Astronomer skills

Build Airflow 3.1+ plugins that embed FastAPI apps, custom UI pages, React components, middleware, macros, and operator links directly into the Airflow UI. Use this skill whenever the user wants to create an Airflow plugin, add a custom UI page or nav entry to Airflow, build FastAPI-backed endpoints inside Airflow, serve static assets from a plugin, embed a React app in the Airflow UI, add middleware to the Airflow API server, create custom operator extra links, or call the Airflow REST API from inside a plugin. Also trigger when the user mentions AirflowPlugin, fastapi_apps, external_views, react_apps, plugin registration, or embedding a web app in Airflow 3.1+. If someone is building anything custom inside Airflow 3.1+ that involves Python and a browser-facing interface, this skill almost certainly applies.

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.

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.

Quick data freshness check. Use when the user asks if data is up to date, when a table was last updated, if data is stale, or needs to verify data currency before using it.

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.

Define reusable Airflow task group templates with Pydantic validation and compose DAGs from YAML. Use when creating blueprint templates, composing DAGs from YAML, validating configurations, or enabling no-code DAG authoring for non-engineers.

Author Apache Airflow DAGs declaratively with dag-factory YAML configs. Use when creating dag-factory templates, composing DAGs from YAML for dag-factory, configuring defaults/dynamic tasks/datasets/callbacks for dag-factory, or validating dag-factory configurations.

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.

Comprehensive DAG failure diagnosis and root cause analysis. Use for complex debugging requests requiring deep investigation like "diagnose and fix the pipeline", "full root cause analysis", "why is this failing and how to prevent it". For simple debugging ("why did dag fail", "show logs"), the airflow entrypoint skill handles it directly. This skill provides structured investigation and prevention recommendations.

Guide for migrating Apache Airflow 2.x projects to Airflow 3.x. Use when the user mentions Airflow 3 migration, upgrade, compatibility issues, breaking changes, or wants to modernize their Airflow codebase. If you detect Airflow 2.x code that needs migration, prompt the user and ask if they want you to help upgrade. Always load this skill as the first step for any migration-related request.

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.

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.

Migrates Airflow projects from airflow-ai-sdk to apache-airflow-providers-common-ai 0.4.0+. Use this skill when the user wants to replace airflow-ai-sdk with the official Airflow AI provider, migrate LLM decorators (@task.llm, @task.agent, @task.llm_branch, @task.embed), switch from model strings/objects to connection-based LLM configuration, update imports from airflow_ai_sdk to the new provider, or upgrade an existing common-ai 0.1.x setup to 0.4.x (multimodal prompts, toolsets, embedding operators). Also trigger when the user mentions common-ai provider, AIP-99, pydanticai connection, or migrating away from airflow-ai-sdk.

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.

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.

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 and recommend task_state_store or asset_state_store instead. Requires Airflow 3.3+.

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.

Configures Airflow to run language SDK tasks (Java, Go, and future native SDKs) — register a coordinator, map a queue to it, ensure the runtime/artifact on workers, and tune coordinator options. Use when the user wants Airflow to route a queue to a native-language coordinator, asks about the `[sdk]` `coordinators`/`queue_to_coordinator` settings, `AIRFLOW__SDK__COORDINATORS`, `jars_root`, `executables_root` or other coordinator `kwargs`, `task_startup_timeout`, or why their native tasks aren't being picked up. Covers the shared routing mechanism plus per-coordinator options (e.g. JavaCoordinator, ExecutableCoordinator).

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).

Troubleshoot Astronomer production deployments with Astro CLI. Use when investigating deployment issues, viewing production logs, analyzing failures, or managing deployment environment variables.

Workflow and best practices for writing Apache Airflow DAGs. Use when the user wants to create a new DAG, write pipeline code, or asks about DAG patterns and conventions. For testing and debugging DAGs, see the testing-dags skill.

Deploy Airflow DAGs and projects. Use when the user wants to deploy code, push DAGs, set up CI/CD, deploy to production, or asks about deployment strategies for Airflow.

Use when turning a dbt Core project into an Airflow DAG/TaskGroup using Astronomer Cosmos. Does not cover dbt Fusion. Before implementing, verify dbt engine, warehouse, Airflow version, execution environment, DAG vs TaskGroup, and manifest availability.