Catalog Navigator

Illustrative example — demonstrates a well-formed SKILL.md for this reference implementation. Adapt the content to your own org; do not deploy verbatim.

catalog-navigator

Overview

An enterprise-wide (Tier-3) data-discovery skill: it helps a user find the right table across Unity Catalog before they query it. It searches the catalog by table or column name, lists a table's columns and comments, and summarizes what a schema contains — all from the live system.information_schema metadata views. Because it reads only catalog metadata (names, types, comments, ownership) and never table contents, it is safe to run in every workspace, which is exactly why it belongs at Tier 3: one discovery skill available org-wide, regardless of domain.

When to use this skill

Reach for this skill whenever a user needs to locate or understand data anywhere in the catalog:

• "Which tables have 'billing' in their name?"
• "What columns does system.billing.usage have?"
• "Find tables that contain a customer_id column."
• "What's in the system.lakeflow schema?"
• "Where would I find data about job runs?"

Instructions

When the user asks a discovery question:

1. Interpret the target — a keyword (topic), a specific table, or a column name.
2. Search system.information_schema.tables for name/schema matches (topic or table lookup).
3. Query system.information_schema.columns to list a table's columns, or to find tables that contain a named column.
4. Present results as a compact table, then point the user to the single best-matching table and suggest the domain skill (if any) that specializes in it.

Examples

Find tables by keyword

SELECT
  table_catalog,
  table_schema,
  table_name,
  comment
FROM system.information_schema.tables
WHERE LOWER(table_name) LIKE '%billing%'
   OR LOWER(comment)    LIKE '%billing%'
ORDER BY table_catalog, table_schema, table_name
LIMIT 50

Inspect a table's columns

SELECT
  column_name,
  data_type,
  comment
FROM system.information_schema.columns
WHERE table_catalog = 'system'
  AND table_schema  = 'billing'
  AND table_name    = 'usage'
ORDER BY ordinal_position

Find tables containing a given column

SELECT
  table_catalog,
  table_schema,
  table_name
FROM system.information_schema.columns
WHERE LOWER(column_name) = 'job_id'
GROUP BY table_catalog, table_schema, table_name
ORDER BY table_catalog, table_schema, table_name
LIMIT 50

Recommendations framework

After presenting matches, always include:

1. Best match — the single most relevant table for the user's intent, fully qualified.
2. Specialist hand-off — if a domain skill specializes in that table (e.g. billing → pipeline-cost-analyzer), name it so the user routes there for analysis.
3. Narrowing tip — one way to refine if the search returned too many matches (add a schema filter, search by column instead of name).

Edge cases

• No matches — if the keyword matches nothing visible, say so and suggest a broader term, rather than returning an empty table with no explanation.
• Permission scope — information_schema only surfaces objects the caller can see; results are relative to the user's Unity Catalog grants, not the whole metastore.
• Discovery, not analysis — this skill locates and describes tables. Once the right table is found, hand off to the specialist domain skill (or a direct query) for the actual analysis; it never reads table contents itself.

Data scope

• system.information_schema.tables — table inventory, schema, ownership, and comments
• system.information_schema.columns — column names, types, and comments
• No PII or table contents are accessed — this skill reads catalog metadata only.