Neo4j Modeling Skill

What it does

When your agent uses it

• Choosing node labels vs relationship types vs properties
• Migrating relational/document schemas to graph
• Detecting anti-patterns (generic labels
• Missing constraints)

Example prompts

• “/neo4j-modeling-skill”

Requirements

• Pre-approved tools (allowed-tools): WebFetch, Bash

Workflow steps

11 steps, taken from the first numbered list in SKILL.md.

1. 1Use-case first — list 5+ queries the model must answer before designing
2. 2Nodes = entities (nouns) with identity; rels = connections (verbs) with direction
3. 3Labels PascalCase; rel types SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE; properties camelCase
4. 4Every node type used in MERGE has a uniqueness constraint on its key property
5. 5Add property type constraints (REQUIRE n.prop IS :: STRING) where type known — catches bad writes early. Enterprise only; Community: use…
6. 6No generic labels (:Entity, :Node, :Thing); no generic rel types (:RELATED_TO, :HAS)
7. 7Security labels (used for row-level access control) should start with a common prefix (e.g. Sec) so application code can reliably filter…
8. 8Rel direction encodes semantic meaning — not arbitrary
9. 9Inspect schema before proposing any change on an existing database
10. 10All constraint/index DDL uses IF NOT EXISTS — safe to rerun
11. 11On Neo4j 2026.06+ (Enterprise/Aura, GA): declare the full model in one block with ALTER CURRENT GRAPH TYPE SET { … }, extend it with ALTER…

What it can do on your machine

Read from SKILL.md and the folder at commit bb30e1f. It shows what the files ask for, not the result of running them.

• Tool permissions

  Pre-approves these tools, so the agent can use them without asking each time:

  • WebFetch
  • Bash

  From allowed-tools in the SKILL.md frontmatter.

• Runs code

  No scripts in the folder and no shell commands in SKILL.md (its code samples are cypher).

  From the folder's file list and the shell code blocks in SKILL.md.

• Network

  Links to these hosts (documentation or services it may open):

  • neo4j.com
  • graphacademy.neo4j.com
  • medium.com

  From URLs in SKILL.md, links to its own repository left out.

• Credentials

  Names no API keys, tokens, secrets or passwords.

  From names ending in _API_KEY, _TOKEN, _SECRET, _KEY or _PASSWORD in SKILL.md.

Context cost

Neo4j Modeling Skill loads about 4k tokens when it runs. Until then it costs about 176 tokens; SKILL.md has 1,358 words of instructions outside code blocks.

Always · name and description, kept in context so the agent knows when to use it

~176

When it runs · the whole SKILL.md, loaded when a task matches

~4k

Estimates: characters ÷ 4, the usual rule of thumb; real counts depend on the model's tokenizer. Scripts and assets cost tokens only if the agent reads them.

Safety

• NotePre-approves every shell command (allowed-tools: Bash)SKILL.md

  allowed-tools: WebFetch, Bash

Automated static check — not a guarantee. Review scripts before installing. It scans the text of SKILL.md for risky patterns (piping downloads into a shell, reading credential files, hidden Unicode, destructive commands); files beside SKILL.md are not scanned.

SKILL.md

The full file from neo4j-contrib/neo4j-skills at commit bb30e1f, republished under its MIT licence (© neo4j-contrib). 1,358 words, ~4,041 tokens.

name

neo4j-modeling-skill

description

Design, review, and refactor Neo4j graph data models. Use when choosing node labels vs relationship types vs properties, migrating relational/document schemas to graph, detecting anti-patterns (generic labels, supernodes, missing constraints), designing intermediate nodes for n-ary relationships, enforcing schema with constraints and indexes, or assessing an existing model against graph modeling best practices. Does NOT handle Cypher query authoring — use neo4j-cypher-skill. Does NOT handle Spring Data Neo4j entity mapping — use neo4j-spring-data-skill. Does NOT handle GraphQL type definitions — use neo4j-graphql-skill. Does NOT handle data import — use neo4j-import-skill.

allowed-tools

WebFetch, Bash

version

1.0.7

CALL db.schema.visualization() YIELD nodes, relationships RETURN nodes, relationships;
SHOW CONSTRAINTS YIELD name, type, labelsOrTypes, properties RETURN name, type, labelsOrTypes, properties;
SHOW INDEXES YIELD name, type, labelsOrTypes, state WHERE state = 'ONLINE' RETURN name, type, labelsOrTypes;

CALL apoc.meta.schema() YIELD value RETURN value;

(Person)-[:ACTED_IN {role: "Neo"}]->(Movie)
// Cannot query roles independent of movies

