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Looker

There are 2 sources that provide integration with Looker

Source ModuleDocumentation

looker

This plugin extracts the following:

  • Looker dashboards, dashboard elements (charts) and explores
  • Names, descriptions, URLs, chart types, input explores for the charts
  • Schemas and input views for explores
  • Owners of dashboards
note

To get complete Looker metadata integration (including Looker views and lineage to the underlying warehouse tables), you must ALSO use the lookml module.

Read more...

lookml

This plugin extracts the following:

  • LookML views from model files in a project
  • Name, upstream table names, metadata for dimensions, measures, and dimension groups attached as tags
  • If API integration is enabled (recommended), resolves table and view names by calling the Looker API, otherwise supports offline resolution of these names.
note

To get complete Looker metadata integration (including Looker dashboards and charts and lineage to the underlying Looker views, you must ALSO use the looker source module.

Read more...

Module looker​

Certified

Important Capabilities​

CapabilityStatusNotes
Column-level Lineage✅Enabled by default, configured using extract_column_level_lineage
Dataset Usage✅Enabled by default, configured using extract_usage_history
Descriptions✅Enabled by default
Detect Deleted Entities✅Optionally enabled via stateful_ingestion.remove_stale_metadata
Extract Ownership✅Enabled by default, configured using extract_owners
Platform Instance✅Use the platform_instance field
Table-Level Lineage✅Supported by default

This plugin extracts the following:

  • Looker dashboards, dashboard elements (charts) and explores
  • Names, descriptions, URLs, chart types, input explores for the charts
  • Schemas and input views for explores
  • Owners of dashboards
note

To get complete Looker metadata integration (including Looker views and lineage to the underlying warehouse tables), you must ALSO use the lookml module.

Prerequisites​

Set up the right permissions​

You need to provide the following permissions for ingestion to work correctly. 

access_data
explore
manage_models
see_datagroups
see_lookml
see_lookml_dashboards
see_looks
see_pdts
see_queries
see_schedules
see_sql
see_system_activity
see_user_dashboards
see_users

Here is an example permission set after configuration.

Get an API key​

You need to get an API key for the account with the above privileges to perform ingestion. See the Looker authentication docs for the steps to create a client ID and secret.

Ingestion through UI​

The following video shows you how to get started with ingesting Looker metadata through the UI.

note

You will need to run lookml ingestion through the CLI after you have ingested Looker metadata through the UI. Otherwise you will not be able to see Looker Views and their lineage to your warehouse tables.

CLI based Ingestion​

Install the Plugin​

The looker source works out of the box with acryl-datahub.

Starter Recipe​

Check out the following recipe to get started with ingestion! See below for full configuration options.

For general pointers on writing and running a recipe, see our main recipe guide.

source:
  type: "looker"
  config:
    # Coordinates
    base_url: "https://<company>.cloud.looker.com"

    # Credentials
    client_id: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_ID}
    client_secret: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET}

# sink configs

Config Details​

Note that a . is used to denote nested fields in the YAML recipe.

