Astro Project Setup

This skill helps you initialize and configure Airflow projects using the Astro CLI.

To run the local environment, see the managing-astro-local-env skill. To write DAGs, see the authoring-dags skill.

Initialize a New Project

bash

astro dev init

Creates this structure:

code

project/
├── dags/                # DAG files
├── include/             # SQL, configs, supporting files
├── plugins/             # Custom Airflow plugins
├── tests/               # Unit tests
├── Dockerfile           # Image customization
├── packages.txt         # OS-level packages
├── requirements.txt     # Python packages
└── airflow_settings.yaml # Connections, variables, pools

Adding Dependencies

Python Packages (requirements.txt)

code

apache-airflow-providers-snowflake==5.3.0
pandas==2.1.0
requests>=2.28.0

OS Packages (packages.txt)

code

gcc
libpq-dev

Custom Dockerfile

For complex setups (private PyPI, custom scripts):

dockerfile

FROM quay.io/astronomer/astro-runtime:12.4.0

RUN pip install --extra-index-url https://pypi.example.com/simple my-package

After modifying dependencies: Run astro dev restart

Configuring Connections & Variables

airflow_settings.yaml

Loaded automatically on environment start:

yaml

airflow:
  connections:
    - conn_id: my_postgres
      conn_type: postgres
      host: host.docker.internal
      port: 5432
      login: user
      password: pass
      schema: mydb

  variables:
    - variable_name: env
      variable_value: dev

  pools:
    - pool_name: limited_pool
      pool_slot: 5

Export/Import

bash

# Export from running environment
astro dev object export --connections --file connections.yaml

# Import to environment
astro dev object import --connections --file connections.yaml

Validate Before Running

Parse DAGs to catch errors without starting the full environment:

bash

astro dev parse

Related Skills

•managing-astro-local-env: Start, stop, and troubleshoot the local environment
•authoring-dags: Write and validate DAGs (uses MCP tools)
•testing-dags: Test DAGs (uses MCP tools)