setting-up-astro-project

SKILL.md

Initialize and configure Astro/Airflow projects with dependencies, connections, and environment setup.

Scaffolds complete project structure with astro dev init, including directories for DAGs, plugins, tests, and configuration files

Manage Python and OS-level dependencies via requirements.txt and packages.txt, with custom Dockerfile support for complex setups

Configure connections, variables, and pools declaratively in airflow_settings.yaml, with export/import commands for environment management

Validate DAG syntax before running the environment using astro dev parse to catch errors early

Astro Project Setup

This skill helps you initialize and configure Airflow projects using the Astro CLI.

To run the local environment, see the managing-astro-local-env skill.
To write DAGs, see the authoring-dags skill.
Open-source alternative: If the user isn't on Astro, guide them to Apache Airflow's Docker Compose quickstart for local dev and the Helm chart for production. For deployment strategies, use the deploying-airflow skill.

Initialize a New Project

astro dev init

Don't pass --airflow-version or --runtime-version unless the user explicitly asks for a specific pin. Plain astro dev init resolves to the latest Astro Runtime — that's the right default. Specifying a version risks pinning to a stale value from training data. If the user wants to know what was installed, read the generated Dockerfile afterward instead of guessing.