FieldDescription
base_url ✅
string
Url to your Looker instance: https://company.looker.com:19999 or https://looker.company.com, or similar. Used for making API calls to Looker and constructing clickable dashboard and chart urls.
client_id ✅
string
Looker API client id.
client_secret ✅
string
Looker API client secret.
emit_used_explores_only
boolean
When enabled, only explores that are used by a Dashboard/Look will be ingested.
Default: True
external_base_url
string
Optional URL to use when constructing external URLs to Looker if the base_url is not the correct one to use. For example, https://looker-public.company.com. If not provided, the external base URL will default to base_url.
extract_column_level_lineage
boolean
When enabled, extracts column-level lineage from Views and Explores
Default: True
extract_embed_urls
boolean
Produce URLs used to render Looker Explores as Previews inside of DataHub UI. Embeds must be enabled inside of Looker to use this feature.
Default: True
extract_independent_looks
boolean
Extract looks which are not part of any Dashboard. To enable this flag the stateful_ingestion should also be enabled.
Default: False
extract_owners
boolean
When enabled, extracts ownership from Looker directly. When disabled, ownership is left empty for dashboards and charts.
Default: True
extract_usage_history
boolean
Whether to ingest usage statistics for dashboards. Setting this to True will query looker system activity explores to fetch historical dashboard usage.
Default: True
extract_usage_history_for_interval
string
Used only if extract_usage_history is set to True. Interval to extract looker dashboard usage history for. See https://docs.looker.com/reference/filter-expressions#date_and_time.
Default: 30 days
include_deleted
boolean
Whether to include deleted dashboards and looks.
Default: False
include_platform_instance_in_urns
boolean
When enabled, platform instance will be added in dashboard and chart urn.
Default: False
max_retries
integer
Number of retries for Looker API calls
Default: 3
max_threads
integer
Max parallelism for Looker API calls. Defaults to cpuCount or 40
platform_instance
string
The instance of the platform that all assets produced by this recipe belong to. This should be unique within the platform. See https://datahubproject.io/docs/platform-instances/ for more details.
skip_personal_folders
boolean
Whether to skip ingestion of dashboards in personal folders. Setting this to True will only ingest dashboards in the Shared folder space.
Default: False
strip_user_ids_from_email
boolean
When enabled, converts Looker user emails of the form name@domain.com to urn:li:corpuser:name when assigning ownership
Default: False
tag_measures_and_dimensions
boolean
When enabled, attaches tags to measures, dimensions and dimension groups to make them more discoverable. When disabled, adds this information to the description of the column.
Default: True
env
string
The environment that all assets produced by this connector belong to
Default: PROD
chart_pattern
AllowDenyPattern
Patterns for selecting chart ids that are to be included
Default: {'allow': ['.*'], 'deny': [], 'ignoreCase': True}
chart_pattern.ignoreCase
boolean
Whether to ignore case sensitivity during pattern matching.
Default: True
chart_pattern.allow
array
List of regex patterns to include in ingestion
Default: ['.*']
chart_pattern.allow.string
string
chart_pattern.deny
array
List of regex patterns to exclude from ingestion.
Default: []
chart_pattern.deny.string
string
dashboard_pattern
AllowDenyPattern
Patterns for selecting dashboard ids that are to be included
Default: {'allow': ['.*'], 'deny': [], 'ignoreCase': True}
dashboard_pattern.ignoreCase
boolean
Whether to ignore case sensitivity during pattern matching.
Default: True
dashboard_pattern.allow
array
List of regex patterns to include in ingestion
Default: ['.*']
dashboard_pattern.allow.string
string
dashboard_pattern.deny
array
List of regex patterns to exclude from ingestion.
Default: []
dashboard_pattern.deny.string
string
explore_browse_pattern
LookerNamingPattern
Pattern for providing browse paths to explores. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name']
Default: {'pattern': '/Explore/{model}'}
explore_browse_pattern.pattern ❓
string
explore_naming_pattern
LookerNamingPattern
Pattern for providing dataset names to explores. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name']
Default: {'pattern': '{model}.explore.{name}'}
explore_naming_pattern.pattern ❓
string
transport_options
TransportOptionsConfig
Populates the TransportOptions struct for looker client
transport_options.headers ❓
map(str,string)
transport_options.timeout ❓
integer
view_browse_pattern
LookerViewNamingPattern
Pattern for providing browse paths to views. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name', 'file_path', 'folder_path']
Default: {'pattern': '/Develop/{project}/{folder_path}'}
view_browse_pattern.pattern ❓
string
view_naming_pattern
LookerViewNamingPattern
Pattern for providing dataset names to views. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name', 'file_path', 'folder_path']
Default: {'pattern': '{project}.view.{name}'}
view_naming_pattern.pattern ❓
string
stateful_ingestion
StatefulStaleMetadataRemovalConfig
Base specialized config for Stateful Ingestion with stale metadata removal capability.
stateful_ingestion.enabled
boolean
Whether or not to enable stateful ingest. Default: True if a pipeline_name is set and either a datahub-rest sink or datahub_api is specified, otherwise False
Default: False
stateful_ingestion.remove_stale_metadata
boolean
Soft-deletes the entities present in the last successful run but missing in the current run with stateful_ingestion enabled.
Default: True