(Person)-[:PLAYED]->(Role {name: "Neo"})-[:IN]->(Movie)
// MATCH (r:Role) WHERE r.name STARTS WITH 'Neo' RETURN r

// Find colleagues who overlapped at same company
MATCH (p1:Person)-[:WORKED_AT]->(e1:Employment)-[:AT]->(c:Company)<-[:AT]-(e2:Employment)<-[:WORKED_AT]-(p2:Person)
WHERE elementId(p1) < elementId(p2)
  AND e1.startDate <= coalesce(e2.endDate, date())
  AND e2.startDate <= coalesce(e1.endDate, date())
RETURN DISTINCT p1.name, p2.name, c.name

// Find top-10 highest-degree nodes
MATCH (n)
RETURN labels(n) AS labels, elementId(n) AS id, count{ (n)--() } AS degree
ORDER BY degree DESC LIMIT 10

// Instead of: (:User)-[:VIEWED]->(:Page) (millions of rels per user)
// Bucket by hour:
(u:User)-[:VIEWED_IN]->(b:ViewBucket {userId: u.id, hour: '2025-04-28T14'})-[:VIEWED]->(p:Page)

// Query last hour's views without traversing full history:
MATCH (u:User {id: $uid})-[:VIEWED_IN]->(b:ViewBucket {hour: $hour})-[:VIEWED]->(p)
RETURN p.url

// 1. Uniqueness constraint — every node type used in MERGE
CREATE CONSTRAINT person_id_unique IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (p:Person) REQUIRE p.id IS UNIQUE;

// 2. Existence constraint (Enterprise) — mandatory properties
CREATE CONSTRAINT person_name_exists IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (p:Person) REQUIRE p.name IS NOT NULL;

// 3. Property type constraint (Enterprise) — enforce data type
CREATE CONSTRAINT person_born_integer IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (p:Person) REQUIRE p.born IS :: INTEGER;

// 4. Key constraint (Enterprise) — unique + exists in one
CREATE CONSTRAINT movie_tmdbid_key IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (m:Movie) REQUIRE m.tmdbId IS NODE KEY;

// 4b. Community alternative to NODE KEY — composite uniqueness (existence not enforced)
CREATE CONSTRAINT movie_title_released_unique IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (m:Movie) REQUIRE (m.title, m.released) IS UNIQUE;

// 5. Range index — equality and range filters on properties
CREATE INDEX person_name_idx IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (p:Person) ON (p.name);

// 6. Fulltext index — ranked free-text search via `db.index.fulltext.queryNodes` / `SEARCH` (Lucene syntax, wildcards like `An*`); not used for CONTAINS / STARTS WITH predicates
CREATE FULLTEXT INDEX person_fulltext IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (n:Person) ON EACH [n.name, n.bio];

// 6b. Text index — serves CONTAINS / STARTS WITH / ENDS WITH (range index preferred for STARTS WITH when present)
CREATE TEXT INDEX person_bio_text IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (n:Person) ON (n.bio);

// 7. Vector index — embedding similarity search
CREATE VECTOR INDEX chunk_embedding_idx IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR (c:Chunk) ON (c.embedding)
  OPTIONS { indexConfig: { `vector.dimensions`: 1536, `vector.similarity_function`: 'cosine' } };

// 8. Relationship index — filter on rel properties
CREATE INDEX acted_in_year_idx IF NOT EXISTS
  FOR ()-[r:ACTED_IN]-() ON (r.year);

SHOW INDEXES YIELD name, state WHERE state <> 'ONLINE' RETURN name, state;

(:Document)-[:HAS_CHUNK]->(c:Chunk {text: "...", embedding: [...]})

## Schema Assessment

### Compliant
- [constraint / pattern that is correct]

### Issues Found
#### [Title] — Severity: ERROR / WARNING / INFO
- **Current**: what the model does
- **Problem**: why it is an issue
- **Fix**: specific Cypher DDL or model change

## Recommended Schema
### Node Labels
- :Label {key: TYPE, prop: TYPE, ...}  → constraints: [list]

### Relationships
- (:LabelA)-[:TYPE {prop: TYPE}]->(:LabelB)

### Constraints to Create
[CREATE CONSTRAINT ... statements]

### Indexes to Create
[CREATE INDEX ... statements]

© neo4j-contrib, MIT. Rendered from Markdown: HTML in the file is shown as text, images as links, and headings moved down two levels. Raw file

Files

SKILL.md and 1 other file in neo4j-modeling-skill of neo4j-contrib/neo4j-skills.

• SKILL.md
• README.md

Open the folder on GitHubat commit bb30e1f