Skills DirectorySearch all skills ↗AI agent skill · by @NVIDIA
Doca Compress
Use this skill for hands-on DOCA Compress programming on a BlueField DPU, ConnectX NIC, or host with DOCA — enabling compress-deflate, decompress-deflate, decompress-lz4-stream, or decompress-lz4-block tasks on a doca_compress context (the hardware supports DEFLATE both directions plus LZ4 decompress; LZ4 encode is NOT supported), sizing source / destination doca_buf against the per-task cap query, setting mmap permissions, deciding offload vs CPU zlib / zstd, validating with a round-trip smoke, or debugging DOCA_ERROR_* from a Compress call. Trigger on phrasings like "offload this gzip", "decompress incoming network data", "compress task returns INVALID_VALUE on alloc_init", "submitted a task but no completion arrives", or "decompress LZ4 on the BlueField." Refuse and route elsewhere for non-DEFLATE / non-LZ4 algorithms (zstd / Snappy / brotli), LZ4 encode (route to a CPU LZ4 library), pure mmap-to-mmap copies (doca-dma), or DOCA Core lifecycle internals.
Archived 2026-10-23 · Source updated 2026-09-17 · License: Apache-2.0. Check the original repository for the latest version.
SKILL.md instructions
# DOCA Compress **Where to start:** This skill assumes DOCA is already installed and the user is doing **hands-on Compress work** (bulk DEFLATE compression or decompression) on a BlueField / ConnectX / host with DOCA. Open [`TASKS.md`](TASKS.md) if the user wants to *do* something (configure / build / modify / run / test / debug); open [`CAPABILITIES.md`](CAPABILITIES.md) when the question is *what can DOCA Compress express* on this version. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md) first. If the user is asking *"should I even offload this compression to the accelerator?"*, the size-threshold path-selection rule in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) is the first stop — bulk compress is the canonical fit, tiny one-shot is not. ## Example questions this skill answers well The CLASSES of DOCA Compress 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 offload this compression to DOCA Compress, or just zlib/zstd on the CPU?"** — worked example: *"I am compressing a 4 MiB log buffer before writing it to storage; is doca-compress worth the setup vs zlib on the CPU?"*. Answered by the size-threshold path-selection rule in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) + the *"when NOT to use doca-compress"* bullets in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Safety policy`](CAPABILITIES.md#safety-policy). - **"Does my device support the compress (or decompress) task I want, and how big a buffer can it move per submission?"** — worked example: *"is `doca_compress_task_compress_deflate` on this BlueField, and what is the max source size per task?"*. Answered by the per-task capability-query rule (`doca_compress_cap_task_compress_deflate_is_supported`, `_decompress_deflate_is_supported`, the matching `_get_max_buf_size` queries) in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) + the discovery step in [`TASKS.md ## configure`](TASKS.md#configure). - **"I just need to decompress incoming network data — is that a valid standalone use of doca-compress?"** — worked example: *"my client receives DEFLATE-compressed payloads and never produces any compressed output of its own"*. Answered by the *"decompression-only"* note in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) task-type table + the per-task configuration matrix in [`TASKS.md ## configure`](TASKS.md#configure) step 5. - **"What permissions does the source / destination mmap need?"** — worked example: *"my `doca_compress_task_compress_deflate` returns `DOCA_ERROR_NOT_PERMITTED`"*. Answered by the permission matrix in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Safety policy`](CAPABILITIES.md#safety-policy) + the mmap-set-permissions checklist in [`TASKS.md ## test`](TASKS.md#test). - **"Is this DOCA Compress API available on my installed DOCA version?"** — worked example: *"is `doca_compress_task_decompress_deflate` in the DOCA I have installed?"*. Answered by the version-compatibility overlay in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Version compatibility`](CAPABILITIES.md#version-compatibility), which cross-links the canonical detection chain in [`doca-version`](../../doca-version/SKILL.md) and adds the Compress-specific *"discover per-task support, do not assume"* bullets. - **"What does this `DOCA_ERROR_*` from a Compress call mean and which layer caused it?"** — worked example: *"`DOCA_ERROR_INVALID_VALUE` on `doca_compress_task_compress_deflate_alloc_init`"*. Answered by the Compress overlay on the cross-library taxonomy in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Error taxonomy`](CAPABILITIES.md#error-taxonomy) + the layered ladder in [`TASKS.md ## debug`](TASKS.md#debug) that escalates to [`doca-debug`](../../doca-debug/SKILL.md). ## Audience This skill serves **external developers building applications that consume the DOCA Compress library** — i.e., users whose code calls `doca_compress_*` (directly in C/C++, or through FFI/bindings from another language) to offload bulk DEFLATE compression or decompression onto a BlueField DPU or ConnectX accelerator. It is *not* for NVIDIA developers contributing to DOCA Compress itself. **Language scope.** DOCA Compress ships as a C library with `pkg-config` module name `doca-compress`. The shipped samples are written in C. C and C++ consumers are the canonical case and 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 lifecycle, capability-discovery, permission, error-taxonomy, and compress-vs-decompress guidance 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 when the user is doing hands-on DOCA Compress work, in any language. Concretely: - Initializing a `doca_compress` context on a `doca_dev` and configuring at least one task type (`doca_compress_task_compress_deflate` and/or `doca_compress_task_decompress_deflate`) before `doca_ctx_start()`. - Choosing between the **compress** task and the **decompress** task for the user's data flow. The two task types are independent: a consumer that only decompresses inbound DEFLATE payloads is a valid shape and does not need to enable the compress task. - Setting permissions on `doca_mmap` correctly for the source buffer (`DOCA_ACCESS_FLAG_LOCAL_READ_ONLY` at minimum) and the destination buffer (`DOCA_ACCESS_FLAG_LOCAL_READ_WRITE`). - Sizing the source buffer against the per-task `doca_compress_cap_task_*_get_max_buf_size(devinfo)` ceiling