Code Coordinates​

  • Class Name: datahub.ingestion.source.looker.looker_source.LookerDashboardSource
  • Browse on GitHub

Module lookml​

Certified

Important Capabilities​

CapabilityStatusNotes
Column-level Lineage✅Enabled by default, configured using extract_column_level_lineage
Detect Deleted Entities✅Optionally enabled via stateful_ingestion.remove_stale_metadata
Platform Instance✅Use the platform_instance and connection_to_platform_map fields
Table-Level Lineage✅Supported by default

This plugin extracts the following:

  • LookML views from model files in a project
  • Name, upstream table names, metadata for dimensions, measures, and dimension groups attached as tags
  • If API integration is enabled (recommended), resolves table and view names by calling the Looker API, otherwise supports offline resolution of these names.
note

To get complete Looker metadata integration (including Looker dashboards and charts and lineage to the underlying Looker views, you must ALSO use the looker source module.

Prerequisites​

To use LookML ingestion through the UI, or automate github checkout through the cli, you must set up a GitHub deploy key for your Looker GitHub repository. Read this document for how to set up deploy keys for your Looker git repo.

In a nutshell, there are three steps:

  1. Generate a private-public ssh key pair. This will typically generate two files, e.g. looker_datahub_deploy_key (this is the private key) and looker_datahub_deploy_key.pub (this is the public key). Do not add a passphrase. Image

  2. Add the public key to your Looker git repo as a deploy key with read access (no need to provision write access). Follow the guide here for that. Image

  3. Make note of the private key file, you will need to paste the contents of the file into the GitHub Deploy Key field later while setting up ingestion using the UI.

Setup your connection mapping​

The connection mapping enables DataHub to accurately generate lineage to your upstream warehouse. It maps Looker connection names to the platform and database that they're pointing to.

There's two ways to configure this:

  1. Provide Looker admin API credentials, and we'll automatically map lineage correctly. Details on how to do this are below.
  2. Manually populate the connection_to_platform_map and project_name configuration fields. See the starter recipe for an example of what this should look like.

[Optional] Create an API key with admin privileges​

See the Looker authentication docs for the steps to create a client ID and secret. You need to ensure that the API key is attached to a user that has Admin privileges.

If you don't want to provide admin API credentials, you can manually populate the connection_to_platform_map and project_name in the ingestion configuration.

Ingestion Options​

You have 3 options for controlling where your ingestion of LookML is run.

  • The DataHub UI (recommended for the easiest out-of-the-box experience)
  • As a GitHub Action (recommended to ensure that you have the freshest metadata pushed on change)
  • Using the CLI (scheduled via an orchestrator like Airflow)

Read on to learn more about these options.

To ingest LookML metadata through the UI, you must set up a GitHub deploy key using the instructions in the section above. Once that is complete, you can follow the on-screen instructions to set up a LookML source using the Ingestion page. The following video shows you how to ingest LookML metadata through the UI and find the relevant information from your Looker account.

You can set up ingestion using a GitHub Action to push metadata whenever your main Looker GitHub repo changes. The following sample GitHub action file can be modified to emit LookML metadata whenever there is a change to your repository. This ensures that metadata is already fresh and up to date.

