On cohomology of split Lie algebra extensions

We introduce the notion of compatible actions in the context of split extensions of finite dimensional Lie algebras over a field. Using compatible actions, we construct a new resolution to compute the cohomology of semi-direct products of Lie algebras. We also give an alternative way to construct the Hochschild-Serre spectral sequence associated to a split extension of finite dimensional Lie algebras and obtain a sharper bound for the length of this spectral sequence.