and the destination buffer against the worst-case output size the algorithm can produce on this input. - Checking which task types this device's accelerator advertises via `doca_compress_cap_task_compress_deflate_is_supported` and `doca_compress_cap_task_decompress_deflate_is_supported` against the active `doca_devinfo`. - Validating against a round-trip (compress → decompress, or decompress → compare against a known DEFLATE-encoded fixture) before pushing bulk input through the accelerator. - Deciding *whether to offload at all* — the size-threshold rule in [`CAPABILITIES.md ## Capabilities and modes`](CAPABILITIES.md#capabilities-and-modes) says doca-compress is the right answer only for bulk inputs (rule of thumb: ≥ a few KiB); below that, CPU compression beats the DMA-to-accelerator round-trip. - Debugging a `DOCA_ERROR_*` returned from a Compress call (lifecycle vs. buffer-sizing vs. permission vs. unsupported-task) and the task-completion event on the progress engine. - Designing or extending non-C bindings (Rust, Go, Python, …) that wrap the Compress C ABI — for the lifecycle, permission, capability, and compress-vs-decompress rules the wrapper must honor. Do **not** load this skill for general DOCA orientation, install of DOCA itself, non-DEFLATE compression libraries on CPU (use zlib / zstd / similar), or other DOCA libraries. For those, use [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md). ## What this skill provides This is a **thin loader**. The body keeps only the orientation needed to pick the right next file. The substantive Compress-specific material lives in two companion files: - `CAPABILITIES.md` — what DOCA Compress can express on this version: the four task types (compress-deflate, decompress-deflate, decompress-lz4-stream, and decompress-lz4-block, each independently capability-gated), the per-task capability-query surface (`doca_compress_cap_*` for task support and per-submission max buffer size), the Compress error taxonomy (mapped onto the cross-library `DOCA_ERROR_*` set), the observability surface (per-task completion events on the progress engine), the safety policy that gates source / destination mmap permission decisions, and the size-threshold path-selection rule (when to use doca-compress versus CPU compression or `doca-dma` for the no-compression copy case). - `TASKS.md` — step-by-step workflows for the six in-scope Compress verbs: `configure`, `build`, `modify`, `run`, `test`, `debug`. Plus a `## rollback` overlay (Compress-specific five-step teardown that drains in-flight tasks before `doca_ctx_stop`, unregisters mmap regions in reverse-register order, and re-verifies the device path with the round-trip smoke) and the 5-phase universal debug-loop instantiation appended to `## debug`. Plus a `Deferred task verbs` block that points out-of-scope questions at the right next skill. 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. It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md). ## 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 Compress application source code, in any language.** The verified Compress source code is the shipped C samples at `/opt/mellanox/doca/samples/doca_compress/`, plus the File Compression reference application linked from the public DOCA Compress guide. 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`](../../doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md), layered with the Compress-specific overrides in [`TASKS.md ## modify`](TASKS.md#modify). - **Pre-encoded DEFLATE fixtures for arbitrary inputs.** The skill tells the agent to use a *round-trip* validation (compress → decompress and compare to the original, or decompress a known DEFLATE blob produced by a published CPU encoder like `zlib`) as the known-good smoke; it does not ship a fixture bank of its own. - **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-compress` 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. ## Loading order 1. Read this `SKILL.md` first to confirm the user's question is in scope. 2. **For the Compress capability matrix, the compress / decompress task split (including decompression-only as a standalone shape), per-task capability-query rules, permission matrix, error taxonomy, observability, and safety / path-selection policy, see [CAPABILITIES.md](CAPABILITIES.md).** 3. **For step-by-step workflows — configure, build, modify, run, test, debug — see [TASKS.md](TASKS.md).** Both companion files cross-link to each other, [`doca-version`](../../doca-version/SKILL.md) for the canonical version-handling rules, and [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md) whenever the right answer is "look it up in the public docs or the installed package layout" rather than "Compress-specific guidance". ## Related skills - [`doca-public-knowledge-map`](../../doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md) — the routing table for every public DOCA documentation source and the on-disk layout of an installed DOCA package. The DOCA Compress page lives at `docs.nvidia.com/doca/sdk/DOCA-Compress/`; the File Compression reference application is the canonical worked example. - [`doca-setup`](../../doca-setup/SKILL.md) — 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`](../../doca-version/SKILL.md) — canonical DOCA version-handling rules. This skill's [`## Version compatibility`](CAPABILITIES.md#version-compatibility) cross-links the four-way match rule and adds only the Compress-specific *"discover per-task support + per-task max buffer size via cap query"* overlay. - [`doca-structured-tools-contract`](../../doca-structured-tools-contract/SKILL.md) — the bundle's structured-tools precedence rule (detect / prefer / fall back / report). The Command appendix in [TASKS.md](TASKS.md) honors this contract. - [`doca-programming-guide`](../../doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md) — 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 Compress specifics on top. - [`doca-dma`](../doca-dma/SKILL.md) — the right library when the data flow is a pure mmap-to-mmap copy with no compression required. This skill's path-selection rule routes to DMA when Compress is *not* the answer (e.g. the user only wants to move bytes, not encode them). - [`doca-debug`](../../doca-debug/SKILL.md) — the cross-cutting debug ladder (install / version / build / link / runtime / program / driver). Compress-specific debug (task-not-supported, source-buffer-too-large, destination-buffer-too-small) overlays on top of that ladder.