather than recommend a mechanical 1:1 textual replacement.

If none of (1)-(3) apply, the answer to "should I use doca-verbs?" is no. Route the user back to the matching higher-level DOCA library. This is by design: a correctly-loaded raw-verbs skill that talks the user out of raw verbs is doing its job.

Example questions this skill answers well

The CLASSES of raw-verbs questions this skill is built to answer, each with one worked example. The agent should treat the class as the load-bearing piece — the worked example is a single instance.

• "Should I drop to doca-verbs for this?" — worked example: "I want to set a specific raw work-request flag and the doca_rdma_task_* abstraction does not expose it". Answered by the path-selection rule in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes higher-level-vs-doca-verbs table + the climb back up step in TASKS.md ## configure.
• "How is doca-verbs different from libibverbs?" — worked example: "I have existing ibv_* code; can I just keep using it and call doca_* next to it?". Answered by the libibverbs-vs-doca-verbs boundary rule in CAPABILITIES.md ## Safety policy
  • the porting workflow in TASKS.md ## modify.
• "Is this raw verb / opcode / QP option / SRQ feature supported on my device + DOCA version?" — worked example: "does this device advertise the QP feature my raw WR needs". Answered by the capability-query rule (doca_verbs_query_device + the doca_verbs_device_attr_get_* family) in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes
  • the discovery step in TASKS.md ## configure.
• "I'm porting libibverbs code into the DOCA Core model — what does the agent walk me through?" — worked example: "I have a small libibverbs sender/receiver that uses IBV_SEND_INLINE on a custom QP attribute, and I want it to live inside a DOCA Core context". Answered by the porting overlay in TASKS.md ## modify + CAPABILITIES.md ## Safety policy no-mixing rule.
• "What does this DOCA_ERROR_* from a raw-verbs call mean?" — worked example: "DOCA_ERROR_IO_FAILED from a WR submission — what do I look at?". Answered by the verbs overlay on the cross-library taxonomy in CAPABILITIES.md ## Error taxonomy (which sends the agent to inspect the completion-queue entry, not the submit return value) + the layered ladder in TASKS.md ## debug.
• "When do I climb back up from doca-verbs to the matching higher-level library?" — worked example: "my raw-verbs prototype works; do I keep it or refactor onto doca-rdma?". Answered by the climb-back rule in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes (raw verbs is a targeted surface, not a default; once the specific need is covered, the higher-level surface is the long-term home).

Audience

This skill serves external developers building applications that consume the DOCA Verbs library — i.e., users whose code calls doca_verbs_* (directly in C/C++, or through FFI/bindings from another language) for raw QP / CQ / PD / MR / SRQ / Address-Handle / Ethernet-SQ / Ethernet-RQ control inside a DOCA Core context. It is not for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA Verbs itself, and it is not the right entry point for general DOCA RDMA / Eth / RMAX work — that belongs in the matching higher-level library skill.

Language scope

DOCA Verbs ships as a C library with pkg-config module name doca-verbs. The public headers live under the installed DOCA infrastructure tree ($(pkg-config --variable=includedir doca-common) doca_verbs.h and the adjacent doca_verbs_*.h family); per the headers-win-over-docs rule in doca-version, the headers on the user's install are the authoritative truth for the live symbol surface. C and C++ consumers are the canonical case; the worked examples in TASKS.md assume that path. Other-language consumers (Rust, Go, Python, …) consume the same *.so through FFI or language-specific bindings; the skill's contribution in that case is to keep the drop-down decision, libibverbs boundary, cap-query rule, lifecycle in verbs terms, and error-handling rule language-neutral, and to route the agent to the public C ABI as the authoritative surface that any wrapper will eventually call.

When to load this skill

Load this skill ONLY after the user (or the agent on the user's behalf) has confirmed the matching higher-level DOCA library does not expose the semantic they need. Concretely:

• The user explicitly asks "do I need to drop to doca-verbs for this?" — load this skill to answer, but expect the answer to be "no, stay in the higher-level library" unless the user can name the specific verb / opcode / option the higher-level library does not surface.
• The user wants a specific raw WR flag, raw QP option, SRQ feature, custom CQ-handling pattern, or congestion-control group attachment that the higher-level library does not expose.
• The user is porting existing libibverbs code into the DOCA Core model and needs the integration path (lifecycle, progress engine, no-mixing rule).
• A DOCA_ERROR_* returned from a doca_verbs_* call needs diagnosis — including the IO_FAILED case where the answer lives on the completion-queue entry, not the submit return.
• Designing or extending non-C bindings (Rust, Go, Python, …) that wrap the verbs C ABI — for the boundary, lifecycle, and cap-query rules the wrapper must honor.

Do not load this skill for: general DOCA RDMA work (use doca-rdma); general DOCA Ethernet queueing (use doca-eth); timing-precise media / data-over-IP streaming (use doca-rmax); use cases a different higher-level DOCA library covers (doca-flow for steering, the storage-transport library for NVMe-oF — routed via doca-public-knowledge-map); install of DOCA itself (use doca-setup); or general DOCA orientation (use doca-public-knowledge-map).

