DOCA Comm Channel Admin Skill
Read-only inventory of DOCA communication-channel servers and connections between a host and DPU.
The evidence defines the binary as read-only and explicitly warns against inventing destructive flags, while requiring inspection before state changes through other paths and declaring no credential requirement. However, the workflow still involves sudo, resourcedump, driver reloads, RShim/BFB, and other high-impact external actions without explicit user-confirmation gates, a concrete least-privilege matrix, output redaction guidance, or actionable rollback. The license metadata also conflicts with the supplied NOASSERTION metadata, so points are deducted.
The files provide layered diagnosis, version checks, failure routing, and reinspection rules. However, SKILL.md, CAPABILITIES.md, and TASKS.md repeatedly describe nonexistent list/inspect/drain/restart surfaces; banners attempt to reinterpret them as conceptual actions, but the key workflow remains internally confusing. The benchmark reports a pass, yet its dataset is unavailable, and static review cannot verify commands or abnormal-input behavior, so only limited credit is awarded.
Trigger phrases, audience, prerequisites, platform sides, and out-of-scope cases are described clearly, including host versus BlueField visibility differences. Chinese-language support is not addressed, and core use depends on docs.nvidia.com plus a local DOCA/MFT environment without mainland-China reachability evidence or an offline alternative, so points are deducted.
The documentation is layered across SKILL.md, CAPABILITIES.md, and TASKS.md and includes loading order, boundaries, related skills, licensing, and some evaluation material. It lacks a stable changelog and clearly assigned maintenance responsibility; the SKILLCARD contains TBD signature/version fields, and license, path, and repository identity details conflict. Examples and troubleshooting FAQs are also limited, so points are deducted.
The core value—guiding inspection of comch server and connection tables—is clear, and the benchmark reports strong evaluation results. However, the report omits the underlying dataset, the documentation provides no directly reusable real command/output examples or parser, and the workflow relies on nonexistent subcommand concepts while deferring to local --help and external documentation. The skill therefore only partially demonstrates directly usable completion.
The committed benchmark report, evals.json, skill card, and explicit source/documentation pointers provide limited auditability. The evaluation dataset is unavailable, there is no committed test suite or CI execution evidence covering the skill's key paths, and the external sources are not included in the supplied material. Static review cannot independently reproduce the conclusions, so the score is capped at 5.
- The list/inspect workflow in TASKS.md conflicts with SKILL.md's statement that the binary has no such subcommands; rely on the installed binary's --help and actual output before execution.
- Actions involving driver reloads, BlueField mode changes, RShim/BFB, or program-side reconnects should require separate user confirmation and a recoverable plan; complete rollback procedures are not supplied.
- Do not automatically share full unredacted output in logs or tickets; it may expose PIDs, server names, PCIe addresses, and environment details.
- The benchmark reports PASS but the underlying dataset is unavailable, so it is not independently reproducible evidence.
What does this skill do, and when should you use it?
This skill guides an agent in using NVIDIA DOCA's doca_comm_channel_admin CLI to inspect communication-channel state visible from the current side. The tool scans comch-capable devices through resourcedump and prints SERVERS and CONNECTIONS tables. It performs one read-only inventory pass and does not reset, drain, or restart channels. It fits operators and developers who already have DOCA installed and need an external check of BlueField channel state.
Scans every doca_dev on the current host or BlueField Arm side, filters for comch-capable devices, and invokes MFT resourcedump for each device. It prints server and connection information including server name, PID, in-use/max values, and PCIe address. Each invocation performs one inventory pass; supported ARGP defaults include --help, --version, --log-level, --sdk-log-level, and --json.
- A BlueField operator needs to see which comch servers and connections are currently visible.
- A Comch developer sees CONNECTED in the program but needs an external channel-state cross-check.
- A platform team wants a side-effect-free channel snapshot before declaring a service ready.
- An administrator needs to distinguish a genuinely empty channel table from installation, binding, permission, discovery, or version issues.
What are this skill's strengths and limitations?
- Read-only and side-effect-free, making it useful for runtime checks and triage.
- Scans all comch-capable devices on the current side in one pass.
- Keeps inventory separate from program-side channel control.
- Cannot create, reset, drain, or restart channels.
- Requires the DOCA SDK, Comm Channel tooling, and MFT resourcedump.
- Ships as agent guidance without scripts, parsers, or sample output.
- An empty table may reflect channel state or environment problems rather than a broken installation.
How do you install this skill?
Install the skill with: npx skills add nvidia/skills --skill doca-comm-channel-admin --yes. The target Linux environment must already have the DOCA SDK and the Comm Channel tooling subpackage, with the command available under /opt/mellanox/doca/tools/. The source does not provide a DOCA SDK installation command.
How do you use this skill?
Ask an agent, for example, “List the comch servers and connections visible on this BlueField” or “Verify the admin tool sees the same channel as the program.” On a prepared host, run /opt/mellanox/doca/tools/doca_comm_channel_admin. The binary has no list, inspect, drain, or restart subcommands. Non-empty tables require a live host-to-DPU comch channel created through the doca-comch library.
How does this skill compare with similar options?
Compared with the doca-comch library, this skill provides external, read-only inventory of servers and connections, while doca-comch handles program-side channel lifecycle. Channel changes belong to doca-comch, doca-setup, doca-hardware-safety, or BFB/RShim rather than this binary.