Skip to main content

SQLBuild

Verify early. Test properly. Deploy reversibly. SQL pipelines with the rigor of real software.

Valid isn't the same as correct. Your SQL compiles, runs, and returns rows; none of that means the number is right, and a silently-wrong number a stakeholder already trusted is the bug that actually hurts.

SQLBuild brings software-engineering rigor to SQL pipelines: catch errors before the warehouse runs them, test your logic locally, and opt into change-aware execution when you need it. It is a standalone, open-source framework for building SQL and Python data pipelines.

All state is persisted as append-only tables in the warehouse alongside your data: no external state database, no manifest files, no paid add-on. Start with straightforward SQL models, then add ingestion, Python nodes, and opt-in virtual environments as your project grows.

Key features

  • Test your logic, not just your columns. Multi-model SQL tests resolve every intermediate model from its real SQL, plus end-to-end scenarios with local DuckDB replay for fast CI with no warehouse. Catch wrong logic before it ships, not just nulls.
  • Verify early. Define models as SQL files with MODEL() headers. SQLBuild resolves references, validates SQL, infers columns, checks contracts, and computes column lineage before anything runs, all offline. It fails at compile, not halfway through a warehouse run.
  • Fast and open static analysis. SQL parsing, validation, column inference, lineage, and transpilation run on Polyglot, a Rust SQL engine (MIT, 32+ dialects), so compile stays fast on large projects. The analysis is part of the Apache-2.0 core: no proprietary engine, no login, no paid tier.
  • Audits that block bad data. Audits run before data reaches the target table. Full table builds materialize into a staging table and only promote if audits pass; incremental models validate each batch before DML.
  • Deploy reversibly (opt-in). Virtual environments add instant low-copy branching, partial promotion, rollback, checkpoints, and reconciliation. Opt-in, not a tax you pay upfront.
  • Opt-in change-aware execution. Models, seeds, UDFs, and Python nodes are fingerprinted, and source freshness is tracked. In virtual environments, pass --changes-only or set changes_only = true to skip work that is already current; commands otherwise run the full selected scope.
  • Warehouse-native state. All change-tracking state lives in append-only tables (_sqlbuild_fingerprints, _sqlbuild_source_freshness, _sqlbuild_node_results) in your warehouse schemas. No external state machine, no corruption risk.
  • Cursor-based incremental processing. Automatic gap detection and resume, with microbatch mode for large ranges. No external checkpoint to maintain.
  • Ingestion and Python nodes. Load external data with Python @loader functions, and run @task, @asset, and @check nodes as first-class members of the same DAG as your SQL models.

See the documentation for the full feature set, including providers, lifecycle hooks, Python macros, UDFs, custom materializations, data diffs, zero-copy cloning, and virtual environments. To coordinate dbt and SQLBuild projects, see the dbt compatibility guide.

Quick start

pip install sqlbuild
# or
uv pip install sqlbuild

Create and run the included playground project:

sqb playground waffle-shop
cd waffle-shop
sqb plan
sqb build
sqb test

Example

A model is a SQL file with a MODEL() header and a SELECT. References use __ref() and __source(), and configuration, schema, and audits are declared inline:

MODEL (
  materialized table,
  columns (
    order_id (audits [not_null, unique]),
  ),
  tags [marts],
);

SELECT
  o.order_id,
  o.customer_id,
  p.amount_cents AS total_cents
FROM __ref("stg_orders") o
JOIN __ref("stg_payments") p USING (order_id)

A unit test mocks sources and asserts on the model, resolving every intermediate model automatically:

TEST();

WITH
__source__raw__orders AS (
  @mock_orders()
),
__source__raw__payments AS (
  SELECT
    1 AS payment_id,
    1 AS order_id,
    1500 AS amount_cents,
    'credit_card' AS method
),
__expected__fact_orders AS (
  SELECT 1 AS order_id, 100 AS customer_id, 1500 AS total_cents
)
SELECT 1

See the documentation for incremental models, scenarios, loaders, and more.

Kata SQL architecture checks

Kata is SQLBuild's opt-in, error-only SQL model shape checker. It runs offline over the compiled project, reports coded faults with remediations, and never rewrites SQL. Its built-in lifecycle is native: Rust resolves rule policy, parses each model, evaluates built-ins, applies suppressions, and owns the persistent cache and deterministic result ordering.

Kata is disabled until the project selects at least one rule. Select the complete built-in policy in sqlbuild_project.toml with its namespace prefix:

[kata]
select = ["SQBK"]

SQBK activates every built-in rule. Narrower prefixes such as SQBKS activate one family, exact codes select individual rules, and ignore removes matching rules. Audit, unit-test, and custom-rule test-case minimums each default to one and can be overridden under [kata.thresholds].

