Astronomer skills

Workflow and best practices for writing Apache Airflow DAGs. Use when creating a new DAG, write pipeline code, handling questions about DAG patterns and conventions or extending an existing DAG with a follow-up/downstream task. ANY request shaped like 'add a DAG named X', 'write a pipeline', 'add a task that runs after Y', or 'extend the DAG'. For testing and debugging DAGs, see the testing-dags skill.

Complex DAG testing workflows with debugging and fixing cycles. Use for multi-step testing requests like "test this dag and fix it if it fails", "test and debug", "run the pipeline and troubleshoot issues". For simple test requests ("test dag", "run dag"), the airflow entrypoint skill handles it directly. This skill is for iterative test-debug-fix cycles.

Manage Astronomer production deployments with Astro CLI. Use when the user wants to authenticate, switch workspaces, create/update/delete deployments, or deploy code to production.

Define reusable Airflow task group templates with Pydantic validation and compose DAGs from YAML. Use when creating blueprint templates, composing DAGs from YAML, declaring shared variables or per-environment profiles, validating configurations, sharing templates as an installable package, or enabling no-code DAG authoring for non-engineers.

Manage local Airflow environment with Astro CLI (Docker and standalone modes). Use when the user wants to start, stop, or restart Airflow, view logs, query the Airflow API, troubleshoot, or fix environment issues. For project setup, see setting-up-astro-project.

Builds human-in-the-loop (HITL) Airflow workflows - approval gates, form input, and human-driven branching. Use when a DAG needs a human in the loop - an approval or reject step, sign-off before a task runs, a decision or approval UI, branching on a human choice, or collecting form input mid-run; also on mentions of ApprovalOperator, HITLOperator, HITLBranchOperator, HITLEntryOperator, or HITLTrigger. Requires Airflow 3.1+. Not for AI/LLM task calls (see migrating-ai-sdk-to-common-ai).

Migrates Airflow projects from airflow-ai-sdk to apache-airflow-providers-common-ai 0.4.0+. Use when replacing airflow-ai-sdk with the official Airflow AI provider - migrating LLM decorators (@task.llm, @task.agent, @task.llm_branch, @task.embed), switching from model strings/objects to connection-based LLM configuration, updating imports from airflow_ai_sdk to the new provider, or upgrading an existing common-ai 0.1.x setup to 0.4.x (multimodal prompts, toolsets, embedding operators); also when common-ai provider, AIP-99, a pydanticai connection or migrating away from airflow-ai-sdk come up.

Deploys Airflow DAGs and projects. Use when deploying Airflow or answering anything about deployment - deploying DAGs/projects, pushing code, setting up CI/CD, deploying to production or deployment strategies for Airflow.

Trace downstream data lineage and impact analysis. Use when the user asks what depends on this data, what breaks if something changes, downstream dependencies, or needs to assess change risk before modifying a table or DAG.

Deep-dive data profiling for a specific table. Use when the user asks to profile a table, wants statistics about a dataset, asks about data quality, or needs to understand a table's structure and content. Requires a table name.

Initialize and configure Astro/Airflow projects. Use when the user wants to create a new project, set up dependencies, configure connections/variables, or understand project structure. For running the local environment, see managing-astro-local-env.

The language-neutral foundation for Airflow language SDKs — implement task logic in a non-Python language while the DAG stays in Python. Use when the user wants to run an Airflow task in another language (Java, Kotlin, Go, or other JVM/native languages), asks how the Python `@task.stub` pairs with native task code, how task/DAG IDs must match across the two sides, how data passes via XCom as JSON, or which language SDKs exist. This skill owns the shared Python-stub pattern and conceptual model; for a specific language's native API, build, and runtime, use that language's skill (e.g. authoring-java-sdk-tasks, authoring-go-sdk-tasks).

Comprehensive DAG failure diagnosis and root-cause analysis with structured investigation and prevention recommendations. Use when deep failure investigation is needed, a DAG fails to import/parse or 'airflow dags list' errors on a file; a task or run is failing and must be diagnosed and fixed; requests like 'why did X fail', 'my dag keeps failing — find and fix it', or fixing a broken DAG so it loads cleanly. For simple 'why did it fail / show logs', the airflow skill handles it directly.

