Chart Editing

Chart Editing (ETL-authored single charts)

ETL-authored single charts are stored as zero-dimension mdim collections — a .config.yml with dimensions: [] and exactly one view. Each layer of a chart is its own chart_configs row: ETL pushes to the one named by charts.patchConfigIdETL, admin edits land in the one named by charts.patchConfigId, and the two never collide.

This skill covers creating and editing those .config.yml files, pushing them to staging, and previewing the result.

File layout

etl/steps/viz/chart/<namespace>/latest/<short_name>.config.yml

Reference example in this repo:

• etl/steps/viz/chart/animal_welfare/latest/banning_of_chick_culling.config.yml

The chart's public slug is auto-derived from the short name with underscores replaced by dashes (banning_of_chick_culling → banning-of-chick-culling).

Minimum viable config

grapher_schema: "011"  # QUOTED — a bare 011 is YAML octal
chart_config_id: "0191b6c7-5595-70b2-8d30-fa03fccd7add"
topic_tags:
  - "Animal Welfare"
dimensions: []
views:
  - dimensions: {}
    indicators:
      y:
        - catalogPath: "<dataset_short_name>#<indicator_short_name>"
    config:
      title: "Your chart title"
      subtitle: "One-line context for the chart."
      note: "Any caveats, sources of bias, methodology notes."
      originUrl: "/your-topic-page"
      tab: "chart"
      chartTypes:
        - "LineChart"  # or StackedArea, DiscreteBar, etc.
      yAxis:
        min: 0
      selectedEntityNames:
        - "United States"

Key fields:

• grapher_schema — required, and there is no fallback: the grapher chart-config schema version this config is written against, which becomes the chart's $schema and is what lets grapher migrate the config after a breaking schema change. Use the version in DEFAULT_GRAPHER_SCHEMA (etl/config.py) when authoring, then leave it alone. Quote it — an unquoted 011 is YAML octal.
• chart_config_id — required, the chart's identity in grapher (charts.configId). See "The chart's identity" below.
• dimensions: [] and exactly one view → this YAML pushes as a single chart, not an mdim page.
• views[0].indicators.y — list of indicator catalog paths. For multi-series, list more than one.
• views[0].config — the grapher config that becomes the chart's etlConfig in chart_configs. Same shape as a chart-admin export. Never put $schema in here: it would override the top-level grapher_schema while being far less visible (ETL warns when it does).
• No top-level title: or default_selection: block — those exist only for multidim data pages and are ignored for single charts.

The chart's identity (chart_config_id)

At push time ETL addresses a chart only by its config UUID (charts.configId) — never by slug or numeric id — and it never looks the chart up per environment. The YAML must therefore declare the UUID, and the same YAML then targets the same chart on local, staging, and production. (Slug and numeric id are still how you find the UUID once, while authoring; see lookup below.)

Use etl chart-config-id to write the field — it validates that the target really is a single-chart config and refuses to clobber an existing UUID:

# New chart: mint a UUIDv7.
.venv/bin/etl chart-config-id new <config.yml>

# Existing chart moving into ETL: take the UUID from the chart already in grapher, so the
# config lands on it instead of creating a duplicate. Name the chart by slug or by the
# numeric id from its admin URL — exactly one of the two.
.venv/bin/etl chart-config-id lookup <config.yml> --slug banning-of-chick-culling
.venv/bin/etl chart-config-id lookup <config.yml> --chart-id 7118

lookup queries the configured grapher DB (OWID_ENV); pass --env <staging-branch> (or --env <path/to/.env>) to look elsewhere. The chart is never inferred from the file name — picking the wrong chart is the failure this field exists to prevent, so you name it explicitly.

Never change chart_config_id once it's committed — a changed UUID means "a different chart", so the push creates a new draft chart and abandons the old one. That's why both subcommands require --force to overwrite.

