metabase-export

Export Metabase questions to .sql files that mirror your collection tree, so your SQL lives in git.

export METABASE_PG_PASSWORD='secret'
uvx metabase-export --output reports

reports/
  Occupancy/
    Rooms/TOTAL HOURS USED.sql
  Incidents/OPEN INCIDENTS.sql

-- Card: 129 | DB: Incidents | Viz: scalar
-- Collection: Incidents
-- Parameters: {{date}}

SELECT COUNT(*) FROM "Incident" WHERE {{date}}

Every run rewrites the output directory. A card deleted or archived in Metabase disappears from disk — it is a mirror, not a merge. Directories whose name starts with _ are never touched.

Usage

Needs read access to the Metabase application database (metabaseappdb), not to the databases Metabase reports against.

uvx metabase-export --output reports                      # everything
uvx metabase-export --output reports --root-collection 4  # one collection
uvx metabase-export --output reports --dry-run            # change nothing
uvx metabase-export --output reports --port 15433 --ssh-host prod-box

Collection id comes from its URL: /collection/4-my-reports → 4.

Each option has an env var (METABASE_EXPORT_DIR, METABASE_PG_HOST, …; see --help), so a project can pin its settings and run with no arguments. The password comes from METABASE_PG_PASSWORD or a prompt — never from a flag.

Notes

• Only native (SQL) questions. Query-builder questions have no SQL and are skipped.
• Reads MBQL5 (Metabase 50+) and the older native.query format.
• Output is deterministic: two runs in a row leave the tree untouched.
• Files keep {{parameter}} placeholders, so they are not runnable outside Metabase.

Development

uv sync && uv run pytest

MIT