tracing-downstream-lineage

SKILL.md

Trace downstream data lineage to assess change impact before modifying tables or DAGs.

Identifies direct consumers of a target table or DAG through source code search, view dependencies, and BI tool connections

Builds a full dependency tree mapping all downstream impacts, from tables to dashboards to ML models

Categorizes dependencies by criticality (critical, high, medium, low) to prioritize stakeholder communication and testing

Generates an impact report with risk assessment, affected owners, and recommended mitigation steps before deployment

Downstream Lineage: Impacts

Answer the critical question: "What breaks if I change this?"

Use this BEFORE making changes to understand the blast radius.

Impact Analysis

Step 1: Identify Direct Consumers

Find everything that reads from this target:

For Tables:

Search DAG source code: Look for DAGs that SELECT from this table

Use af dags list to get all DAGs

Use af dags source <dag_id> to search for table references

Look for: FROM target_table, JOIN target_table