doca-telemetry-utils

Imported from nvidia/skills (skills/doca-telemetry-utils/SKILL.md). Install upstream with npx skills add nvidia/skills --skill doca-telemetry-utils. Copyright stays with the author (Apache-2.0).

DOCA Telemetry Utils

Examples

• "Which diagnostic counters does this BlueField actually expose?" — this is in scope. Enumerate then probe; do not start a collector app here.
• "My exporter names port_rx_bytes but nothing shows up downstream." — translate name to Data ID and probe per-device support before changing the exporter.

Quick triage: the exporter ships, the collector sees nothing

1. doca_telemetry_utils get-counters: is the counter known to this release?
2. doca_telemetry_utils <counter>: print its property options.
3. doca_telemetry_utils <counter> <properties>: resolve the Data ID.
4. doca_telemetry_utils <device PCI> <counter> <properties>: "not supported" on this device means the exporter drops it silently; do not commit that counter.
5. doca_telemetry_utils <0x... Data ID>: reverse-resolve an ID captured on the wire.
6. Check host and BlueField release pairing with doca-version.
7. If every step resolves cleanly, hand off to doca-telemetry ## debug.

Quote the tool's output verbatim; never construct Data IDs by hand.

Instructions

Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for install / run / test. Open the capabilities companion for schema discovery and pairing with the telemetry libraries. Do not open every companion file.

Where to start: This is a tool skill for invoking doca_telemetry_utils — the documented host-side CLI that supports a DOCA Telemetry exporter / collector pipeline by discovering the counter schema, translating counter names ↔ Data IDs, and probing per-device counter support. Open the tasks companion and start at ## install for the host-side prerequisites and ## run for the three documented invocation classes (enumerate / name→ID / ID→name). Open the capabilities companion when the question is what does this tool actually discover about the telemetry schema, how does it pair with the developer-side doca-telemetry/SKILL.md and exporter libraries, how do I confirm a device supports a counter before committing an exporter config to it, or why does my exporter pipeline silently drop a metric.

How to use this skill. Read this file, then search the companion file for the ## <name> heading the question needs and read that whole section. Answer completely from it, quoting only its symbols and commands. Do not browse docs; use the entry points in doca-public-knowledge-map. Give environment checks as commands for the user's DOCA host. For out-of-scope requests, name the skill that owns them and stop.

This skill is the operator-side support tool for a DOCA Telemetry deployment. It is NOT the developer-side collector library (that is doca-telemetry/SKILL.md), NOT the developer-side publisher library (that is doca-telemetry-exporter — see doca-telemetry ## Related skills (doca-telemetry/SKILL.md#related-skills)), and NOT a DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS) deployment guide (route to doca-dts). Three separate surfaces; conflating them is the most common telemetry first-touch error.

Example questions this skill answers well

The CLASSES of doca_telemetry_utils questions this skill is built to answer, each with one worked example. The class is the load-bearing piece; the worked example is one instance.

• "My exporter says it's emitting port_rx_bytes but nothing shows up downstream — what did I get wrong?" — worked example: "my exporter config has a counter name string and my collector sees no events with that name". Answered by the name ↔ Data ID translation step in the capabilities companion
  • the per-device-support probe in the tasks companion: the exporter ships a Data ID, not a name; a name in the config that resolves to a Data ID the device does not support is silently dropped.
• "Which DOCA diagnostic counters does this BlueField actually expose?" — worked example: "enumerate the full counter schema for my BlueField-3 before I write the exporter config". Answered by the schema-discovery invocation class in the capabilities companion (doca_telemetry_utils get-counters lists every counter name the diagnostic-data surface knows about; pair with a per-device probe to confirm support).
• "I have a Data ID in a captured log — what counter was that?" — worked example: "a downstream consumer emitted Data ID: 0x1160000600030201 — translate it back so I can correlate against the public guide". Answered by the reverse-resolve invocation class in the capabilities companion
  • the ID-encodes-properties rule in the tasks companion (a Data ID carries the counter's property dimensions; the reverse-resolve reports them).
• "What property dimensions does this counter take and what values are valid?" — worked example: "I know the counter is pcie_link_write_stalled_time_* — what do node / pcie_index / depth mean and what values does the device accept?". Answered by the property-dimension table in the capabilities companion
  • the <name> invocation without arguments which prints the documented property options + units + unit-specific axes.
• "Is this counter supported on this device before I commit it to the exporter config?" — worked example: "validate that port_rx_bytes with node=1 is exposed on the BlueField at PCIe address X before I write the exporter config". Answered by the per-device-support probe (<device PCI> <name> [properties]) in the capabilities companion
  • the gate-before-commit rule in the tasks companion.
• "Is doca_telemetry_utils on my install, and is it paired with the matching doca-telemetry library version?" — worked example: "is the diagnostic- data counter set my exporter targets on this DOCA version?". Answered by the version-overlay in the capabilities companion, which redirects to the canonical doca-version/SKILL.md chain and adds the tool ↔ doca-telemetry library schema-version match rule.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is — or the agent needs to — invoke doca_telemetry_utils on a real host with DOCA installed, alongside an exporter / collector pipeline that needs schema discovery, per-device support validation, or Data ID translation. Concretely:

• Enumerating the full counter schema before writing a fresh DOCA Telemetry exporter config (get-counters).
• Validating that a chosen counter + property set resolves to a Data ID the target device actually supports, before committing the config.
• Reverse-resolving a Data ID captured from a downstream consumer back to a counter name + properties for correlation against the public guide.
• Debugging a "exporter ships, collector receives nothing" report (the canonical schema-mismatch / unsupported-counter failure mode).
• Producing a "validated counter set for this BlueField + this DOCA version" artifact as part of a structured exporter-config baseline.
• Migrating an exporter pipeline across DOCA versions and confirming each previously-supported counter still resolves cleanly on the new version.

