orchestra-skills

Agent skills and reference docs for diagnosing, fixing, and triaging Orchestra data pipelines with an AI assistant. The workflows assume Orchestra's cloud MCP server is connected so the agent can list runs, fetch logs and artifacts, and retry pipelines from your workspace.

This repo is a plugin marketplace: the single orchestra plugin bundles every skill and installs into both Claude Code and Cursor from the manifests at the repo root (see Install).

What is in this repo

Skills

Each skill auto-triggers when your prompt matches it — just describe the problem in natural language. The "Try saying" column shows a prompt that activates each one.

| Skill | What it does | Try saying | |-------|--------------|------------| | identify-pipeline-error | Entry point for fixing anything. Gets the pipeline run and task runs, identifies which task broke and why, then routes to the right fixer (or handles non-code causes itself). | _"Fix my pipeline"_ / _"what's broken?"_ — or paste a run URL, UUID, or error | | fix-pipeline-dbt-task | Fixes a dbt Core task once identified as a dbt code/config issue — reproduce, fix in repo, validate on a branch, confirm, merge. Usually invoked by identify-pipeline-error. | _"Fix the broken dbt task"_ | | fix-pipeline-python-task | Fixes a Python task once identified as a code / dependency / destination-schema issue — edit the script, additive-only schema changes, validate, confirm. Usually invoked by identify-pipeline-error. | _"Fix the broken python task"_ | | fix-orchestra-pipeline | Fixes an Orchestra-platform/configuration issue (YAML/inputs/ordering/retry) or a repo code fix in an integration with no dedicated skill — apply fix, PR/poll, retry, confirm. Usually invoked by identify-pipeline-error. | _"The pipeline config is wrong, fix it"_ | | triage-orchestra-pipeline | Same diagnosis, but opens a fix PR and validates it on a branch, then stops for your approval before merging. | _"Triage my pipeline but don't merge yet"_ | | review-orchestra-account | Read-only audit of your Orchestra workspace against best practices — findings grouped by area with severity, evidence, and fixes, written to a report plus chat summary. Never edits anything. | _"Audit my Orchestra account / is my setup following best practices?"_ | | create-orchestra-pipeline | Author, validate, and remediate a version: v1 pipeline YAML from a description. | _"Create a pipeline that runs dbt then loads Snowflake"_ | | orchestra-dbt-slim-ci-setup | Retrofit dbt Slim CI (run-pipeline, latest_production, state:modified+, --defer) onto an existing production dbt pipeline. | _"Set up dbt Slim CI in Orchestra"_ | | run-snowflake-quality-tests | Inspect Snowflake tables, then build and deploy a data-quality testing pipeline to Orchestra. | _"Run Snowflake data quality tests"_ | | configure-dbt-source-freshness | Author dbt source freshness (warehouse-correct loaded_at_field/thresholds) and enable use_state_orchestration so Orchestra skips downstream models when sources are unchanged. | _"Set up source freshness for state-aware orchestration"_ | | configure-dbt-build-after | Author per-model build_after (SLA + upstream-freshness gating) so Orchestra rebuilds a model only when it's due and its data is fresh. | _"Make my marts state-aware — only rebuild when due and fresh"_ |

To get going: connect Orchestra's cloud MCP server (see Install below), install the orchestra plugin so the skills are discoverable by your client (see Install), then just ask.

Reference library

Start at skills/orchestra/references/orchestra/README.md. Highlights:

• Pipeline — authoring schema + examples, failure classification, remediation playbooks, and an optional local fix-history template (knowledge-store.md)
• State-aware orchestration (dbt SAO) — source-freshness and build_after schemas, enabling use_state_orchestration, and a per-warehouse freshness matrix for Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, MotherDuck/DuckDB, Redshift, Microsoft Fabric, and Postgres (plus an other fallback) (dbt-sao/)
• MCP — cloud MCP setup and tool quick reference

Install for humans

Prerequisites

• An Orchestra API key (Orchestra UI → Settings → API Keys)

1. Connect Orchestra's cloud MCP server. Point your client at the hosted endpoint following the cloud MCP docs (~/.claude/mcp.json for Claude Code, or Cursor MCP settings) and authenticate with your ORCHESTRA_API_KEY — no local install required. Restart/reload so tools such as list_pipeline_runs and list_task_run_logs appear. 2. Install the orchestra plugin so the skills are discoverable by your client:

• Claude Code — add this repo as a marketplace, then install the plugin:

     /plugin marketplace add orchestra-hq/orchestra-skills
     /plugin install orchestra@orchestra-marketplace

(or point at a local clone: /plugin marketplace add /path/to/orchestra-skills).

• Cursor — add the marketplace and install the orchestra plugin from .cursor-plugin/marketplace.json per Cursor's plugin docs.

Each skill auto-triggers from a matching prompt once installed. 3. For agent behavior in this repo, read AGENTS.md.

Typical workflows

Failed run — Paste a pipeline run URL, run UUID, pipeline name, or error snippet. identify-pipeline-error parses the input, loads the pipeline run and failed task runs, identifies the failing task and its cause, then routes to the right fixer: a dbt code issue → fix-pipeline-dbt-task, a Python code/schema issue → fix-pipeline-python-task, an Orchestra-platform/config issue → fix-orchestra-pipeline. Data, vendor/ingestion, auth, network, and other causes are reported with the right next action by identify-pipeline-error itself.

Author pipeline YAML — Describe the desired stages/tasks and create a version: v1 pipeline YAML. The authoring skill validates (via orchestra-cli or MCP) and remediates validation errors until clean.

Review before merge — Use the triage skill when you want a branch fix, validation run, and triage summary, then explicit approval before merge and production retry.

Downstream symptom — Triage can start from a downstream issue (stale dashboard, bad dbt output) and walk upstream through the pipeline graph.

Contributing

• Skills live under skills/orchestra/skills/ and shared Orchestra material under skills/orchestra/references/orchestra/, all inside the single orchestra plugin bundle. There is a single skill tree — no generated copies to keep in sync.
• To add a skill, create skills/orchestra/skills/<skill-name>/SKILL.md with name + description frontmatter, put any supporting references//templates/ in the same folder, and add it to the Skills table. The orchestra plugin exposes it automatically — bump the version in skills/orchestra/.claude-plugin/plugin.json and .cursor-plugin/plugin.json. CI (Validate Skills) checks the frontmatter, that SKILL.md stays under ~500 lines, and that the manifests are valid JSON. Write skills to be client-agnostic — describe capabilities (e.g. "if your client can schedule a wake-up…") rather than naming a specific tool.
• Recording fixes is optional and deferred to your client's persistent memory — never commit workspace-specific fix history. Extend pipeline/diagnosis-patterns.md only with generic, reusable patterns.
• Do not commit API keys, .env files, or other secrets.

Agents editing this repo should follow AGENTS.md.