PUDL Data and Metadata Guide
Use this skill for data-user workflows: reading PUDL outputs, understanding table and field semantics, tracing source context, and interpreting methodology.
Trigger phrases
- "show me this PUDL table in a notebook"
- "how do I read table X from Parquet"
- "load this table from local PUDL output"
- "read this PUDL table from S3"
- "what columns are in this table"
- "what does this column mean"
- "show table metadata for X"
- "which data source does this table come from"
- "find field descriptions for this table"
- "I need notebook code to explore this PUDL data"
Audience and scope
- Primary audience: analysts and data users, not core maintainers.
- Focus: using outputs and metadata confidently without digging into internals.
- Secondary audience: developers who need the same data context while coding.
Source-of-truth policy
The reference files in this skill are the canonical AI-facing layer for:
- data access and output usage patterns,
- table/field/source metadata retrieval,
- source-doc and methodology interpretation.
pudl-dev should reuse these references instead of duplicating them.
Reference index
- Data Access and Outputs
- Metadata and Querying
- Data Sources, Dictionaries, and Methodology
Escalation boundary
If a task requires modifying ETL code, schema migrations, dbt tests, or CI workflow, hand off to pudl-dev and keep these references as the shared data context.
