---

license: Apache-2.0 name: doca-telemetry description: > Use this skill to read DOCA hardware-counter events from a doca_dev through the per-domain Telemetry reader libraries: doca_telemetry_pcc, _dpa, _diag, _adp_retx, _phy, and _pci. It covers capability checks, context creation, startup, and per-domain reads or samples. Trigger for implicit requests such as "read PCC counters from my BlueField app", "sample DPA counter exports", or "expose PHY, PCI, or DIAG counters from this doca_dev". This is the counter-reader surface, not a NetFlow, IPFIX, or local-socket collector. Route publishing and export to doca-telemetry-exporter; route deployed DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS), collectors, and plain stdout logging elsewhere. metadata: kind: library compatibility: > Requires DOCA SDK installed at /opt/mellanox/doca on Linux (Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or RHEL/SLES) with a BlueField DPU or ConnectX NIC attached. Reads the user's local install via pkg-config doca-telemetry and inspects /opt/mellanox/doca/{lib,include,samples,applications}.

DOCA Telemetry

Where to start: This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing hands-on hardware-counter-reader work — opening a per-domain doca_telemetry_<domain> context against a doca_dev and reading the latest hardware-counter snapshot for that domain. The library is the counter-READER half of DOCA telemetry; it is NOT a NetFlow / IPFIX collector and NOT a generic schema-event consumer (the bundle previously framed it that way and that framing was wrong — there is no NetFlow / IPFIX / local-socket transport surface in the public header). Open TASKS.md if the user wants to do something (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug); open CAPABILITIES.md when the question is which hardware-counter domains can this device read on this install (PCC, DPA, DIAG, ADP_RETX, PHY, PCI). If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup first. If the user is confused about whether they want this library (HW-counter reader on a doca_dev) or doca-telemetry-exporter (the publisher / export side, which is a separate library and publishes structured telemetry / labeled metrics / OTLP logs), read the reader-vs-exporter role split in CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes BEFORE configuring anything; mixing the two is the load-bearing first-app failure for this skill. If the user is asking about DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS) as deployed, route to doca-public-knowledge-map non-goals — DTS is out of scope for this bundle.

Audience

This skill serves external developers building applications that READ DOCA hardware counters from a doca_dev through one or more of the six per-domain DOCA Telemetry reader libraries (doca_telemetry_pcc / _dpa / _diag / _adp_retx / _phy / _pci) — i.e., users whose application code calls doca_telemetry_<domain>_* (directly in C/C++, or through FFI / bindings from another language) to open a per-domain context on a doca_dev, configure the per-domain sample window, and read the hardware-counter snapshot for that domain. It is not for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA Telemetry itself, and it is not for users writing the publishing / export side — that is doca-telemetry-exporter, a separate library and a separate skill.

Language scope. DOCA Telemetry's per-domain reader libraries ship as a C surface with pkg-config module name doca-telemetry. The shipped samples are written in C. C and C++ readers are the canonical case; the worked examples in TASKS.md assume that path. Other-language readers (Rust, Go, Python, …) consume the same *.so through FFI or language-specific bindings; the skill's contribution in that case is to keep the reader-vs-exporter distinction, the per- domain cap-query-first discipline, the per-domain DOCA Core lifecycle on the doca_dev, the sample-window discipline, and the error-taxonomy guidance language-neutral, and to route the agent to the public per-domain C ABI as the authoritative surface that any wrapper will eventually call.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on DOCA Telemetry hardware-counter-reader work, in any language. Concretely:

