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tracing-downstream-lineage

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.

60

Quality

70%

Does it follow best practices?

Impact

No eval scenarios have been run

SecuritybySnyk

Passed

No known issues

Optimize this skill with Tessl

npx tessl skill review --optimize ./skills/tracing-downstream-lineage/SKILL.md
SKILL.md
Quality
Evals
Security

Quality

Discovery

89%

Based on the skill's description, can an agent find and select it at the right time? Clear, specific descriptions lead to better discovery.

This is a well-crafted skill description with excellent trigger terms and completeness. The 'Use when...' clause provides multiple natural-language scenarios that would help Claude correctly select this skill. The main area for improvement is listing more specific concrete actions beyond 'trace lineage' and 'impact analysis' to better communicate the full range of capabilities.

Suggestions

Add more specific concrete actions to improve specificity, e.g., 'Traces downstream data lineage, identifies affected tables and pipelines, generates dependency graphs, and flags breaking changes.'

DimensionReasoningScore

Specificity

The description names the domain (data lineage/impact analysis) and mentions some actions ('trace downstream data lineage', 'assess change risk'), but doesn't list multiple concrete specific actions like listing affected tables, generating dependency graphs, or identifying breaking queries.

2 / 3

Completeness

Clearly answers both 'what' (trace downstream data lineage and impact analysis) and 'when' (explicit 'Use when...' clause with multiple trigger scenarios including dependency questions, change risk assessment, and DAG modifications).

3 / 3

Trigger Term Quality

Includes strong natural trigger terms users would actually say: 'what depends on this data', 'what breaks if something changes', 'downstream dependencies', 'change risk', 'table', 'DAG'. These cover common phrasings well.

3 / 3

Distinctiveness Conflict Risk

The focus on downstream lineage, impact analysis, and DAG dependencies creates a clear niche that is unlikely to conflict with other skills. Terms like 'downstream dependencies', 'change risk', and 'DAG' are highly specific to this domain.

3 / 3

Total

11

/

12

Passed

Implementation

50%

Reviews the quality of instructions and guidance provided to agents. Good implementation is clear, handles edge cases, and produces reliable results.

This skill provides a solid conceptual framework for downstream impact analysis with a clear 5-step process and useful output templates. Its main weaknesses are the lack of validation checkpoints in the workflow (important for a pre-change risk assessment skill), some verbosity in sections that explain concepts Claude would already understand, and the monolithic structure that could benefit from splitting detailed templates into separate files.

Suggestions

Add explicit validation checkpoints, e.g., 'Verify dependency tree completeness by cross-referencing DAG count against known pipelines before proceeding to risk assessment'

Trim the criticality categorization section — Claude can infer these categories; instead provide a concise rubric or decision matrix

Extract the output report templates (impact diagram, tables, checklist) into a separate TEMPLATES.md file and reference it from the main skill

Make Step 1 more actionable by providing a complete shell script or command sequence that automates the search across DAGs rather than listing manual search instructions

DimensionReasoningScore

Conciseness

The skill is reasonably well-structured but includes some unnecessary verbosity. The criticality categorization section (Critical/High/Medium/Low) is somewhat obvious to Claude, and the stakeholder identification section states fairly obvious things. The Astro UI paragraph could be tighter. However, most content earns its place.

2 / 3

Actionability

Provides concrete SQL queries and CLI commands (af dags list, af dags source), but much of the guidance is descriptive rather than executable. The dependency tree building is manual/conceptual rather than automated. The output templates (markdown tables, diagrams) are helpful but the actual discovery steps rely heavily on manual searching rather than providing copy-paste-ready scripts.

2 / 3

Workflow Clarity

The 5-step sequence is clearly laid out and logically ordered, progressing from identification through risk assessment. However, there are no explicit validation checkpoints or feedback loops — for instance, no step to verify the dependency tree is complete before proceeding to risk assessment, and no verification that all stakeholders have been identified before making changes. For a skill about assessing change risk (a potentially destructive operation), this is a notable gap.

2 / 3

Progressive Disclosure

The skill references related skills at the bottom which is good navigation, but the content itself is quite long and monolithic. The output templates, criticality categorization, and detailed impact examples could be split into separate reference files. With no bundle files provided, all content is inline, making the skill heavier than necessary for an overview.

2 / 3

Total

8

/

12

Passed

Validation

100%

Checks the skill against the spec for correct structure and formatting. All validation checks must pass before discovery and implementation can be scored.

Validation11 / 11 Passed

Validation for skill structure

No warnings or errors.

Repository
astronomer/agents
Reviewed

Table of Contents

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