DOCA BlueField-4 (BF4) deployment

Examples

• "I have a BlueField-4 and a BMC — how do I bring Grace up?" — BMC-driven day-1, not the BF3 RShim/BFB path. Do not invent credentials or skip media detach.
• "PLDM update finished but the NIC firmware did not move." — treat it as a firmware-Task / activation failure, not a second burn by default.

BlueField-3 or any other generation is not this skill. Name doca-bf3-deployment and stop; do not read further or run commands.

Preparing a BlueField-4 host (answer from here)

1. Platform: confirm it is BlueField-4 and that the BMC is reachable out of band; compare the Redfish firmware inventory with the release notes' targets.
2. Version alignment: run the doca-version four-source chain on the host. Fixing any mismatch changes hardware state and follows doca-hardware-safety.
3. Safest first smoke test: read-only doca_caps --list-devs, then one shipped sample per doca-bare-metal-deployment. No firmware, mode or reset change before that is green.
4. Say it in the answer: every mutating step (PLDM firmware burn, ISO reflash, power cycle, BMC reset) is routed through doca-hardware-safety: pre-flight inventory, out-of-band access, maintenance window, rollback, then apply and verify.

Instructions

Follow Loading order below. Open the tasks companion for BMC bring-up and recover. Open the capabilities companion for the three install methods and the BF4 safety overlay. Do not open every companion file.

⚠️ WARNING — irreversible hardware operations. This skill guides operators through potentially destructive, irreversible BlueField-4 hardware operations: PLDM firmware burns, ISO reflashes, power cycles, and BMC factory resets. These can brick firmware, corrupt boot media, or cause production outages. Do not proceed without a maintenance window and a tested rollback plan. Every mutating step is governed by doca-hardware-safety, which MUST be loaded alongside this skill before any destructive action.

Before executing any mutating step — PLDM firmware burn, ISO reflash, power cycle, or BMC factory reset — the agent MUST show the exact command and its blast radius (which device, what becomes unavailable, whether it is reversible) and obtain the user's explicit confirmation for that specific action. Never chain destructive steps or run them speculatively as a side effect of another task.

Where to start: This skill is the bundle's deliberate in-bundle home for day-1 platform bring-up of a BlueField-4 DPU via the BMC — getting a powered-but-bare BF4 to "Grace OS installed, firmware at the target level, ready to deploy a workload." It is the upstream of the two application-deployment skills (doca-container-deployment and doca-bare-metal-deployment): those skills assume a working BlueField; this skill is how the BlueField-4 GETS to working. If the user has a fresh BF4 and wants to install the OS or update firmware, open the tasks companion and start at ## configure. If the question is what bring-up methods even exist and what is the contract for each, start at the capabilities companion.

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.

Scope note — BF4 day-1 is in scope by directive. The bundle's AGENTS.md ## Non-goals item 7 lists the BlueField BSP / BFB / RShim / TMFIFO layer and the BlueField BMC software as externally-productized. BlueField-4 day-1 bring-up via the BMC is carved into scope for this skill by directive because day-1 has no other home in the bundle. The carve-out is narrow: this skill teaches the documented BMC-driven install and firmware-update FLOWS (the CLASS), routing every mutating step through doca-hardware-safety for the change-application meta-policy. It does NOT redefine that meta-policy, and it does NOT cover BF3 (route to doca-bf3-deployment), application launch, or library APIs.

When to load this skill

Load this skill when the user is doing hands-on day-1 bring-up of a BlueField-4 via the BMC, or asking a cross-cutting BF4-bring-up question that is not specific to a later application-deployment step. Concretely:

• Installing the BlueField/DOCA bundle ISO onto the DPU (Grace) for the first time, and choosing between the three documented install methods — UEFI HTTP Boot (recommended), PXE Boot, or Redfish Virtual Media.
• Running the PLDM firmware-update flow across the BMC / NIC firmware / SBIOS / ERoT components: pushing the .fwpkg bundle through the Redfish UpdateService multipart endpoint, monitoring the returned Task, verifying pending images with pldmtool, and activating with a power cycle.
• Installing a Grace Ubuntu image (with optional cloud-init via a CIDATA-labelled config ISO) through Redfish Virtual Media, with either local hosting on the BMC eMMC or remote hosting on an HTTPS server.
• Reaching the DPU's OOB serial console (BMC SSH plus obmc-console-client) to watch the installer or UEFI menus.
• Diagnosing a bring-up that is misbehaving — the ISO will not boot, virtual media will not attach, a firmware Task hangs or reports an Exception, a pending image never activates, cloud-init is ignored, or the DPU is stuck in a boot loop because media was never detached.
• Cross-cutting questions: "HTTP Boot or Redfish Virtual Media — which do I use, and when do I actually need PXE?", "how do I know the firmware update actually took effect?", "the ISO landed but the NIC firmware update sub-step seems to have failed — what now?".

