Plugins Quick Start

The Alation plugin lets you work with Alation directly inside your AI coding tool: query data products, search the catalog, run analysis, manage metadata, and invoke agents, all in natural language.

Plugins are the package, skills are the capability

These two terms are easy to conflate, and they name different things:

• A plugin is the distribution mechanism: a versioned bundle your AI tool installs in one step, namespaced so its contents don’t collide with anything else you have installed.
• An agent skill is a unit of capability inside the plugin: a self-contained set of instructions that teaches the agent how to perform one class of Alation tasks. Skills follow the open Agent Skills format, so the same skills work in any compatible tool.

Install the plugin, connect it to your instance, then use the skills.

Install for your tool

Pick your tool for step-by-step setup. You’ll need Python 3.10+ on the machine running the agent.

Claude CodeRegister the marketplace and install with two commands.Claude CoworkAdd the marketplace from the sidebar, or upload the plugin zip.CodexAdd the marketplace in the UI; the MCP bridge registers automatically.Gemini CLIInstall the portable agent skills with one script.Snowflake Cortex CodeInstall the skills and register them with Cortex.

Any agent that supports the Agent Skills format can use these skills — install them with the script and point the agent at the resulting .agents/skills/ directory. The full source and releases are on GitHub: Alation/alation-plugins.

Connect to your Alation instance

Every tool authenticates the same way.

1. Register an OAuth client (once per instance)

   Following the user-initiated OAuth guide, create a client with:

   • Client Type: public
   • Redirect URI: http://127.0.0.1:18722/callback

   Save the Client ID. You (or an instance admin) only do this once.

2. Authenticate

   Ask your agent to set up the Alation plugin (this runs the setup skill). It prompts for your instance base URL and the Client ID, then opens a browser to log in. In Cowork and Codex, the redirect page won’t load — copy its full URL and paste it back into the chat to finish.

Security review?

The plugin is a local CLI with no server component, no telemetry, and open source under Apache 2.0. See Plugin security for the architecture, authentication flow, and RBAC enforcement.

Next

• Set up your tool — Claude Code, Cowork, Codex, Gemini CLI, or Cortex Code.
• Using the skills — the skills, example prompts, and combining them into workflows.