Sample GitHub Action​

Drop this file into your .github/workflows directory inside your Looker GitHub repo. You need to set up the following secrets in your GitHub repository to get this workflow to work:

  • DATAHUB_GMS_HOST: The endpoint where your DataHub host is running
  • DATAHUB_TOKEN: An authentication token provisioned for DataHub ingestion
  • LOOKER_BASE_URL: The base url where your Looker assets are hosted (e.g. https://acryl.cloud.looker.com)
  • LOOKER_CLIENT_ID: A provisioned Looker Client ID
  • LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET: A provisioned Looker Client Secret
name: lookml metadata upload
on:
  # Note that this action only runs on pushes to your main branch. If you want to also
  # run on pull requests, we'd recommend running datahub ingest with the `--dry-run` flag.
  push:
    branches:
      - main
  release:
    types: [published, edited]
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  lookml-metadata-upload:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: "3.10"
      - name: Run LookML ingestion
        run: |
          pip install 'acryl-datahub[lookml,datahub-rest]'
          cat << EOF > lookml_ingestion.yml
          # LookML ingestion configuration.
          # This is a full ingestion recipe, and supports all config options that the LookML source supports.
          source:
            type: "lookml"
            config:
              base_folder: ${{ github.workspace }}
              parse_table_names_from_sql: true
              github_info:
                repo: ${{ github.repository }}
                branch: ${{ github.ref }}
              # Options
              #connection_to_platform_map:
              #  connection-name:
              #    platform: platform-name (e.g. snowflake)
              #    default_db: default-db-name (e.g. DEMO_PIPELINE)
              api:
                client_id: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_ID}
                client_secret: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET}
                base_url: ${LOOKER_BASE_URL}
          sink:
            type: datahub-rest
            config:
              server: ${DATAHUB_GMS_URL}
              token: ${DATAHUB_GMS_TOKEN}
          EOF
          datahub ingest -c lookml_ingestion.yml
        env:
          DATAHUB_GMS_URL: ${{ secrets.DATAHUB_GMS_URL }}
          DATAHUB_GMS_TOKEN: ${{ secrets.DATAHUB_GMS_TOKEN }}
          LOOKER_BASE_URL: ${{ secrets.LOOKER_BASE_URL }}
          LOOKER_CLIENT_ID: ${{ secrets.LOOKER_CLIENT_ID }}
          LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET: ${{ secrets.LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET }}

If you want to ingest lookml using the datahub cli directly, read on for instructions and configuration details.

CLI based Ingestion​

Install the Plugin​

The lookml source works out of the box with acryl-datahub.

Starter Recipe​

Check out the following recipe to get started with ingestion! See below for full configuration options.

For general pointers on writing and running a recipe, see our main recipe guide.

source:
  type: "lookml"
  config:
    # GitHub Coordinates: Used to check out the repo locally and add github links on the dataset's entity page.
    github_info:
      repo: org/repo-name
      deploy_key_file: ${LOOKER_DEPLOY_KEY_FILE} # file containing the private ssh key for a deploy key for the looker git repo

    # Coordinates
    # base_folder: /path/to/model/files ## Optional if you are not able to provide a GitHub deploy key

    # Options
    api:
      # Coordinates for your looker instance
      base_url: "https://YOUR_INSTANCE.cloud.looker.com"

      # Credentials for your Looker connection (https://docs.looker.com/reference/api-and-integration/api-auth)
      client_id: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_ID}
      client_secret: ${LOOKER_CLIENT_SECRET}

    # Alternative to API section above if you want a purely file-based ingestion with no api calls to Looker or if you want to provide platform_instance ids for your connections
    # project_name: PROJECT_NAME # See (https://docs.looker.com/data-modeling/getting-started/how-project-works) to understand what is your project name
    # connection_to_platform_map:
    #   connection_name_1:
    #     platform: snowflake # bigquery, hive, etc
    #     default_db: DEFAULT_DATABASE. # the default database configured for this connection
    #     default_schema: DEFAULT_SCHEMA # the default schema configured for this connection
    #     platform_instance: snow_warehouse # optional
    #     platform_env: PROD  # optional
    #   connection_name_2:
    #     platform: bigquery # snowflake, hive, etc
    #     default_db: DEFAULT_DATABASE. # the default database configured for this connection
    #     default_schema: DEFAULT_SCHEMA # the default schema configured for this connection
    #     platform_instance: bq_warehouse # optional
    #     platform_env: DEV  # optional
# Default sink is datahub-rest and doesn't need to be configured
# See https://datahubproject.io/docs/metadata-ingestion/sink_docs/datahub for customization options


Config Details​

Note that a . is used to denote nested fields in the YAML recipe.

