django-datawatch 8.0.0

Automated data checks for Django

Django Datawatch

With Django Datawatch you are able to implement arbitrary checks on data, review their status and even describe what to do to resolve them. Think of nagios/icinga for data.

Check execution backends

Synchronous

Will execute all tasks synchronously which is not recommended but the most simple way to get started.

Celery

Will execute the tasks asynchronously using celery as a task broker and executor. Requires celery 5.0.0 or later.

Other backends

Feel free to implement other task execution backends and send a pull request.

Install

$ pip install django-datawatch

Add django_datawatch.apps.DjangoDatawatchConfig to your INSTALLED_APPS

Celery beat database scheduler

If the datawatch scheduler should be run using the celery beat database scheduler, you need to install django_celery_beat.

Add django_datawatch.tasks.django_datawatch_scheduler to the CELERYBEAT_SCHEDULE of your app. This task should be executed every minute e.g. crontab(minute='*/1'), see example app.

Write a custom check

Create checks.py inside your module.

from datetime import datetime

from celery.schedules import crontab

from django_datawatch.datawatch import datawatch
from django_datawatch.base import BaseCheck, CheckResponse
from django_datawatch.models import Result


@datawatch.register
class CheckTime(BaseCheck):
    run_every = crontab(minute='*/5')  # scheduler will execute this check every 5 minutes

    def generate(self):
        yield datetime.now()

    def check(self, payload):
        response = CheckResponse()
        if payload.hour <= 7:
            response.set_status(Result.STATUS.ok)
        elif payload.hour <= 12:
            response.set_status(Result.STATUS.warning)
        else:
            response.set_status(Result.STATUS.critical)
        return response

    def get_identifier(self, payload):
        # payload will be our datetime object that we are getting from generate method
        return payload

    def get_payload(self, identifier):
        # as get_identifier returns the object we don't need to process it
        # we can return identifier directly
        return identifier

    def user_forced_refresh_hook(self, payload):
        payload.do_something()

.generate

Must yield payloads to be checked. The check method will then be called for every payload.

.check

Must return an instance of CheckResponse.

.get_identifier

Must return a unique identifier for the payload.

.user_forced_refresh_hook

A function that gets executed when the refresh is requested by a user through the ResultRefreshView.

This is used in checks that are purely based on triggers, e.g. when a field changes the test gets executed.

trigger check updates

Check updates for individual payloads can also be triggered when related datasets are changed. The map for update triggers is defined in the Check class' trigger_update attribute.

trigger_update = dict(subproduct=models_customer.SubProduct)

The key is a slug to define your trigger while the value is the model that issues the trigger when saved. You must implement a resolver function for each entry with the name of get__payload which returns the payload or multiple payloads (as a list) to check (same datatype as .check would expect or .generate would yield).

def get_subproduct_payload(self, instance):
    return instance.product

define an individual queue

You can force specific checks to run in different queues (e.g. in the celery backend).
Set the queue parameter of your Check class to the name of the queue.

Exceptions

DatawatchCheckSkipError

raise this exception to skip current check. The result will not appear in the checks results.

Run your checks

A management command is provided to queue the execution of all checks based on their schedule. Add a crontab to run this command every minute and it will check if there's something to do.

$ ./manage.py datawatch_run_checks
$ ./manage.py datawatch_run_checks --slug=example.checks.UserHasEnoughBalance

Refresh your check results

A management command is provided to forcefully refresh all existing results for a check. This comes in handy if you changes the logic of your check and don't want to wait until the periodic execution or an update trigger.

$ ./manage.py datawatch_refresh_results
$ ./manage.py datawatch_refresh_results --slug=example.checks.UserHasEnoughBalance

Get a list of registered checks

$ ./manage.py datawatch_list_checks

Clean up your database

Remove the unnecessary check results and executions if you've removed the code for a check.

$ ./manage.py datawatch_clean_up

Settings

DJANGO_DATAWATCH_BACKEND = 'django_datawatch.backends.synchronous'
DJANGO_DATAWATCH_RUN_SIGNALS = True

DJANGO_DATAWATCH_BACKEND

You can chose the backend to run the tasks. Supported are 'django_datawatch.backends.synchronous' and 'django_datawatch.backends.celery'.

Default: 'django_datawatch.backends.synchronous'

DJANGO_DATAWATCH_RUN_SIGNALS

Use this setting to disable running post_save updates during unittests if required.

Default: True

celery task queue

Datawatch supported setting a specific queue in release < 0.4.0

With the switch to celery 4, you should use task routing to define the queue for your tasks, see http://docs.celeryproject.org/en/latest/userguide/routing.html

To be able to run specific tasks in a different queue, one can use the queue attribute on the Check subclass. This is meant to be a string representing the name of the queue. This is currently only supported by the celery backend.

Migrating from 3.x to 4.x

In 4.x, the base check class supports two new methods (get_assigned_users and get_assigned_groups). This is a breaking change as the old get_assigned_user and get_assigned_group methods have been removed.

This change allows checks to assign multiple users and groups to a check. If you have implemented custom checks, you need to update your code to return a list of users and groups instead of a single user and group. e.g.

From

from django_datawatch.base import BaseCheck

class CustomCheck(BaseCheck):
    ...
    def get_assigned_user(self, payload, result) -> Optional[AbstractUser]:
        return None # or a user
    def get_assigned_group(self, payload, result) -> Optional[Group]:
        return None # or a group

To

from django_datawatch.base import BaseCheck

class CustomCheck(BaseCheck):
    ...
    def get_assigned_users(self, payload, result) -> Optional[List[AbstractUser]]:
        return None  # or a list of users
    def get_assigned_groups(self, payload, result) -> Optional[List[Group]]:
        return None  # or a list of groups

Tagging Results

Django Datawatch supports tagging individual check results. You can add, edit, and remove tags for each result directly through the web interface.

Usage

• Manage tags: Open the result detail and click on the Tags link to manage tags. Each tag includes a label, a type (color/status), and the user who created it.

• Tag display: Tags are displayed as colored badges in the results overview, based on their type.

CONTRIBUTE

Dev environment

• Latest Docker with the integrated compose plugin

Please make sure that no other container is using port 8000 as this is the one you're install gets exposed to: http://localhost:8000/

Setup

We've included an example app to show how django_datawatch works. Start by launching the included docker container.

docker compose up -d

Then setup the example app environment.

docker compose run --rm app migrate
docker compose run --rm app loaddata example

The installed superuser is "example" with password "datawatch".

Run checks

Open http://localhost:8000/, log in and then go back to http://localhost:8000/. You'll be prompted with an empty dashboard. That's because we didn't run any checks yet. Let's enqueue an update.

docker compose run --rm app datawatch_run_checks --force

The checks for the example app are run synchronously and should be updated immediately. If you decide to switch to the celery backend, you should now start a celery worker to process the checks.

docker compose run --rm --entrypoint celery app -A example worker -l DEBUG

To execute the celery beat scheduler which runs the datawatch scheduler every minute, just run:

docker compose run --rm --entrypoint celery app -A example  beat --scheduler django_celery_beat.schedulers:DatabaseScheduler

You will see some failed check now after you refreshed the dashboard view.

Run the tests

docker compose run --rm app test

Translations

Collect and compile translations for all registered locales

docker compose run --rm app makemessages --no-location --all
docker compose run --rm app compilemessages

Making a new release

This project makes use of RegioHelden's reusable GitHub workflows.
Make a new release by manually triggering the Open release PR workflow.