HPC Foundations

Use this skill as the general HPC knowledge hub that sits below solver-specific skills and beside hpc-orchestration.

Start

1. Read references/index-map.md first for the knowledge graph and the shortest route to the right topic.
2. Read references/foundations-architecture-and-programming.md when the task starts from HPC concepts, system design, programming models, application development, or performance basics.
3. Read references/schedulers-and-execution.md when the task is about Slurm, PBS Pro, LSF, queue semantics, batch scripts, arrays, or accounting commands.
4. Read references/linux-and-os.md when the task is about Linux usage, login patterns, package management, glibc compatibility, or Linux versus Windows tradeoffs on clusters.
5. Read references/software-environments.md when the task is about Conda, containers, Singularity or Apptainer-style execution, or picking common HPC tools.
6. Read references/storage-network-cloud-and-admin.md when the task is about storage tiers, RDMA, hardware, cloud deployment, SSL, Hyper-V maintenance, or site-level administration topics.
7. Read references/source-catalog.md when a page-level lookup of the hpclib.com crawl is needed.
8. Read references/skillization-roadmap.md when splitting this index into narrower reusable skills.

Positioning

• Prefer this skill for orientation, taxonomy, and first-pass explanation.
• Prefer hpc-orchestration once the question becomes an execution workflow on a real cluster.
• Prefer solver-specific skills once the question becomes input-deck or application specific.

Guardrails

• Treat hpclib.com as a practical knowledge index, not as the final authority for production commands.
• Re-check scheduler flags, MPI launch syntax, package names, and admin procedures against official upstream documentation before applying them on a live cluster.
• Do not assume cluster policies, filesystem layouts, or security rules are portable across sites.