Do not load this skill for general DOCA orientation, collector / exporter library programming, DTS deployment, or DOCA install. For those, route to doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md, doca-telemetry/SKILL.md, or doca-setup/SKILL.md.

What this skill provides

This is a thin loader. Substantive material lives in two companion files:

• the capabilities companion — what doca_telemetry_utils discovers + how it pairs with the developer-side surfaces: the three documented invocation classes (enumerate / name→ID / ID→name), the property- dimension model (counters carry property axes such as node, pcie_index, depth, plus per-unit axes), the optional per-device capability probe (<device PCI> <name> runs the resolved counter against the device), the operator-side support role (this is NOT the developer-side library; it exists to make exporter / collector setups honest), the version overlay (tool ↔ doca-telemetry library schema version pairing), the layered error taxonomy (install / parse / unknown-counter / unknown-data-id / property-out- of-range / device-not-supported / version / cross-cutting), the observability surface (stdout-only), and the safety policy (the tool is read-only; mistakes appear downstream as silent metric drops, not crashes).
• the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope task verbs: install (host-side DOCA + telemetry component prerequisites), configure (axis decisions: which invocation class, which device, which counter), build (route to install — the binary is shipped), modify (refuse — do not patch the binary; modify the invocation and the exporter / collector config that consumes the resolved Data IDs), run (the three documented invocations), test (round-trip a chosen counter through name → Data ID → per-device probe → exporter config → collector receipt), debug (walk the error taxonomy), use (the hand-off into the developer-side doca-telemetry collector / exporter pipeline), plus a Deferred task verbs block.

The skill assumes a host where DOCA is already installed with the telemetry component, a BlueField the operator is targeting is visible to DOCA, and the exporter / collector pipeline that consumes the resolved Data IDs is either being authored or has already been authored against the matching doca-telemetry/SKILL.md library version.

What this skill deliberately does not ship

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

• A verbatim counter inventory or Data ID table. The counter set evolves across DOCA versions and BlueField generations; an inventory pinned in this skill would silently rot. doca_telemetry_utils get-counters on the installed binary is the authoritative source.
• Pre-baked exporter / collector configs. Configs are install-, device-, and use-case-specific; a packaged config in this skill would mislead operators on a different setup.
• A DTS deployment recipe. DTS is a separate DOCA service with its own public guide; route via doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md. This skill resolves the counter names + IDs a DTS pipeline consumes; it does not configure DTS.
• Wrappers, parsers, or scripts in any language that consume the tool's output. The output is a simple text mapping; users who want to script against it should read the live guide and write the parser against their installed version.
• A samples/ or reference/ subtree. This is a thin loader for a shipped CLI; substantive material lives on the public page, in --help, and in doca-telemetry/SKILL.md.

Loading order

1. Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope (operator-side support tooling for a telemetry pipeline, not the developer-side library programming).
2. For the three invocation classes, the property-dimension model, the per-device support probe, the version overlay, the error taxonomy, the observability surface, and the safety policy, see the capabilities companion.
3. For the documented invocations and the discover → resolve → validate → consume workflow — install, configure, build, modify, run, test, debug, use — see the tasks companion.

Related skills

• doca-telemetry/SKILL.md — the developer-side collector library whose schema this tool helps the operator discover. Pair them in every exporter-pipeline triage session. The collector library skill teaches the collector-vs-exporter rule, the schema-must-match contract with the publisher, and the consumer- queue-full back-pressure rule; this tool's role is to make the schema half of that contract inspectable from the operator side. Conflating the library and the tool is the most common telemetry first-touch error.
• doca-public-knowledge-map/SKILL.md — routing to the public DOCA Telemetry guide and the DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS) page on docs.nvidia.com, plus the on-disk install layout for the tool.
• doca-version/SKILL.md — canonical DOCA version-handling rules. The ## Version compatibility section in the capabilities companion is a concise overlay that redirects here for the body and adds the tool ↔ doca-telemetry library schema-version pairing rule.
• 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 installed with the telemetry component, BlueField visible to DOCA).
• doca-debug/SKILL.md — the cross-cutting debug ladder. Telemetry-utils feeds the cross-cutting ladder by surfacing the counter schema + per-device support truth at the runtime layer; exporter-pipeline regressions often resolve at the schema layer before touching the collector / network path.
• doca-structured-tools-contract/SKILL.md — the bundle's detect → prefer → fall back → report contract for structured helper tools. The command appendix in the tasks companion honors this contract.
• doca-programming-guide/SKILL.md — general DOCA programming patterns shared by every library / tool surface, including the cross-library DOCA_ERROR_* taxonomy this tool's host-side error layer overlays on top of when downstream collector / exporter code surfaces a related error.