DOCA bare-metal deployment

DOCA bare-metal deployment

Where to start: This skill is the bundle's home for operating a DOCA-linked application binary directly on hardware — no container, no kubelet, no static-pod manifest. It is the parallel of doca-container-deployment for the non-container path. If the user has a DOCA-linked binary they built (per the canonical workflow in doca-programming-guide) and they want to know how to actually run it on the host or on the BlueField Arm cores correctly, open TASKS.md and start at ## configure. If the question is what shape does the bare-metal runtime even have and what is the deployment contract, start at CAPABILITIES.md. If the user is not yet sure whether their target system shape is the container path or the bare-metal path, route the recognition step to doca-setup first; only return here once bare-metal is the confirmed shape.

Audience

This skill serves external DOCA developers and operators who have a DOCA-linked application binary they built and want to run it directly on hardware — i.e., people who already have:

• a DOCA-linked application binary they built per doca-programming-guide ## build,
• a real BlueField NIC and a host that talks to it (the host x86 path — DOCA host install on the host talks to the BlueField NIC over PCIe), OR a BlueField with a console or SSH to the Arm side (the BlueField Arm bare-metal path — DOCA installed on the DPU Arm cores; the binary runs there directly), and
• a desire to RUN that binary directly on the hardware, not inside a kubelet-standalone-managed container.

It is not for:

• kernel-driver developers contributing to mlx5_* or the