DAG entry

Add to dag/<namespace>.yml:

  #
  # <Chart description> — chart authored in ETL.
  #
  viz://chart/<namespace>/latest/<short_name>:
    - data://grapher/<namespace>/<version>/<dataset_short_name>

The dependency is the upstream grapher step whose dataset contains the indicators referenced in views[0].indicators.y.

Indicators with custom display names

The legend label defaults to the indicator's full title. For better legends, pass each indicator as an object with display.name:

indicators:
  y:
    - catalogPath: "<dataset>#<indicator_a>"
      display:
        name: "Short label A"
    - catalogPath: "<dataset>#<indicator_b>"
      display:
        name: "Short label B"

Other useful display fields: unit, shortUnit, numDecimalPlaces, roundingMode, numSignificantFigures, tolerance, zeroDay.

Common chart-config edits

Inside views[0].config:

For the authoritative list, see the schema at DEFAULT_GRAPHER_SCHEMA (etl/config.py).

Pushing to staging

.venv/bin/etlr viz://chart/<namespace>/latest/<short_name> --grapher

Editing the YAML is enough to trigger a re-run — ETL's change detection picks it up, so no extra flags are needed. Reserve --force --only for re-pushing when nothing changed (and note --only skips dependency resolution, so it fails unless the upstream datasets are already built locally). The step prints admin_url=http://staging-site-<branch>/admin/charts/<id>/edit on success.

Previewing

Use the check-chart-preview skill — its get_chart_png_url.py helper resolves the chart slug to a draft-friendly PNG URL via /grapher/by-uuid/<UUID>.png (works for unpublished charts):

URL=$(.venv/bin/python .claude/skills/check-chart-preview/get_chart_png_url.py <slug>)
curl -o ai/chart_preview.png "$URL"

Pass extra grapher query params with --key=value:

.venv/bin/python .claude/skills/check-chart-preview/get_chart_png_url.py <slug> --tab=map
.venv/bin/python .claude/skills/check-chart-preview/get_chart_png_url.py <slug> --tab=chart --time=2020 --country=USA~GBR~FRA

Read the resulting PNG with the Read tool to view the chart.

Editing workflow

1. Read the current .config.yml and the upstream dataset's .meta.yml (so you know what indicators exist and their default titles/units).
2. Edit the YAML using the Edit tool. Preserve comments with ruamel if needed (see etl.files.ruamel_load/dump).
3. Push: .venv/bin/etlr viz://chart/<namespace>/latest/<short_name> --grapher.
4. Preview the PNG (see above) and iterate.
5. Once the chart looks right, commit the .config.yml (and the DAG entry if newly added) on the working branch.

Admin edits coexist with ETL edits

Once a chart is on staging, an admin (human) can edit it in the chart editor. Those edits land in the chart's admin layer (charts.patchConfigId) and survive subsequent ETL pushes — the layered model is exactly:

the rendered config (charts.configId) = merge(indicator config, ETL layer, admin layer)

Admin overrides always win on a per-field basis. To "unlink" a field back to the ETL-authored value, click the chip next to the field in the admin editor — it clears that field from the admin layer.

When NOT to use this skill

• Chart with dropdowns / dimension selectors → use create-multidim. Single-chart .config.yml files have dimensions: []; multi-dim ones don't.
• Brand-new chart from scratch and you want the structure auto-generated → use create-multidim even for single charts; it writes the YAML skeleton, and you set dimensions: [] after. create-multidim knows nothing about chart_config_id (the field is rejected on real mdims), so once the config is single-chart, run etl chart-config-id new <config.yml> before pushing — otherwise the first run fails validation.
• Editing a chart that exists only in the admin (no .config.yml) → adopt it into ETL first: write the .config.yml, then point it at the existing chart with etl chart-config-id lookup <config.yml> --chart-id <id> (see "The chart's identity"), and edit here. Tooling to generate the rest of the YAML from the live config (chart_pull CLI) is a Phase 1 follow-up.

Related skills

• check-chart-preview — for previewing the rendered chart (PNG or browser screenshot).
• create-multidim — for charts with dropdowns.
• chart-preview VSCode extension — interactive preview pane while you edit.