small-expectations

Simple SQL-based expectations runner.

Install

pip install small-expectations

Usage

Create smallex.toml:

[database]
engine = "sqlite"

[database.connection]
database = "example.db"

Supported engines:

• sqlite
• snowflake
• databricks

Example snowflake config:

[database]
engine = "snowflake"

[database.connection]
account = "my-account"
user = "my-user"
password = "my-password"
warehouse = "my-warehouse"
database = "my-database"
schema = "public"

Example databricks config:

[database]
engine = "databricks"

[database.connection]
server_hostname = "adb-1234567890123456.7.azuredatabricks.net"
http_path = "/sql/1.0/warehouses/abc123"
access_token = "dapi..."

Add SQL files under tests/:

SELECT * FROM users WHERE email IS NULL;

You can define multiple tests in one SQL file with metadata comments:

-- smallex:test: no_null_emails
-- smallex:message: users.email should never be null
SELECT id, email
FROM users
WHERE email IS NULL;

-- smallex:test: no_duplicate_emails
-- smallex:message: users.email should be unique
SELECT email, COUNT(*) AS duplicates
FROM users
WHERE email IS NOT NULL
GROUP BY email
HAVING COUNT(*) > 1;

Metadata markers:

• -- smallex:test: <name>: logical test name (used in output as file.sql::<name>).
• -- smallex:message: <message>: failure message shown in terminal summary and failure details.

Run:

smallex run

Show command help:

smallex run --help

A test passes when the query returns zero rows and fails if it returns one or more rows. The terminal report follows a pytest-like style (session header, per-test ./F, failure details, and short summary info).

Failure rows output

By default, failing rows are not printed or exported.

You can configure this behavior:

smallex run \
  --failure-rows-mode terminal \
  --failure-rows-limit 5

smallex run \
  --failure-rows-mode csv \
  --failure-rows-csv-limit 10000 \
  --failure-rows-dir .smallex/failures

smallex run \
  --failure-rows-mode both \
  --failure-rows-limit 5 \
  --failure-rows-csv-limit 10000

Options:

• --config: path to TOML config file (default: smallex.toml)
• --tests-dir: root folder containing .sql test files (default: tests)
• --color: auto | yes | no (default: auto)
• --failure-rows-mode: none | terminal | csv | both (default: none)
• --failure-rows-limit: top rows shown in terminal per failing test (default: 5)
• --failure-rows-csv-limit: max rows written to CSV per failing test (default: 10000)
• --failure-rows-dir: output directory for CSV files (default: .smallex/failures)

Testing

The test suite includes:

• CLI + SQLite integration tests using a temporary local database.
• Backend unit tests that mock Snowflake and Databricks connectors so no real cloud connections are required.

Documentation

This repository uses MkDocs + Material.

Run docs locally:

pip install ".[docs]"
mkdocs serve

Build static docs:

mkdocs build

GitHub Pages is deployed automatically from .github/workflows/docs.yml on pushes to main.