DOCA CollectX telemetry deployment

Examples

• "Stand up a CollectX collector that exports Prometheus." — collector runtime and exporters, not the reader/publisher library APIs and not the productized DTS container.
• "Collector is up but no provider rows appear." — gate provider support before rewriting the config.

Instructions

Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for collector bring-up and recover. Open the capabilities companion for the four-surface split and export-backend classes. Do not open every companion file.

Where to start: This skill is the bundle's home for operating a CollectX (clx) based telemetry collector — the collection framework that gathers provider counters into a schema and ships them out through one or more exporters. It is a deployment / operation skill, parallel to doca-bare-metal-deployment and doca-container-deployment: it owns the runtime shape of a telemetry collector on the operator's host or BlueField, not the library APIs the operator's own program calls. If the user wants to stand up, wire, or debug a collector and its exporters, open the tasks companion and start at ## configure. If the question is what surfaces does the collector even have and where is the scope boundary, start at the capabilities companion. If the user has not installed DOCA yet, route to doca-setup first.

The scope boundary (read this before anything else)

Routing means handing the request over, not answering it first. For anything the boundary below assigns to another skill, name the owner and stop. Naming the owner and then supplying the API calls, the instrumentation steps, or a code sketch anyway is the failure mode to avoid — a partial answer here is still an answer, and it defeats the routing it just performed. Do not walk the out-of-scope work, not even as a summary, an illustrative snippet, or a caveat.

CollectX (clx) is NVIDIA's telemetry collection framework. It underpins the DOCA Telemetry Service (DTS) — and DTS as-deployed (the productized, NGC-shipped / kubelet-started service container) is out of scope for this bundle per AGENTS.md Non-goal #7. This skill therefore draws a hard line and the agent MUST state it up front:

• In scope here: the CollectX collection mechanism as a class (providers / counters → schema → collector daemon → exporters), and the operator deploying / running / debugging a collector that they own, plus the operator's own usage of the two in-bundle telemetry libraries when those feed or consume the collector.
• Routed to the DOCA telemetry libraries: the hardware-counter reader API is owned by doca-telemetry; the application-side publisher API (emit counters / events from a DOCA program) is owned by doca-telemetry-exporter. This skill does not re-document either API surface.
• Routed to public docs (Non-goal #7): the productized DTS container — its packaged config schema, its built-in provider set, its kubelet manifest, its NGC image — is externally productized. Route every "operate the DTS service" question to the doca-public-knowledge-map externally-productized routing row and the public DTS guide it points at. The agent must NOT synthesize DTS config file names, provider knob names, or paths from memory.

The load-bearing first-touch failure this skill exists to prevent is collapsing these four surfaces into "DOCA telemetry": the clx collection mechanism, the doca-telemetry reader library, the doca-telemetry-exporter publisher library, and the productized DTS container are four different things with four different owners. The agent surfaces the decomposition BEFORE any config-level guidance.

Audience

This skill serves external operators standing up or running a CollectX-based telemetry collector on a host or BlueField they administer — people who already have:

• a DOCA install on the side they are collecting from (host x86 or BlueField Arm), verified per doca-setup ## test,
• a goal of getting counters off the box through a collector + exporter, not of writing the reader / publisher library code (that is the two libs/ skills above), and
• access to the public DOCA Telemetry and DTS guides on docs.nvidia.com as the authoritative source for any concrete provider name, schema field, flag, or config path.

It is not for:

• developers writing the hardware-counter reader API (route to doca-telemetry) or the publisher API (route to doca-telemetry-exporter),
• operators deploying / configuring the productized DTS container as a turnkey service — that is externally productized (Non-goal #7); route to the public DTS guide,
• fresh-no-install users — those belong on doca-setup ## no-install.

The skill teaches the agent the procedure and the scope boundary; it does not invent clx symbol names, provider names, schema field names, exporter flag names, or config paths from memory — those come from the live install and the public docs via doca-public-knowledge-map.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on deployment or operation of a CollectX-based telemetry collector and the question is about the collector runtime shape, not a library API. Concretely:

• Standing up a collector that gathers provider counters into a schema and ships them out — and deciding which export backend (Prometheus pull, Fluent Bit push, NetFlow, file / IPC) fits the downstream consumer.
• Wiring a provider / counter family into the collector and confirming the device actually exposes it before the config commits (the gate-before-commit rule, shared with doca-telemetry-utils).
• Turning on / shaping an exporter so the metrics actually leave the box, and confirming the downstream consumer receives them end-to-end (not just "the daemon is running").
• Diagnosing a collector that starts but produces no schema rows, or ships nothing downstream, or whose exporter endpoint is silent — walking the layered ladder rather than guessing.
• Recognising when the user is actually asking about the productized DTS container (route to public docs, Non-goal #7), the reader library (route to doca-telemetry), or the publisher library (route to doca-telemetry-exporter) instead of the collection mechanism this skill owns.

Do not load this skill for: the hardware-counter reader API (use doca-telemetry); the publisher API (use doca-telemetry-exporter); operating the productized DTS container (route via doca-public-knowledge-map Non-goal #7); installing DOCA or preparing the env (use doca-setup); or any hardware-state change (use doca-hardware-safety).

What this skill provides

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

• the capabilities companion — the collector deployment contract as a class: the four-surface decomposition (clx collection mechanism vs reader library vs publisher library vs productized DTS), the collection pipeline shape (providers / counters → schema → collector daemon → exporters), the export-backend surface (Prometheus pull, Fluent Bit push, NetFlow, file / IPC) at class level, the version overlay on doca-version, the error taxonomy (collector won't start → no provider rows → schema mismatch → exporter silent → downstream skew → transport), the observability surface, and the safety policy (gate provider support before commit; collector is read-only against the device; route any mutating step to doca-hardware-safety; do not invent clx names / paths).
• the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the deployment verbs: configure, build (routing stub), modify, run, test, debug, plus a Deferred task verbs block that routes out-of-scope questions (the two libraries, the productized DTS container, env prep, hardware-state change) to their owners.

The skill assumes a host or BlueField where DOCA is already installed and healthy (per doca-setup ## test) and the operator can run the collector and reach its exporter sinks. It does not cover installing DOCA — that path goes through doca-setup — and it does not cover the reader / publisher library APIs or the productized DTS container.

Loading order

1. Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope (operating a CollectX-based collector and its exporters — NOT the reader / publisher library APIs, NOT the productized DTS container).
2. For the four-surface decomposition, the collection pipeline shape, the export-backend class surface, the version overlay, the error taxonomy, the observability surface, and the safety policy, see the capabilities companion.
3. For step-by-step workflows — configure, build (routing stub), modify, run, test, debug, and the Deferred task verbs block — see the tasks companion.

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 "read the live config / public docs" rather than collector-specific guidance.

Related skills

• doca-telemetry — hardware-counter reader API.
• doca-telemetry-exporter — application-side publisher API.
• doca-telemetry-utils — schema / Data ID / support probe CLI.
• doca-setup — install and env preconditions.
• doca-version — four-way version match.
• doca-hardware-safety — any mutating hardware step.
• doca-bare-metal-deployment — collector launch on bare metal.
• doca-container-deployment — collector launch as a container.
• doca-public-knowledge-map — public telemetry / DTS routing.