Deploying Airflow

This covers the practical side of getting Airflow code into production, whether you're on Astronomer's managed Astro platform or running open source on Docker Compose and Kubernetes. The Astro section is especially useful because it breaks down when to use dag-only deploys versus full image builds, which matters when you're trying to iterate quickly without waiting for Docker builds. The Docker Compose setup walks through the Airflow 3 architecture changes, including the new API server and standalone DAG processor. If you're setting up CI/CD or just trying to understand the difference between pushing DAGs and deploying a full project, this gives you the commands and context to make that decision.

skills.sh installs: 817
GitHub stars: 459
last updated: Aug 21, 2026

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Install

$ npx -y skills add astronomer/agents --skill deploying-airflow --agent claude-code

Installs into .claude/skills of the current project.

Files

Deploying Airflow

This skill covers deploying Airflow DAGs and projects to production, whether using Astro (Astronomer's managed platform) or open-source Airflow on Docker Compose or Kubernetes.

Choosing a path: Astro is a good fit for managed operations and faster CI/CD. For open-source, use Docker Compose for dev and the Helm chart for production.

Astro (Astronomer)

Astro provides CLI commands and GitHub integration for deploying Airflow projects.

Deploy Commands

Command	What It Does
`astro deploy`	Full project deploy — builds Docker image and deploys DAGs
`astro deploy --dags`	DAG-only deploy — pushes only DAG files (fast, no image build)
`astro deploy --image`	Image-only deploy — pushes only the Docker image (for multi-repo CI/CD)
`astro deploy --dbt`	dbt project deploy — deploys a dbt project to run alongside Airflow