• Picking the right per-domain header for the counters the user wants (doca_telemetry_pcc.h for Programmable Congestion Control counters, _dpa.h for DPA counters, _diag.h for generic device diagnostic counters, _adp_retx.h for ADP retransmit counters, _phy.h for physical-layer counters, _pci.h for PCI / PCIe counters) and confirming the device supports it via the per-domain _cap_is_supported(devinfo) query — except _pci, which has no single _cap_is_supported and instead exposes per-feature caps like doca_telemetry_pci_cap_management_info_is_supported / _cap_perf_counters_1_is_supported.
• Opening a per-domain doca_telemetry_<domain> context on a doca_dev, walking the per-domain lifecycle (doca_telemetry_<domain>_create(dev) → per-domain setters → doca_telemetry_<domain>_start), configuring the per-domain sample window, and reading the hardware-counter snapshot for that domain. Note this is a per-domain _create/_start surface, not the generic doca_ctx_* progress-engine lifecycle.
• Reading the device + library capability surface before assuming a counter family is available: use doca_telemetry_<domain>_cap_is_supported only for pcc, dpa, diag, adp_retx, and phy; use the matching per-feature doca_telemetry_pci_cap_*_is_supported query for PCI.
• Handling per-domain DOCA_ERROR_* returns from a counter read (lifecycle vs. device-doesn't-support-this-domain vs. per-domain AGAIN-means-snapshot-not-ready vs. permission / driver) and the per-read status reported back to the application.
• Choosing between DOCA Telemetry (hardware-counter READER) and an adjacent option: doca-telemetry-exporter when the user actually wants to PUBLISH / EXPORT the counter values (OTLP / Prometheus / labeled metrics); doca-log when plain structured stdout logging is enough; a generic Prometheus / OpenTelemetry client library when the counter source is a non-DOCA program; the externally- productized DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS, out of scope) when the user wants a turnkey aggregator.
• Designing or extending non-C bindings (Rust, Go, Python, …) that wrap the per-domain reader C ABI — for the reader-vs- exporter distinction, the per-domain cap-query-first rule, the per-domain doca_dev lifecycle, the sample-window discipline, and the error rules the wrapper must honor.

Do not load this skill for general DOCA orientation, install of DOCA itself, the publishing / export side (doca-telemetry-exporter has its own skill), the externally-productized DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS — out of scope), or non-reader library questions. For those, 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 hardware-counter-reader material lives in two companion files:

• CAPABILITIES.md — what the per-domain readers can express on this install: the reader-vs-exporter role-split rule, the six shipped sub-libraries (doca_telemetry_pcc / _dpa / _diag / _adp_retx / _phy / _pci) and which counter family each one exposes, the per-domain DOCA Core lifecycle on a doca_dev, the domain-level capability query for PCC / DPA / DIAG / ADP_RETX / PHY and the per-feature capability queries for PCI, the reader error taxonomy (mapped onto the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* set, with the NOT_SUPPORTED-means-domain- not-exposed-on-this-device rule and the AGAIN-means- snapshot-not-ready rule called out explicitly), the observability surface (per-read status + per-domain cap- query snapshot at configure time), the safety policy that gates per-domain reads behind the cap-query result, and the path-selection rule against doca-telemetry-exporter, doca-log, and standalone Prometheus / OpenTelemetry / DTS.
• TASKS.md — step-by-step workflows for the six in-scope reader verbs: configure, build, modify, run, test, debug. Plus a Deferred task verbs block that points out-of-scope questions at the right next skill.

The skill assumes a host where DOCA is already installed at the standard location and a target BlueField DPU or ConnectX NIC is available. The TASKS.md ## run workflow opens the corresponding doca_dev and requires the per-domain cap-query to return DOCA_SUCCESS. It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through doca-setup — and it does not cover writing the publishing / export side, which is doca-telemetry-exporter.

Loading order

1. Read this SKILL.md first to confirm the user's question is in scope (specifically, that the user wants to READ a per-domain hardware counter via the per-domain reader API on a doca_dev — not PUBLISH counters, which is doca-telemetry-exporter; not deploy DTS, which is out of scope; and not stand up a NetFlow / IPFIX collector, which this library does not expose a surface for).
2. For the reader-vs-exporter rule, the six per-domain sub-libraries, the per-domain DOCA Core lifecycle on a doca_dev, the per-domain capability query, the error taxonomy (including the NOT_SUPPORTED-means-domain- not-exposed-on-this-device rule and the AGAIN-means- snapshot-not-ready rule), observability, the safety policy, and the path-selection rule, 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, 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 "reader-specific guidance".

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.