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The Networks skill teaches agents to work with gVPC networks and network services through datumctl network: create a network, attach workloads to it, give a workload a stable name and named ports for a load balancer, release addresses kept after an Instance is gone, and delete a network without surprising anyone. The skill ships in the datum-networking Claude Code plugin, alongside procedures for diagnosing a load balancer that isn’t serving and for creating networks, using the same diagnosis Datum’s own assistant runs.

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Install

Installing it also installs the datum-cloud base plugin, which runs Datum MCP. For other agents, copy the skill folder into your agent’s skills directory.
Once installed, the skill activates automatically when you ask an agent to work with networks on Datum.
The skill teaches the datumctl network commands, which come from a plugin that is not installed by default. Install it before an agent follows this skill, or every command it runs will fail:

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Capabilities

  • Create, list, describe, change and delete networks
  • Create network services for a workload and point a load balancer at them
  • Change what a network service selects, or its ports
  • List Instances’ network interfaces and release the ones kept after their Instance went away
  • Read why a network or a network service is not working, and who has to act
  • Preview every change before applying it
It also teaches the readings that trip up a naive agent: a new network with no locations is normal, a service with no ready Instances is a workload problem rather than a network one, and networks never carry IPv4 — including for a workload that asks for a public IPv4 address.

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How it relates to other Datum surfaces

  • Product docs: gVPC and gVPC operations — the human-facing reference
  • Datum MCP: Datum MCP — its network and vpc toolsets give an agent live access to networks during a session
  • Patch, Datum’s own assistant — a separate surface with read-only network tools of its own, entitled through the platform catalog. It answers questions about a network directly; this skill is for driving datumctl yourself
  • Application Load Balancer skill — for putting a network service on the internet

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View the full skill

The canonical SKILL.md lives in the datum-networking plugin in the datum-cloud/network-services-operator repo:

On GitHub

Browse the skill source, including frontmatter and full instructions.

Raw SKILL.md

Direct URL for agents that fetch skills by URL.
Last modified on October 30, 2026