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Alation Agent Studio Documentation

Alation Agent Skills

Agent skills let you work with Alation directly inside your AI coding tool. They can query data products, search the catalog, perform analysis, create custom agents and automated workflows, and more, letting you use natural language to interact with the Alation catalog.

Skills are available for all platforms supporting the Agent Skills format, including Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Gemini CLI, Codex, Snowflake Cortex Code, and more.

The full plugin source and latest releases are on GitHub: Alation/alation-plugins

What is an agent skill?

Section titled “What is an agent skill?”

An agent skill is a reusable, self-contained set of instructions that tells an AI agent how to perform a specific class of tasks.

Skills define capabilities, workflows, and provide CLI commands an agent can run on your behalf. Each skill is atomic and bundles everything it needs: documentation, command schemas, and (for non-Claude platforms) the Alation CLI itself.

When you install Alation skills, your AI tool learns how to:

  • Understand what you’re asking for in natural language
  • Translate your intent into the right Alation API calls
  • Handle errors, pagination, and multi-step workflows automatically

You never need to memorize commands or API shapes — just describe what you want.

Installation

Section titled “Installation”

Download the latest release as a plugin or individual agent skills, or use the installation script to install skills for a project or globally.

Getting Started

Section titled “Getting Started”

First authorize the skill to interact with an Alation catalog using the setup skill, then use the skills in a workflow either standalone or in conjunction with other skills. Examples of usage:

  • Answer data-dependent questions directly (ask)
  • Search for relevant data (explore)
  • Manage and use data products (curate, ask)
  • Manage, search, or reference metadata (curate, explore)
  • Create, manage, or invoke custom agents (configure, ask)

These skills can be used directly to answer questions or complete tasks, or in an orchestrated workflow to inform agent actions with metadata from a single source of truth.