FieldDescription
base_folder
string(directory-path)
Required if not providing github configuration and deploy keys. A pointer to a local directory (accessible to the ingestion system) where the root of the LookML repo has been checked out (typically via a git clone). This is typically the root folder where the *.model.lkml and *.view.lkml files are stored. e.g. If you have checked out your LookML repo under /Users/jdoe/workspace/my-lookml-repo, then set base_folder to /Users/jdoe/workspace/my-lookml-repo.
emit_reachable_views_only
boolean
When enabled, only views that are reachable from explores defined in the model files are emitted
Default: True
extract_column_level_lineage
boolean
When enabled, extracts column-level lineage from Views and Explores
Default: True
liquid_variable
object
A dictionary containing Liquid variables and their corresponding values, utilized in SQL-defined derived views. The Liquid template will be resolved in view.derived_table.sql and view.sql_table_name. Defaults to an empty dictionary.
Default: {}
looker_environment
Enum
One of: "prod", "dev"
Default: prod
max_file_snippet_length
integer
When extracting the view definition from a lookml file, the maximum number of characters to extract.
Default: 512000
parse_table_names_from_sql
boolean
See note below.
Default: True
platform_instance
string
The instance of the platform that all assets produced by this recipe belong to. This should be unique within the platform. See https://datahubproject.io/docs/platform-instances/ for more details.
populate_sql_logic_for_missing_descriptions
boolean
When enabled, field descriptions will include the sql logic for computed fields if descriptions are missing
Default: False
process_isolation_for_sql_parsing
boolean
When enabled, sql parsing will be executed in a separate process to prevent memory leaks.
Default: False
process_refinements
boolean
When enabled, looker refinement will be processed to adapt an existing view.
Default: False
project_name
string
Required if you don't specify the api section. The project name within which all the model files live. See (https://docs.looker.com/data-modeling/getting-started/how-project-works) to understand what the Looker project name should be. The simplest way to see your projects is to click on Develop followed by Manage LookML Projects in the Looker application.
sql_parser
string
See note below.
Default: datahub.utilities.sql_parser.DefaultSQLParser
tag_measures_and_dimensions
boolean
When enabled, attaches tags to measures, dimensions and dimension groups to make them more discoverable. When disabled, adds this information to the description of the column.
Default: True
env
string
The environment that all assets produced by this connector belong to
Default: PROD
api
LookerAPIConfig
api.base_url ❓
string
Url to your Looker instance: https://company.looker.com:19999 or https://looker.company.com, or similar. Used for making API calls to Looker and constructing clickable dashboard and chart urls.
api.client_id ❓
string
Looker API client id.
api.client_secret ❓
string
Looker API client secret.
api.max_retries
integer
Number of retries for Looker API calls
Default: 3
api.transport_options
TransportOptionsConfig
Populates the TransportOptions struct for looker client
api.transport_options.headers ❓
map(str,string)
api.transport_options.timeout ❓
integer
connection_to_platform_map
map(str,LookerConnectionDefinition)
connection_to_platform_map.key.platform ❓
string
connection_to_platform_map.key.default_db ❓
string
connection_to_platform_map.key.default_schema
string
connection_to_platform_map.key.platform_env
string
The environment that the platform is located in. Leaving this empty will inherit defaults from the top level Looker configuration
connection_to_platform_map.key.platform_instance
string
explore_browse_pattern
LookerNamingPattern
Pattern for providing browse paths to explores. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name']
Default: {'pattern': '/Explore/{model}'}
explore_browse_pattern.pattern ❓
string
explore_naming_pattern
LookerNamingPattern
Pattern for providing dataset names to explores. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name']
Default: {'pattern': '{model}.explore.{name}'}
explore_naming_pattern.pattern ❓
string
git_info
GitInfo
Reference to your git location. If present, supplies handy links to your lookml on the dataset entity page.
git_info.repo ❓
string
Name of your Git repo e.g. https://github.com/datahub-project/datahub or https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab. If organization/repo is provided, we assume it is a GitHub repo.
git_info.branch
string
