pythia-explore

Original：🇺🇸 English
Translated

Use when you need to understand anything in an Oracle schema - finding objects, reading PL/SQL source, signatures, table columns, DDL, searching code, or asking who uses what. ALSO use when a .sql file, dump, export, migration script or repo copy of an object appears to answer the question already, including one the developer points you at - because those files drift from the database and are wrong in ways that read as correct. The database is the only source of truth.

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Sourcethaildhe172591/pythia
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NPX Install

npx skill4agent add thaildhe172591/pythia pythia-explore

Tags

Translated version includes tags in frontmatter
oracle-schemapythia-toolplsqldatabase-investigationschema-exploration

SKILL.md Content

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Exploring the Schema

Announce at start: "Using pythia-explore — asking the database directly."

The principle: ask the database, never the dump

Repositories of exported 
.sql
files go stale the day after export. A real mid-size system, audited in 2026, compared its repo dump against the live database:
Object typeIn the dumpIn the databaseVerdict
Procedures3,8273,827matched
Tables952952matched
Types0115all missing
Packages09all missing
Indexes1161,016~89% missing
Code that "reads fine" against the dump can reference types and packages the dump never heard of.
When the developer hands you a 
.sql
file — "explain this procedure", "here is the export, what does it do" — the file is a claim, not the truth. Read it, then run 
pythia src <NAME>
and answer from the database. If the two differ, say so first: which is newer is exactly what the developer needs to know, and it is invisible from the file alone. Never answer about a database object from a file alone while the database is reachable.
Read files as the answer only when the database is unreachable — and say that is what you are doing.

What you need → what you run

NeedCommand
Is the connection alive, what schema
pythia check
Find objects by name
pythia ls "PKG_%"
Read source, with the compiler's line numbers
pythia src NAME
(
--body
, 
--spec
)
A procedure/function signature
pythia args NAME
Columns and real data types
pythia cols TABLE_NAME
Full DDL
pythia ddl TABLE NAME
Search all PL/SQL text
pythia grep "text"
What an object depends on
pythia deps NAME
What depends on an object
pythia impact NAME
Exact identifier usages (beats grep)
pythia plscope NAME
Programs named like this one
pythia similar NAME
Everything currently broken
pythia invalid
, 
pythia errors
A free-form question
pythia sql "select ..."
(SELECT/WITH only)

Rules that keep answers honest

  • Truncation is always announced. Outputs end with 
    -- truncated ...
    or set 
    "truncated": true
    in 
    --json
    . If you do not see the marker, you saw everything; if you do, say so or fetch more (
    --limit
    , 
    --offset
    , 
    --max-lines
    ) — never present a truncated list as complete.
  • plscope
    before 
    grep
     for "where is X used": PL/Scope is recorded by the compiler and exact; grep matches comments and look-alike names. If PL/Scope has no data, the command says so and grep is the fallback.
  • src
    line numbers are the compiler's own     — an error at 
    line 47
    means line 47 in 
    src
    output. No offset arithmetic.
  • Default output caps exist to protect your context window; raise them only for the object you are actually working on.
Deeper reference — which dictionary views back these commands, PL/Scope enablement, licensing boundaries: 
reference/data-dictionary.md
.