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Spark CLI

MicrosoftOfficialPublished by Microsoft

  • Skill
  • Tool integration
  • Software development
  • MIT
  • Low risk

From the author

Manages Fabric Spark work, including notebook cell code with %%configure, %%sql, PySpark and notebookutils, named notebook runs, Livy sessions, triage of failed or OOM notebook and pipeline Spark runs, and the Materialized Lake View (MLV) lifecycle. Load it before writing MLV SQL, since CREATE MATERIALIZED LAKE VIEW and its CONSTRAINT clause are Fabric-only. KQL materialized views belong to eventhouse-cli.
— the description by Microsoft

AutoGineer summary

Written by AutoGineer from the skill’s own files, not by the author

spark-cli is a mode-based dispatcher designed to handle the full lifecycle of Fabric Spark operations. It provides structured guidance for authoring notebook code, managing interactive Livy sessions, diagnosing Spark job failures, and operating Materialized Lake Views (MLV). The skill enforces strict operational boundaries, requiring users to select a specific mode (authoring, consumption, operations, or mlv) and consult the corresponding reference documentation before executing any commands to ensure correct API usage and payload construction.

What it does

  • Authors and manages Fabric notebook cell code including PySpark, Scala, and %%sql.
  • Facilitates interactive data analysis through Livy session management.
  • Diagnoses failed, slow, or OOM Spark jobs and pipeline runs.
  • Manages the complete lifecycle of Materialized Lake Views, including definition, scheduling, and refresh monitoring.
  • Provides standardized patterns for data engineering, schema management, and error handling in Fabric.
  • Ensures proper telemetry and authentication for all Fabric API interactions.

When to use it

  • When writing or updating code within Fabric notebooks.
  • When performing ad-hoc data analysis using interactive Livy sessions.
  • When investigating performance bottlenecks or failures in Spark jobs.
  • When creating, scheduling, or troubleshooting Materialized Lake Views.
  • When you need to ensure your Fabric API calls follow mandatory telemetry and authentication standards.

Advantages

  • Provides a structured, mode-based approach to prevent configuration errors.
  • Centralizes complex Spark and MLV management tasks into a single interface.
  • Enforces best practices for data engineering and schema management.
  • Reduces ambiguity by clearly defining the scope of Spark-related operations versus other CLI tools.

Usage examples

“Write a notebook cell that reads a bronze table and writes a silver Delta table.”
The agent enters 'authoring' mode, reads the relevant reference, and generates the appropriate PySpark code using Delta Lake patterns.
“My notebook run failed with an OOM error, can you help me diagnose it?”
The agent enters 'operations' mode, reads the diagnostic workflow reference, and guides the user through analyzing the job logs and metrics.
“Schedule a nightly refresh for the lakehouse MLV and show me its run history.”
The agent enters 'mlv' mode, reads the MLV reference, and executes the necessary API calls to configure the schedule and retrieve the history.

Install

  1. Download the skill as a ZIP:

    https://autogineer.com/agent-skills/microsoft/spark-cli/download
  2. Unzip it into the cross-client skills folder of your project:

    mkdir -p .agents/skills && unzip spark-cli.zip -d .agents/skills

Documentation by Microsoft

Telemetry — MANDATORY. Every api.fabric.microsoft.com call must carry x-ms-fabric-skill: spark-cli (az rest: --headers "x-ms-fabric-skill=spark-cli"), including every LRO poll, fabric_lro and retry. Snippets omit it — add it anyway.

CRITICAL NOTES

  1. To find the workspace details (including its ID) from workspace name: list all workspaces and, then, use JMESPath filtering

  2. To find the item details (including its ID) from workspace ID, item type, and item name: list all items of that type in that workspace and, then, use JMESPath filtering

  3. Skill disambiguation: use spark-cli for notebook cell code (including %%sql cells), named notebook runs, Livy sessions, Spark failure triage, and everything about a Materialized Lake View -- writing the definition, reviewing a query for incremental-refresh readiness, and scheduling, refreshing, monitoring or diagnosing an existing one. A KQL materialized view in an Eventhouse is eventhouse-cli; plain read-only T-SQL against a Warehouse or Lakehouse SQL endpoint is sqldw-cli.

  4. Hard routing boundary: never execute an Eventhouse/KQL materialized-view request from this skill. Route it to eventhouse-cli; if that skill is unavailable, state that the request cannot be completed in the current skill context and stop without calling Fabric APIs or creating artifacts.