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. The body keeps only the orientation needed to pick the right next file. The substantive raw-verbs material lives in two companion files:

• CAPABILITIES.md — what doca-verbs can express on this version: the higher-level-library-vs-doca-verbs selection table, the libibverbs-vs-doca-verbs boundary, the verbs object model (doca_verbs_context + QP / CQ / PD / MR / SRQ / Address-Handle / Completion-Channel / Ethernet-SQ / Ethernet-RQ / CC-group) inside DOCA Core, the capability-query surface (doca_verbs_query_device + doca_verbs_device_attr_get_*), the raw-verbs error taxonomy (mapped onto the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* set, with the IO_FAILED → completion-queue-entry overlay), the observability surface (DOCA progress engine vs manual CQ polling vs comp-channel event delivery), and the safety policy that gates the no-mixing-with-libibverbs rule.
• TASKS.md — step-by-step workflows for the six in-scope verbs: configure, build, modify, run, test, debug. Plus a Deferred task verbs block that points out-of-scope questions at the right next skill. Every workflow assumes the drop-down decision in this SKILL.md has already been made; the ## configure step always begins by re-confirming it.

The skill assumes a host or BlueField where DOCA is already installed at the standard location and the user has the privileges their public install profile expects (the RDMA stack on host with proper module loads, same as doca-rdma). It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through doca-setup.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

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

• Pre-written DOCA Verbs application source code, in any language. The verified verbs source code is the shipped C samples on the user's install (path discoverable via ls /opt/mellanox/doca/samples/); the agent's job is to route the user to those files and prescribe a minimum-diff modification on them via the universal modify-a-sample workflow in doca-programming-guide, layered with the verbs-specific overrides in TASKS.md ## modify.
• Standalone build manifests (meson.build, CMakeLists.txt, Cargo.toml, …) parked inside the skill. The agent constructs the build manifest in the user's project directory against the user's installed DOCA, where pkg-config --modversion doca-verbs is the source of truth.
• A samples/, bindings/, or reference/ subtree of any kind. A mock or incomplete artifact in this skill's tree, even one labeled "reference", is misleading: users will read it as buildable.
• A migration script from libibverbs to doca-verbs. The porting path is judgment, not a mechanical textual replacement — see TASKS.md ## modify for why.

Loading order

1. Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is in scope — i.e., to walk the drop-down decision above.
2. For the higher-level-library-vs-doca-verbs split, the libibverbs-vs-doca-verbs boundary, the verbs object model, capability discovery, error taxonomy, observability, and safety policy, see CAPABILITIES.md.
3. For step-by-step workflows — configure, build, modify, run, test, debug — see TASKS.md.

Both companion files cross-link to each other, the matching higher-level libraries (doca-rdma, doca-eth, doca-rmax) as the climb-back homes, doca-common for the foundation primitives every verbs context rests on (doca_dev / doca_pe / doca_ctx), doca-version for the canonical version-handling rules, and doca-public-knowledge-map whenever the right answer is "look it up in the public docs or the installed package layout" rather than "verbs-specific guidance".

Related skills

• doca-rdma — the canonical higher-level DOCA RDMA library and the home this skill routes most RDMA users back to. Every conversation that loads doca-verbs for an RDMA-class question should also have doca-rdma loaded so the climb-back-up answer is immediate when the raw-verbs need turns out to be coverable there.
• doca-eth — the canonical higher-level DOCA Ethernet queue library. doca-verbs also exposes Ethernet-side SQ / RQ verbs (doca_verbs_eth_sq_*, doca_verbs_eth_rq_*); when the user has confirmed the higher-level doca-eth does not expose the option they need (e.g., explicit TS-source-type tuning, plane-index pinning, multi-pkt-send-WQE), this skill takes over.
• doca-rmax — the canonical higher-level DOCA Rivermax library for timing-precise media. Most Rivermax cases should stay in doca-rmax; raw verbs is the escape hatch for the rare media use case where the user needs a verb the Rivermax integration does not expose.
• doca-common — the foundation library every DOCA context (including doca_verbs_context) rests on. The doca_dev / doca_pe / doca_ctx primitives, the capability-query rule against the active doca_devinfo, and the lifecycle are owned there; this skill layers verbs-specific patterns on top.
• doca-public-knowledge-map — the routing table for every public DOCA documentation source and the on-disk layout of an installed DOCA package. The DOCA Verbs public guide is listed there; this skill does not duplicate the URL.
• doca-setup — env preparation, install verification, and the I have no install yet path with the public NGC DOCA container. This skill assumes its preconditions are satisfied.
• doca-version — canonical DOCA version-handling rules. This skill's ## Version compatibility cross-links the four-way match rule (with doca-verbs.pc joining the match set) and the cap-query-is-runtime-authority rule.
• doca-structured-tools-contract — the bundle's structured-tools precedence rule (detect / prefer / fall back / report). The Command appendix in TASKS.md honors this contract.
• doca-programming-guide — general DOCA programming patterns shared by every library: the canonical pkg-config + meson build pattern, the universal modify-a-shipped-sample first-app workflow, the universal lifecycle, the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy, and the program-side debug order. This skill layers raw-verbs specifics on top.
• doca-debug — the cross-cutting debug ladder (install / version / build / link / runtime / program / driver). Raw-verbs-specific debug (completion-entry inspection, no-mixing-with-libibverbs, lifecycle in verbs terms) overlays on top of that ladder.
• doca-hardware-safety — the cross-cutting hardware-safety meta-policy this skill's ## Safety policy overlays.