Dataform Engineering Fundamentals

Overview

Core principle: Safety practices and proper architecture are NEVER optional in Dataform development, regardless of time pressure or business urgency.

REQUIRED FOUNDATION: This skill builds upon superpowers:test-driven-development. All TDD principles from that skill apply to Dataform development. This skill adapts TDD specifically for BigQuery Dataform SQLX files.

Official Documentation: For Dataform syntax, configuration options, and API reference, see https://cloud.google.com/dataform/docs

Best Practices Guide: For repository structure, naming conventions, and managing large workflows, see https://cloud.google.com/dataform/docs/best-practices-repositories

Time pressure does not justify skipping safety checks or creating technical debt. The time "saved" by shortcuts gets multiplied into hours of debugging, broken dependencies, and production issues.