Fabric Spark and Materialized Lake Views -- CLI Skill

This one skill owns Fabric Spark: notebook cell authoring, notebook runs, Livy-session analysis, Spark failure diagnostics, and the whole Materialized Lake View lifecycle.

It is a mode dispatcher and contains NO procedures. Pick the mode that matches the request from the table below, then read the matching references/<mode>.md file end to end with your file-reading tool BEFORE issuing a single command. That file holds the endpoints, payload shapes, templates and gotchas; acting without it produces wrong payloads and wrong results.

Mode selection

ModeUse when the request ...Example triggersRead this first
authoringwrites notebook cell code (PySpark, Scala, SparkR, %%sql, %%configure), runs a notebook by name and reports a NORMAL run status, or authors a Materialized Lake View definition or reviews an MLV query for incremental-refresh readinesswrite notebook code, notebook cell code, %%sql cell, run notebook, execute notebook, notebookutils, create materialized lake view, is this MLV query incremental-refresh readyreferences/authoring.md
consumptionruns interactive ad-hoc PySpark in a Lakehouse Livy session -- never a notebookcreate a Livy session, run calculation in Livy, PySpark, DataFrame analysis, join tables across lakehouses, Delta time-travelreferences/consumption.md
operationsdiagnoses a FAILED, unhealthy, throttled or slow Spark notebook / pipeline / Livy runfailed notebook, Spark Livy health, Spark OOM, why is my notebook slow, job diagnostics, 430 throttlingreferences/operations.md
mlvdiscovers or operates EXISTING Materialized Lake Views: Spark SQL discovery, refresh schedules, on-demand refresh, run history, cancellation, and refresh-failure classificationdiscover MLVs, list materialized lake views, schedule MLV, MLV run history, cancel refresh, trigger MLV refresh, diagnose MLV refresh failurereferences/mlv.md
Mode boundary rule

Mode is decided by the artefact and the outcome, not by the language. A notebook cell is always authoring even when the cell is %%sql. A Livy session is always consumption. A Spark run that FAILED or is unhealthy is operations; a run that succeeded is reported by authoring. For a Materialized Lake View the VERB decides: writing or reviewing the definition is authoring, while discovering, scheduling, refreshing, monitoring or diagnosing existing MLVs is mlv. If discovery must be executed, switch to consumption for Livy or authoring for a notebook only after reading the discovery command from references/mlv.md.

If a request genuinely spans modes, handle them one at a time and read each reference before you start that part. If the mode is ambiguous after reading this table, ask one short clarifying question instead of guessing.

Terminal write -- the step you must not skip

Reading the reference and planning the change is NOT completing the task. Each mutating mode ends with one state-changing call. If you did not issue it, nothing was persisted -- say so explicitly rather than reporting success.

ModeTerminal write
authoringfor an EXISTING notebook, POST .../notebooks/{id}/updateDefinition to save the cell; a NEW notebook needs POST /v1/workspaces/{ws}/items first; for a run request, trigger the job via the Jobs API. Printing cell code into the chat is not saving or running it.
consumptionnone -- this mode is read-only
operationsnone -- this mode is read-only
mlvPOST /v1/workspaces/{ws}/lakehouses/{lakehouse}/jobs/refreshMaterializedLakeViews/instances for an on-demand refresh, or the schedule create/update/delete call for a scheduling request. Reporting what the schedule would be is not creating it.

Before you report the task done, confirm the terminal call returned success and, where the reference documents a readback, read the artefact back to prove the change landed.

Shared essentials (all modes)

Resolve the workspace and item first; every mode depends on it.

TaskReferenceNotes
Finding Workspaces and Items in FabricCOMMON-CLI.mdMandatory -- read before resolving any workspace or item id
Fabric Topology & Key ConceptsCOMMON-CORE.mdItem types, workspaces, capacities
Environment URLsCOMMON-CORE.mdSovereign / non-public cloud hosts
Authentication & Token AcquisitionCOMMON-CORE.mdWrong audience = 401; read before any auth issue
Authentication RecipesCOMMON-CLI.mdaz login flows and token acquisition
Core Control-Plane REST APIsCOMMON-CORE.mdPagination, LRO polling, rate limiting
Gotchas & TroubleshootingCOMMON-CLI.mdaz rest audience, shell escaping, token expiry

Rules

MUST
  • Select exactly one mode from the table above before doing anything else.