Branch on which your files live by default. Typically main or master. This can also be a commit hash.
Default: main
git_info.deploy_key
string(password)
A private key that contains an ssh key that has been configured as a deploy key for this repository. See deploy_key_file if you want to use a file that contains this key.
git_info.deploy_key_file
string(file-path)
A private key file that contains an ssh key that has been configured as a deploy key for this repository. Use a file where possible, else see deploy_key for a config field that accepts a raw string. We expect the key not have a passphrase.
git_info.repo_ssh_locator
string
The url to call git clone on. We infer this for github and gitlab repos, but it is required for other hosts.
git_info.url_template
string
Template for generating a URL to a file in the repo e.g. '{repo_url}/blob/{branch}/{file_path}'. We can infer this for GitHub and GitLab repos, and it is otherwise required.It supports the following variables: {repo_url}, {branch}, {file_path}
model_pattern
AllowDenyPattern
List of regex patterns for LookML models to include in the extraction.
Default: {'allow': ['.*'], 'deny': [], 'ignoreCase': True}
model_pattern.ignoreCase
boolean
Whether to ignore case sensitivity during pattern matching.
Default: True
model_pattern.allow
array
List of regex patterns to include in ingestion
Default: ['.*']
model_pattern.allow.string
string
model_pattern.deny
array
List of regex patterns to exclude from ingestion.
Default: []
model_pattern.deny.string
string
project_dependencies
One of map(str,union)(directory-path), map(str,union)
project_dependencies.key.repo ❓
string
Name of your Git repo e.g. https://github.com/datahub-project/datahub or https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab. If organization/repo is provided, we assume it is a GitHub repo.
project_dependencies.key.branch
string
Branch on which your files live by default. Typically main or master. This can also be a commit hash.
Default: main
project_dependencies.key.deploy_key
string(password)
A private key that contains an ssh key that has been configured as a deploy key for this repository. See deploy_key_file if you want to use a file that contains this key.
project_dependencies.key.deploy_key_file
string(file-path)
A private key file that contains an ssh key that has been configured as a deploy key for this repository. Use a file where possible, else see deploy_key for a config field that accepts a raw string. We expect the key not have a passphrase.
project_dependencies.key.repo_ssh_locator
string
The url to call git clone on. We infer this for github and gitlab repos, but it is required for other hosts.
project_dependencies.key.url_template
string
Template for generating a URL to a file in the repo e.g. '{repo_url}/blob/{branch}/{file_path}'. We can infer this for GitHub and GitLab repos, and it is otherwise required.It supports the following variables: {repo_url}, {branch}, {file_path}
transport_options
TransportOptionsConfig
Populates the TransportOptions struct for looker client
transport_options.headers ❓
map(str,string)
transport_options.timeout ❓
integer
view_browse_pattern
LookerViewNamingPattern
Pattern for providing browse paths to views. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name', 'file_path', 'folder_path']
Default: {'pattern': '/Develop/{project}/{folder_path}'}
view_browse_pattern.pattern ❓
string
view_naming_pattern
LookerViewNamingPattern
Pattern for providing dataset names to views. Allowed variables are ['platform', 'env', 'project', 'model', 'name', 'file_path', 'folder_path']
Default: {'pattern': '{project}.view.{name}'}
view_naming_pattern.pattern ❓
string
view_pattern
AllowDenyPattern
List of regex patterns for LookML views to include in the extraction.
Default: {'allow': ['.*'], 'deny': [], 'ignoreCase': True}
view_pattern.ignoreCase
boolean
Whether to ignore case sensitivity during pattern matching.
Default: True
view_pattern.allow
array
List of regex patterns to include in ingestion
Default: ['.*']
view_pattern.allow.string
string
view_pattern.deny
array
List of regex patterns to exclude from ingestion.
Default: []
view_pattern.deny.string
string
stateful_ingestion
StatefulStaleMetadataRemovalConfig
Base specialized config for Stateful Ingestion with stale metadata removal capability.
stateful_ingestion.enabled
boolean
Whether or not to enable stateful ingest. Default: True if a pipeline_name is set and either a datahub-rest sink or datahub_api is specified, otherwise False
Default: False
stateful_ingestion.remove_stale_metadata
boolean
Soft-deletes the entities present in the last successful run but missing in the current run with stateful_ingestion enabled.
Default: True

