data-loading

A tool for finding and inspecting data connected to a workspace. It can examine available sources and tables without directly changing the loaded analysis data.

In plain words
What is it for?
It discovers connected sources, inspects table metadata, runs limited read-only checks, and proposes adding a connector when a new source is needed.
Why use it?
It shows whether the needed information already exists and identifies gaps before analysis begins. New connectors require the user to confirm the connection details.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/microsoft/data-formulator/data_loading
Any agent
npx skills add microsoft/data-formulator --skill data_loading
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/microsoft/data-formulator

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Per session 37 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 1,231 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan A 0 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 100% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00037 $0.01231
Opus 5 $0.00018 $0.00616
Sonnet 5 $0.00007 $0.00246
Haiku 4.5 $0.00004 $0.00123

Measured yesterday against content hash d7cecaa0a45c, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade A, and why

data-loading scanned grade A with 0 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

The scan reads SKILL.md. This mod also ships 1 executable file (skill.py), listed below but not scanned — reading those needs a real analyzer, not pattern matching.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Nothing flagged

None of the 26 patterns this scan looks for appear in this file: no shell pipes, no recursive deletes, no credential paths, no hidden text, no instruction-override or anti-refusal phrasing, no agent-config snooping. That is not a guarantee, it is the absence of the things that are checkable.

Origin

This is a copy

100% identical to data-loading — 0 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

py-src/data_formulator/analyst/skills/data_loading/SKILL.md · 109 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 109 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

Skill: Data discovery

The workspace tables listed in your context are the data already loaded into the system, and the only data that can be read directly. Everything these tools return is not loaded yet — it lives in a connected source and only becomes usable after the user selects a loading option and the server materializes it.

Use these tools to determine whether connected sources contain data needed for the user's goal. They are read-only: discovering, describing, or probing a source does not add anything to the workspace analysis inputs.

Adding a connector

When the user wants to connect a new source, do not merely ask them to navigate to settings and do not attempt to connect on their behalf.

  1. Call list_connectors first because available built-ins and plugins vary by deployment. For a broad request such as "help me connect", summarize the concrete available types and ask which one they use.
  2. Once the source type is known, call describe_connector when field or auth details are useful.
  3. When the requested source type is known and available, you MUST call propose_connection in this same turn. Do not stop with text such as "I'll open the form", "you'll need to provide", or a list of required fields. Only the action opens the form. Include one or two helpful sentences alongside the action call explaining what the user should review or supply; this text appears above the chat while the form opens on the canvas. Pass prefilled values the user already supplied, including values parsed from a connection string or config snippet. Never invent missing values.
  4. The form is only a proposal. The user reviews it and clicks Connect; the action must never connect automatically.

Prefilled values may include credentials the user deliberately supplied. Do not repeat those values in prose or subsequent tool output. They are transient form seeds and are removed from persisted UI state.

Discovery sequence

  1. Use find_data when the user names a business concept or table. Use list_data when you need to browse available sources or hierarchy.
  2. Use describe_data before relying on columns, types, row counts, or filter values. Pass the exact source_id and table_key returned by discovery.
  3. Use probe_data only when metadata is insufficient to choose a useful bounded result. Probes are limited, read-only, and may be approximate.
  4. First reconcile discoveries with every table in [PRIMARY TABLE(S)], [OTHER AVAILABLE TABLES], or [AVAILABLE TABLES]. If the needed data is already loaded, use or explain that workspace table instead of proposing it.
  5. When there are genuinely missing useful alternatives, call propose_data_operation with one to three complete immutable plans. This pauses for the user's choice; it does not load data yet.

Read the full file on GitHub · 109 lines

Files

What ships with it

2 files beside SKILL.md in the same directory: the scripts, references and assets a skill reads on demand. Not counted in the per-session cost; read them before you install if any of them is executable.

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 109 lines · 37 tokens per session scan A d7cecaa0a45c

Subscribe to this mod's changes

data-loading is a skill published in the GitHub repository microsoft/data-formulator (17,048 stars, last pushed 3d ago), licensed MIT. It adds 37 tokens to every session and 1,231 once invoked, about $0.0002 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it A with 0 findings. It is 100% identical to data-loading, differing in 0 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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