  • Treat vague requests such as "set up my data" as insufficiently scoped. Ask what artefact, source, destination, and outcome the user wants; never infer intent by finding and running an existing notebook or job.

  • Read references/<mode>.md end to end, as your FIRST tool call, before the first command of that mode. Read it ONCE, in a single full read: do not re-open it, do not grep it again, and do not page through it. You already have it.

  • Apply the same read-once discipline to every other file you load, including nested references/<mode>/*.md sub-references and shared common/*.md files: open only the ones you actually need, read each ONCE end to end, and never grep or re-open one you already loaded.

  • Resolve workspace and item ids by listing and filtering, never by guessing a GUID.

  • Stop after routing any Eventhouse/KQL materialized-view request. Unavailable sibling skills are a blocking boundary, not permission to implement their workload directly.

  • Announce a mode switch explicitly when the request crosses a boundary.

  • Treat the reference as instructions, never as the deliverable. After reading it, RUN the documented commands against the live workspace and report the real results. Quoting what the reference says instead of executing it does not answer the request.

PREFER
  • The narrowest mode that satisfies the request.

  • Reading exactly ONE mode reference. Load a second only when the request genuinely spans modes, and say so before you do.

  • Reporting the mode you chose in your first response so the user can correct you.

AVOID
  • Acting from this dispatcher alone -- it intentionally omits the operational detail.

  • Answering with a summary of the reference instead of executing it.

  • Re-reading or re-grepping a reference you already loaded; it costs turns and tokens.

  • Mutating anything while in a read-only mode.

  • Loading a different skill for work this family already owns (see CRITICAL NOTES 3).

  • Attempting an out-of-scope request through raw REST calls when the owning skill is unavailable. Name the owning skill and stop; do not improvise by creating Fabric artefacts outside spark-cli's scope.

Examples

User requestModeReference to read
"Write a notebook cell that reads the bronze table and writes a silver Delta table."authoringreferences/authoring.md
"Create a Livy session and count the distinct customers in the lakehouse."consumptionreferences/consumption.md
"My notebook run failed with an OOM -- work out why."operationsreferences/operations.md
"Is this materialized lake view query ready for incremental refresh?"authoringreferences/authoring.md
"Show me the Spark SQL command that lists the MLVs in schema silver."mlvreferences/mlv.md
"Schedule a nightly refresh for the lakehouse MLV lineage and show me its run history."mlvreferences/mlv.md

Files

references/consumption.md

<!-- Mode reference for the `spark-cli` skill. Loaded on demand from `skills/spark-cli/SKILL.md` when the request matches the `consumption` mode. -->