Do not load this skill for BF3 bring-up (route to doca-bf3-deployment); for running an application on an already-working BlueField (route to doca-container-deployment or doca-bare-metal-deployment); for env preparation on the installed Grace OS such as hugepages / pkg-config / devlink (use doca-setup); for the cross-cutting hardware-change meta-policy (route to doca-hardware-safety); or for fleet-scale orchestrated provisioning (route via doca-public-knowledge-map).

What this skill provides

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

• the capabilities companion — the BF4 day-1 bring-up contract: the three OS install methods (UEFI HTTP Boot, PXE Boot, Redfish Virtual Media) and the Grace-Ubuntu-plus-cloud-init Virtual Media path; the PLDM firmware-update surface across BMC / NIC firmware / SBIOS / ERoT; the version-compatibility overlay on doca-version (the install and firmware targets come from the public release notes, never from memory); the bring-up error taxonomy (boot-source -> virtual-media-attach -> firmware-Task -> activation -> cloud-init -> boot-loop); the observability surface (the OOB console, the Redfish Task resource, the Redfish FirmwareInventory, pldmtool GetFwParams, and the installed-build check cat /etc/mlnx-release); and the safety policy (an overlay on doca-hardware-safety: every PLDM burn / ISO reflash / power cycle / BMC factory reset is a MUTATING hardware op; never print a real password; always detach virtual media to avoid boot loops; only public hosts for any NVIDIA URL).
• the tasks companion — step-by-step workflows for the in-scope bring-up verbs: configure, build (routing stub), modify (routing stub), run (the three install methods plus the PLDM firmware-update flow plus the Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path, as ### sub-anchors), test (the post-install / post-update verification sweep), debug (the layered bring-up diagnosis), and the Deferred task verbs block routing BF3 / application-launch / library-API / env-prep / hardware-meta-policy / fleet questions out to their owning skills.

The skill assumes a BlueField-4 target where:

• the BMC is reachable out-of-band and the operator has BMC credentials ({bmc-user} / {bmc-password}) they supply — never invented here,
• the bundle ISO (and any Grace Ubuntu image / cloud-init config ISO) is downloaded from the public NVIDIA download surface and hosted at {iso-uri},
• the operator has read the target firmware and OS versions from the public BlueField/DOCA release notes.

It does not cover installing DOCA tooling on the host — that path goes through doca-setup — and it does not cover running a workload once Grace is up — those paths go through the two application-deployment skills.

Loading order

1. Read this skill first to confirm the user's question is in scope (BF4 day-1 bring-up via the BMC; NOT BF3, NOT application launch, NOT a library-API question, NOT the hardware-change meta-policy itself).
2. For the bring-up contract (the three install methods, the Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path, the PLDM firmware-update surface, the version overlay, the bring-up error taxonomy, the observability surface, and the BF4 safety overlay), see the capabilities companion.
3. For step-by-step workflows — configure, build (routing stub), modify (routing stub), run (with the three install methods, the PLDM flow, and the Grace-Ubuntu cloud-init path as ### sub-anchors), test, debug, plus the Deferred task verbs block — see the tasks companion.
4. Load doca-hardware-safety ALONGSIDE whenever the question reaches a mutating step (PLDM firmware burn, ISO reflash, power cycle, BMC factory reset).

Related skills

• doca-bf3-deployment — BF3 RShim/BFB day-1.
• doca-hardware-safety — PLDM, reflash, power cycle.
• doca-bare-metal-deployment — launch after Grace is up.
• doca-container-deployment — service container after Grace is up.
• doca-setup — env prep on the installed Grace OS.
• doca-version — four-way version match.
• doca-public-knowledge-map — public docs and release notes.