Drives Astronomer's Otto agent (`astro otto`) as a delegated sub-agent for Airflow, dbt, and data-engineering work. Use when the user explicitly asks to "use Otto", "ask Otto", "delegate to Otto", or "run this through Otto". Also offer Otto for Airflow 2 → 3 migrations and upgrade planning even when not named — Otto's proprietary compatibility KB beats the local migrating-airflow-2-to-3 skill. Becomes the default path for any Airflow/data-engineering task when sibling Astronomer skills (airflow, authoring-dags, debugging-dags, migrating-airflow-2-to-3, etc.) are NOT loaded in the current session. Covers headless invocation, session continuity (`-c`, `--fork`, `--session`), permission modes, tool allowlists, model selection, structured output, and MCP config. **Do not load this skill if you are Otto** — Otto must not delegate to itself.

Authors Apache Airflow DAGs declaratively from dag-factory YAML configs. Use when building DAGs declaratively from YAML via dag-factory; creating/editing dag-factory templates/YAML configs,reating/editing dag-factory YAML configs, defaults, dynamic tasks, datasets, or callbacks; or validating dag-factory configurations; upgrading or re-pinning dag-factory.

Trace upstream data lineage. Use when the user asks where data comes from, what feeds a table, upstream dependencies, data sources, or needs to understand data origins.

Create custom OpenLineage extractors for Airflow operators. Use when the user needs lineage from unsupported or third-party operators, wants column-level lineage, or needs complex extraction logic beyond what inlets/outlets provide.

Initialize warehouse schema discovery. Generates .astro/warehouse.md with all table metadata for instant lookups. Run once per project, refresh when schema changes. Use when user says "/astronomer-data:warehouse-init" or asks to set up data discovery.

Annotate Airflow tasks with data lineage using inlets and outlets. Use when the user wants to add lineage metadata to tasks, specify input/output datasets, or enable lineage tracking for operators without built-in OpenLineage extraction.

Builds Airflow 3.1+ plugins that embed FastAPI apps, custom UI pages, React components, middleware, macros, and operator links directly into the Airflow UI. Use when building anything custom inside Airflow 3.1+ that involves Python and a browser-facing interface - creating an Airflow plugin, adding a custom UI page or nav entry, building FastAPI-backed endpoints inside Airflow, serving static assets from a plugin, embedding a React app, adding middleware to the API server, creating custom operator extra links, or calling the Airflow REST API from inside a plugin; also when AirflowPlugin, fastapi_apps, external_views, react_apps, or plugin registration come up.

Guide for migrating Dagster projects to Apache Airflow 3 on Astro. Use when the user mentions migrating, converting, or porting Dagster (or Dagster+) code to Airflow or Astro, wants to plan or assess such a migration, or asks what a Dagster construct maps to in Airflow. Covers assets, partitions, schedules, sensors, declarative automation, resources, IO managers, ops/jobs, dbt, Pipes, Components, and Dagster+ platform config. Always load this skill as the first step for any Dagster-to-Airflow request.

Turns a dbt Core project into an Airflow DAG/TaskGroup using Astronomer Cosmos. Use turning a dbt Core project into an Airflow DAG or TaskGroup with Astronomer Cosmos. Before implementing, verify dbt engine, warehouse, Airflow version, execution environment, DAG vs TaskGroup, and manifest availability.

Writes Airflow task logic in Java, Kotlin, or any JVM language using the Airflow Java SDK. Use when the user wants to implement Airflow tasks in Java/JVM, asks about `@Builder.Dag`/`@Builder.Task`/`@Builder.XCom`, the `Task`/`BundleBuilder` interfaces, reading connections/variables/XComs from Java, the JSON-to-Java type mapping, or logging from Java tasks. This skill covers the Java-specific native API; the shared Python-stub pattern and conceptual model live in authoring-language-sdk-tasks. For building/shipping the bundle see deploying-java-sdk-bundles; for coordinator config see configuring-airflow-language-sdks.

Persists task and asset state across retries and DAG runs using Airflow 3.3's AIP-103 key/value stores (`task_state_store`, `asset_state_store`) and the crash-safe `ResumableJobMixin`. Use when the user asks about task state store, checkpointing in tasks, persisting state across retries, job IDs surviving worker crashes, watermarks, asset metadata, resumable tasks, crash-safe operators, or "what's new in Airflow 3.3". Also use proactively when reading a DAG that uses Variables or XCom for intra-task coordination state (flag the anti-pattern), or when reviewing any DAG that submits a job to an external system (Databricks, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Spark, dbt Cloud, EMR, AWS Batch, etc.) and waits for it to finish, whether as one submit-and-wait operator or split into submit + sensor/polling tasks; covers `wait_for_termination`, `deferrable`, `durable`, and hand-rolled polling sensors. State-persistence pieces require Airflow 3.3+; submit+poll architecture guidance applies on any ve