[New Skill] Create Mermaid Diagram from Dag

[VDFaller]

Why don't the current skills work for your use case?

It could but this is mainly to try to match some formatting and to use the proper MCP tools if they're available to get the lineage easier.

What is the use case for this new skill?

Originally it was requested as an MCP tool. I'd fully understand if this is denied by "Just use the VSCE". It is intended to be able to visually see the lineage.

I've got it ready to make a PR if y'all think it's worth it.

Would this benefit most dbt users?

Anyone who didn't want to use the VSCE for lineage but still have individual model diagrams for understanding.

[jairus-m]

My boy Vince! This is really neat - I also remember reading through that mentioned issue.

What I'm thinking about is the current skills and what they are used for which is "A curated collection of Agent Skills for working with dbt. These skills help AI agents understand and execute dbt workflows more effectively."

This specific skill is dope, but it feels hyper-specific to folks who want to be able to generate a mermaid diagram for external docs like Confluence/Notion/etc. To this end, I'm not sure if I see this as a generalized dbt agent skill that supports the goal of enabling agents to better-use dbt. This is absolutely a useful utility though, so just trying to think through the greater context in which it could live. I could imagine a general documentation generation skill that this could be part of - as I've had my fair share of having to create pipeline documentation for end users and manually copying-and-pasting the DAG from VSCode. (also, this could be a util skill as a dev for learning about and onboarding to a new pipeline???)

What do you think?

[VDFaller]

I'm with you. I just had it already 80% done that I figured I'd see if people thought it fit. This definitely feels less agentic unless the agent is creating docs like you say. If anyone starts to make a documentation one I'm happy to add it there. I'll keep the branch alive just in case.

One thing that might be more generic is actually my "How to get lineage?" works. As I could see that being more useful than this one specific use case. Cause it's a hierarchical thing that uses mcp if it can find it, asks some clarifying quesitons like "Do you want current branch or do you want production?" If you want to see what my current impl looks like. No problem if not.

[christineberger]

This would fit for dbt migration and refactoring skills! Mermaid diagrams are something I’ve used extensively when working in those two domains so that folks can better understand plans before diving into details of proposed changes. Also super helpful as documentation someone can drop in a PR.

[jairus-m]

Great callout on migrations Christine! Thank you for sharing that teams are currently using agents to output these diagrams for that exact use case.

I'm wondering if this is worth incorporating into this open migration skill: #52

[VDFaller]

@jairus-m happy to do so, want me to wait until it's merged then make a PR? or would you rather I make a PR into their PR?

Edit I'm dumb. It's merged. Will do it tomorrow hopefully.