Data Engineering Consumption — CLI Skill

Table of Contents

TaskReferenceNotes
Fabric Topology & Key ConceptsCOMMON-CORE.md § Fabric Topology & Key Concepts
Environment URLsCOMMON-CORE.md § Environment URLs
Authentication & Token AcquisitionCOMMON-CORE.md § Authentication & Token AcquisitionWrong audience = 401; read before any auth issue
Core Control-Plane REST APIsCOMMON-CORE.md § Core Control-Plane REST APIs
PaginationCOMMON-CORE.md § Pagination
Long-Running Operations (LRO)COMMON-CORE.md § Long-Running Operations (LRO)
Rate Limiting & ThrottlingCOMMON-CORE.md § Rate Limiting & Throttling
OneLake Data AccessCOMMON-CORE.md § OneLake Data AccessRequires storage.azure.com token, not Fabric token
Job ExecutionCOMMON-CORE.md § Job Execution
Capacity ManagementCOMMON-CORE.md § Capacity Management
Gotchas & TroubleshootingCOMMON-CORE.md § Gotchas & Troubleshooting
Best PracticesCOMMON-CORE.md § Best Practices
Tool Selection RationaleCOMMON-CLI.md § Tool Selection Rationale
Finding Workspaces and Items in FabricCOMMON-CLI.md § Finding Workspaces and Items in FabricMandatory — READ link first [needed for finding workspace id by its name or item id by its name, item type, and workspace id]
Authentication RecipesCOMMON-CLI.md § Authentication Recipesaz login flows and token acquisition
Fabric Control-Plane API via az restCOMMON-CLI.md § Fabric Control-Plane API via az restAlways pass --resource https://api.fabric.microsoft.com or az rest fails
Pagination PatternCOMMON-CLI.md § Pagination Pattern
Long-Running Operations (LRO) PatternCOMMON-CLI.md § Long-Running Operations (LRO) Pattern
OneLake Data Access via curlCOMMON-CLI.md § OneLake Data Access via curlUse curl not az rest (different token audience)
SQL / TDS Data-Plane AccessCOMMON-CLI.md § SQL / TDS Data-Plane Accesssqlcmd (Go) connect, query, CSV export
Job Execution (CLI)COMMON-CLI.md § Job Execution
OneLake ShortcutsCOMMON-CLI.md § OneLake Shortcuts
Capacity Management (CLI)COMMON-CLI.md § Capacity Management
Composite RecipesCOMMON-CLI.md § Composite Recipes
Gotchas & Troubleshooting (CLI-Specific)COMMON-CLI.md § Gotchas & Troubleshooting (CLI-Specific)az rest audience, shell escaping, token expiry
Quick Reference: az rest TemplateCOMMON-CLI.md § Quick Reference: az rest Template
Quick Reference: Token Audience / CLI Tool MatrixCOMMON-CLI.md § Quick Reference: Token Audience ↔ CLI Tool MatrixWhich --resource + tool for each service
Relationship to SPARK-AUTHORING-CORE.mdSPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § Relationship to SPARK-AUTHORING-CORE.md
Data Engineering Consumption Capability MatrixSPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § Data Engineering Consumption Capability Matrix
OneLake Table APIs (Schema-enabled Lakehouses)SPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § OneLake Table APIs (Schema-enabled Lakehouses)Unity Catalog-compatible metadata; requires storage.azure.com token
Lakehouse Livy Session ManagementSPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § Livy Session ManagementLakehouse Livy API: session creation, states, lifecycle, termination
Interactive Data ExplorationSPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § Interactive Data ExplorationStatement execution, output retrieval, data discovery
PySpark Analytics PatternsSPARK-CONSUMPTION-CORE.md § PySpark Analytics PatternsCross-lakehouse 3-part naming, performance optimization
Must/Prefer/AvoidSKILL.md § Must/Prefer/AvoidMUST DO / AVOID / PREFER checklists
Quick StartSKILL.md § Quick StartCLI-specific Lakehouse Livy session setup and data exploration
Key Fabric PatternsSKILL.md § Key Fabric PatternsSpark pattern quick-reference table
Session CleanupSKILL.md § Session CleanupClean up idle Lakehouse Livy sessions via CLI

Must/Prefer/Avoid

MUST DO
  • Check for existing idle sessions before creating new ones

  • Use dynamic workspace/lakehouse discovery

  • Follow API patterns from COMMON-CLI.md

PREFER
  • sqldw-cli for simple lakehouse queries — row counts, SELECT, schema exploration, filtering, and aggregation on lakehouse Delta tables should use the SQL Endpoint, not Spark. Only use this skill when the user explicitly requests PySpark, DataFrames, or Spark-specific features.

  • SQL Endpoint for Delta tables

  • Livy for unstructured/JSON data or complex Python analytics

  • Session reuse over creation

AVOID
  • Hardcoded workspace IDs

  • Creating unnecessary sessions

  • Large result sets without LIMIT

  • Confusing Lakehouse Livy sessions with Notebook Spark sessions — This skill covers Lakehouse Livy sessions (the public Livy API at /lakehouses/{lhId}/livyapi/.../sessions). Notebook Spark sessions are created internally when running a notebook via the Jobs API (RunNotebook) and are NOT managed through the Livy API. To run a notebook as a job, see SPARK-AUTHORING-CORE.md § Notebook Execution & Job Management

  • Writing or generating notebook cells — prompts that ask for %%sql, %%configure, PySpark notebook cell code, notebook deployment, or notebook execution belong to the authoring mode, even when the cell queries data.


Quick Start

Environment Setup

Apply environment detection from COMMON-CORE.md Environment Detection Pattern to set:

  • $FABRIC_API_BASE and $FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE

  • $FABRIC_API_URL and $LIVY_API_PATH for Livy operations

Authentication: Use token acquisition from COMMON-CLI.md Environment Detection and API Configuration

Workspace & Item Discovery

Preferred: Use COMMON-CLI.md item discovery patterns (Finding things in Fabric) to find workspaces and items by name.

