testing-dags

DAG Testing Skill

Use af commands to test, debug, and fix DAGs in iterative cycles.

Running the CLI

These commands assume af is on PATH. Run via astro otto to get it automatically, or install standalone with uv tool install astro-airflow-mcp.

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Quick Validation with Astro CLI

If the user has the Astro CLI available, these commands provide fast feedback without needing a running Airflow instance:

# Parse DAGs to catch import errors, syntax issues, and DAG-level problems
astro dev parse

# Run pytest against DAGs (runs tests in tests/ directory)
astro dev pytest

Use these for quick validation during development. For full end-to-end testing against a live Airflow instance, continue to the trigger-and-wait workflow below.

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FIRST ACTION: Just Trigger the DAG

When the user asks to test a DAG, your FIRST AND ONLY action should be:

af runs trigger-wait <dag_id>

DO NOT:

• Call af dags list first
• Call af dags get first
• Call af dags errors first
• Use grep or ls or any other bash command
• Do any "pre-flight checks"

Just trigger the DAG. If it fails, THEN debug.

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Testing Workflow Overview

┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ 1. TRIGGER AND WAIT                 │
│    Run DAG, wait for completion     │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
                 ↓
        ┌───────┴───────┐
        ↓               ↓
   ┌─────────┐    ┌──────────┐
   │ SUCCESS │    │ FAILED   │
   │ Done!   │    │ Debug... │
   └─────────┘    └──────────┘
                       ↓
        ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
        │ 2. DEBUG (only if failed)           │
        │    Get logs, identify root cause    │
        └─────────────────────────────────────┘
                       ↓
        ┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
        │ 3. FIX AND RETEST                   │
        │    Apply fix, restart from step 1   │
        └─────────────────────────────────────┘

Philosophy: Try first, debug on failure. Don't waste time on pre-flight checks — just run the DAG and diagnose if something goes wrong.