Configuration Notes​

  1. If a view contains a liquid template (e.g. sql_table_name: {{ user_attributes['db']}}.kafka_streaming.events }}, with db=ANALYTICS_PROD), then you will need to specify the values of those variables in the liquid_variable config as shown below:
      liquid_variable:
        user_attributes:
          db: ANALYTICS_PROD

Multi-Project LookML (Advanced)​

Looker projects support organization as multiple git repos, with remote includes that can refer to projects that are stored in a different repo. If your Looker implementation uses multi-project setup, you can configure the LookML source to pull in metadata from your remote projects as well.

If you are using local or remote dependencies, you will see include directives in your lookml files that look like this:

include: "//e_flights/views/users.view.lkml"
include: "//e_commerce/public/orders.view.lkml"

Also, you will see projects that are being referred to listed in your manifest.lkml file. Something like this:

project_name: this_project

local_dependency: {
    project: "my-remote-project"
}

remote_dependency: ga_360_block {
  url: "https://github.com/llooker/google_ga360"
  ref: "0bbbef5d8080e88ade2747230b7ed62418437c21"
}

To ingest Looker repositories that are including files defined in other projects, you will need to use the project_dependencies directive within the configuration section. Consider the following scenario:

  • Your primary project refers to a remote project called my_remote_project
  • The remote project is homed in the GitHub repo my_org/my_remote_project
  • You have provisioned a GitHub deploy key and stored the credential in the environment variable (or UI secret), ${MY_REMOTE_PROJECT_DEPLOY_KEY}

In this case, you can add this section to your recipe to activate multi-project LookML ingestion.

source:
  type: lookml
  config:
    ... other config variables

    project_dependencies:
      my_remote_project:
         repo: my_org/my_remote_project
         deploy_key: ${MY_REMOTE_PROJECT_DEPLOY_KEY}

Under the hood, DataHub will check out your remote repository using the provisioned deploy key, and use it to navigate includes that you have in the model files from your primary project.

If you have the remote project checked out locally, and do not need DataHub to clone the project for you, you can provide DataHub directly with the path to the project like the config snippet below:

source:
  type: lookml
  config:
    ... other config variables

    project_dependencies:
      my_remote_project: /path/to/local_git_clone_of_remote_project
note

This is not the same as ingesting the remote project as a primary Looker project because DataHub will not be processing the model files that might live in the remote project. If you want to additionally include the views accessible via the models in the remote project, create a second recipe where your remote project is the primary project.

Debugging LookML Parsing Errors​

If you see messages like my_file.view.lkml': "failed to load view file: Unable to find a matching expression for '<literal>' on line 5" in the failure logs, it indicates a parsing error for the LookML file.

The first thing to check is that the Looker IDE can validate the file without issues. You can check this by clicking this "Validate LookML" button in the IDE when in development mode.

If that's not the issue, it might be because DataHub's parser, which is based on the joshtemple/lkml library, is slightly more strict than the official Looker parser. Note that there's currently only one known discrepancy between the two parsers, and it's related to using leading colons in blocks.

To check if DataHub can parse your LookML file syntax, you can use the lkml CLI tool. If this raises an exception, DataHub will fail to parse the file.

pip install lkml

lkml path/to/my_file.view.lkml

Code Coordinates​

  • Class Name: datahub.ingestion.source.looker.lookml_source.LookMLSource
  • Browse on GitHub

Questions

If you've got any questions on configuring ingestion for Looker, feel free to ping us on our Slack.