Fallback (when workspace is already known):

# List workspaces
az rest --method get --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces" --query "value[].{name:displayName, id:id}" --output table
read -p "Workspace ID: " workspaceId

# List lakehouses in workspace
az rest --method get --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/items?type=Lakehouse" --query "value[].{name:displayName, id:id}" --output table  
read -p "Lakehouse ID: " lakehouseId
Lakehouse Livy Session Management

Two types of Spark sessions in Fabric — This skill manages Lakehouse Livy sessions, created via the public Livy API endpoint (/lakehouses/{lhId}/livyapi/.../sessions). These are ad-hoc interactive sessions for remote clients. Notebook Spark sessions are a separate mechanism — they are created internally when a Fabric Notebook is executed (via portal or Jobs API RunNotebook), and are managed through the notebook lifecycle, not the Livy API.

# Check for existing idle Lakehouse Livy session (avoid resource waste)
sessionId=$(az rest --method get --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions" --query "sessions[?state=='idle'][0].id" --output tsv)

# Create if none available - FORCE STARTER POOL USAGE
if [[ -z "$sessionId" ]]; then
    cat > /tmp/body.json << 'EOF'
{
    "name":"analysis",
    "driverMemory":"56g",
    "driverCores":8,
    "executorMemory":"56g",
    "executorCores":8,
    "conf": {
        "spark.dynamicAllocation.enabled": "true",
        "spark.fabric.pool.name": "Starter Pool"
    }
}
EOF
    sessionId=$(az rest --method post --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions" --body @/tmp/body.json --query "id" --output tsv)
    
    echo "⏳ Waiting for starter pool session to be ready..." 
    # With starter pools, this should be 3-5 seconds
    timeout=30  # Reduced from 90s since starter pools are fast
    while [ $timeout -gt 0 ]; do
        state=$(az rest --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions/$sessionId" --query "state" --output tsv)
        if [[ "$state" == "idle" ]]; then
            echo "✅ Session ready in starter pool!"
            break
        fi
        echo "   Session state: $state (${timeout}s remaining)"
        sleep 3
        timeout=$((timeout - 3))
    done
fi
Data Exploration (Fabric-Specific Patterns)
# Execute statement (LLM knows Python/Spark syntax)
cat > /tmp/body.json << 'EOF'
{
  "code": "spark.sql(\"SHOW TABLES\").show(); df = spark.table(\"your_table\"); df.describe().show()",
  "kind": "pyspark"
}
EOF
az rest --method post --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions/$sessionId/statements" --body @/tmp/body.json

Key Fabric Patterns

PatternCodeUse Case
Table Discoveryspark.sql("SHOW TABLES")List available tables
MLV Discoveryspark.sql("SHOW MATERIALIZED LAKE VIEWS IN <schema>")List Materialized Lake Views when the REST list endpoint is unavailable
Cross-Lakehousespark.sql("SELECT * FROM other_workspace.table")Query across workspaces
Delta Featuresdf.history(), df.readVersion(1)Time travel, versioning
Schema Evolutiondf.printSchema()Understand structure

Lakehouse Livy Session Cleanup

# Clean up idle Lakehouse Livy sessions (optional)
az rest --method get --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions" --query "sessions[?state=='idle'].id" --output tsv | xargs -I {} az rest --method delete --resource "$FABRIC_RESOURCE_SCOPE" --url "$FABRIC_API_URL/workspaces/$workspaceId/lakehouses/$lakehouseId/$LIVY_API_PATH/sessions/{}"

Focus: This skill provides Fabric-specific REST API patterns. LLM already knows Python/Spark syntax — we focus on Fabric integration, session management, and API endpoints.

Requirements and compatibility

Works with: Claude Code, Claude apps, OpenAI Codex, GitHub Copilot, Cursor, Gemini CLI, Kiro, OpenCode, Goose, Amp, Roo Code, JetBrains Junie, Factory Droid, Devin (ex-Windsurf), Mistral Vibe, OpenHands, Letta

“Works with” means the tool reads the open Agent Skills format; a skill written for one tool may use features others lack.

Security

What our scanner noticed· Low risk

  • Instructions that use the network

A static scan is not a guarantee. Skills are third-party content: review a skill before you let an agent use it.

Attribution and licence

Published by
Microsoft
Publisher
Microsoft (Official)
Source
microsoft/skills-for-fabric · skills/spark-cli · commit f8fac11
Licence
MIT License (redistribution allowed)
  • LICENSE (added by AutoGineer from LICENSE)
  • ATTRIBUTION.md (written by AutoGineer)
Synced
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