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AI coding agents can help you build and maintain your Lightdash semantic layer more efficiently. By installing Lightdash skills, you enable these agents to understand your semantic layer structure and use the latest Lightdash features correctly.

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What are skills?

Skills are context files that teach AI coding agents about Lightdash’s YAML configuration, metrics, dimensions, and best practices. They’re powered by agentskills.io and provide agents with the knowledge they need to:
  • Generate correct YAML configurations for metrics and dimensions
  • Follow Lightdash naming conventions and best practices
  • Understand table relationships and joins
  • Use the latest Lightdash features and syntax

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Included skills

lightdash install-skills installs every skill in the Lightdash repository:

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Review what changed between releases

The lightdash-release-review skill produces a short digest of what Lightdash shipped. Your agent reads the published releases and linked pull requests in the public Lightdash GitHub repository, so it needs web or GitHub access but no Lightdash credentials.
  • By default, the review covers the last 14 days. Ask for a different period, a date range, or a feature area to change it.
  • The digest groups changes into New features and Updates to existing features, including breaking changes and deprecations.
  • Bug fixes are listed only when you ask for them.
The release review describes product changes, not upgrade safety. Before you upgrade a self-hosted instance, use the upgrade-preflight skill or check the upgrade.

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Supported tools

Lightdash skills work with popular AI coding assistants:
  • Cursor - AI-powered code editor
  • Claude Code - Anthropic’s coding assistant
  • Codex - OpenAI’s code generation model
  • Antigravity - AI development platform
  • GitHub Copilot - GitHub’s AI pair programmer (supports skills in .github/skills and .claude/skills directories). Learn more about Copilot agent skills.
  • Other tools that support the skills format

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Installing skills

Use the Lightdash CLI to install skills for your preferred AI coding agent.

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Prerequisites

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Install globally

Install skills globally to use them across all your projects (recommended, since the version of skills is tied to the version of the Lightdash CLI, which is typically installed globally):
Global skills are installed to your home directory (e.g., ~/.claude/skills/).

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Install for your project

Install skills at the project level for team collaboration:
This creates a skills directory at your git root:
  • .claude/skills/ for Claude (also works with GitHub Copilot)
  • .cursor/skills/ for Cursor
  • .codex/skills/ for Codex
Using GitHub Copilot? Run lightdash install-skills (the default command) to install skills to .claude/skills/. GitHub Copilot automatically reads skills from this directory.

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Install to a custom path

Specify a custom installation path:

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Install with the open agent skills ecosystem CLI

You can also install Lightdash skills through the open agent skills ecosystem CLI, which works across any agent that supports the skills format:

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Using skills with your agent

Once installed, your AI coding agent automatically picks up the Lightdash skills. You can then ask your agent to:
  • Create new metrics and dimensions
  • Generate YAML configurations for dbt models
  • Fix validation errors in your semantic layer
  • Refactor existing metric definitions
  • Add joins between tables
  • Create, edit, and synchronize organization data app themes as code

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Example prompts

The agent uses the installed skills to generate correct, up-to-date Lightdash configurations.

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Keeping skills updated

Run lightdash --version to check if your skills are up to date. This command returns the relevant skill update command based on where your skills are currently installed and whether they’re outdated.
This ensures your agent always has the latest skill definitions with the newest Lightdash features and best practices.