Kata also keeps model ownership shallow and explicit. Configured level paths separate warehouse layers from domain ownership; every owner is a leaf or a branch, subdomain depth defaults to one, and declaration roles remain bounded flat-or-grouped containers:

[kata.layout]
levels = ["staging", "intermediate/clean", "intermediate/enriched", "mart"]
domain_roots = ["market/betfair", "model/horsenet/ratings"] # optional disambiguation

[kata.thresholds]
max_subdomain_depth = 1
min_shared_owner_prefix_directories = 2

Run sqb kata, inspect metadata with sqb kata rule SQBKS101, and generate agent guidance from the same active ruleset with sqb kata skills. Use sqb kata skills --check in CI to detect stale guidance. --json, --select, and --exclude are available for automation and model scoping.

Repository rules use the public API:

from sqlbuild.kata import RuleContext, kata


@kata(
    code="XSQBKP001",
    family="prices",
    slug="typed-currency",
    message="price models must declare a currency column",
    remediation="Declare currency in the MODEL columns contract at this model path.",
)
def typed_currency(*, model, ctx: RuleContext):
    return [] if any(column.name == "currency" for column in ctx.declared_columns) else [
        ctx.path_fault()
    ]

Load repository-owned files through rule_paths = ["kata/rules"] or dotted packages through rule_modules. Test each custom rule with RuleCase and evaluate_rule. Selecting custom rules disables caching unless [kata.cache] require_cacheable = true; cacheable rules may import only the supported pure modules and must access project files through RuleContext.

Python is used only for the SQLBuild compiler adapter and selected custom rules. Built-in-only runs cross into the native engine once as a compiled model batch and do not materialize or walk Python AST objects. A selected custom rule can still use the public RuleContext and raw Polyglot AST escape hatch; its findings rejoin native suppression, ordering, and cache policy.

Exact rule_exceptions require a rule, file, and reason and fail when stale. Broader rule_ignores and lone-star allowances also require reasons but are intentionally not stale-checked.

Supported adapters

Adapter Status
DuckDB Supported
MotherDuck Supported
Snowflake Supported
BigQuery Supported
Databricks Supported
PostgreSQL Supported
SQL Server Supported

ClickHouse, Redshift, Trino, Spark, and Athena are on the way.

Snowflake cost estimates

Native Snowflake builds automatically show a compact per-run busy-compute estimate. SQLBuild attributes visible overlapping query intervals fairly across active queries, converts attributed seconds using the warehouse-size credit rate, and estimates USD from the configured rate:

[cost]
usd_per_credit = 3.00

The default is 3.00 USD per credit and is visibly marked as a default. Configure the value with your Snowflake contract rate. Use sqb cost, sqb cost latest, sqb cost <run_id>, or sqb cost history --since 7d to inspect persisted records. --json and --json-output PATH provide a versioned, decimal-safe output contract. Pending detail records are refreshed from Snowflake when inspected again.

These values are attributed compute credits and estimated cost, not Snowflake-billed credits or invoice reconciliation. The estimate uses only query history visible to the executing role and does not reconstruct invisible concurrent work, warehouse resume or idle tail, the 60-second minimum, cloud-services credits, contract adjustments, or multi-cluster billing. Run metadata and query IDs are stored under target/runs/<run_id>/; raw SQL is not persisted.

Documentation

Full documentation is available at docs.sqlbuild.com.

Contributing

We welcome contributions. Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for guidelines.

License

SQLBuild is licensed under the Apache License 2.0.

Download files

Download the file for your platform. If you're not sure which to choose, learn more about installing packages.

Source Distribution

sqlbuild-0.74.1.tar.gz (1.3 MB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distributions

If you're not sure about the file name format, learn more about wheel file names.

sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl (5.3 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+Windows x86-64

sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (5.6 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+manylinux: glibc 2.17+ x86-64

sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl (5.5 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+manylinux: glibc 2.17+ ARM64

sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl (5.2 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+macOS 11.0+ ARM64

sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl (5.4 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+macOS 10.12+ x86-64

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: sqlbuild-0.74.1.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 1.3 MB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 c329a21b29d41b3f9f4f93d1289a784b8ad94519838d536b16a1fa4bf0fb9c2e
MD5 8e1b5de10994af501a3b5335b1add07b
BLAKE2b-256 b5898eb3b56ba9d5c410ae3907a94899e09467866e40224f6361087684c81586

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1.tar.gz:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 5.3 MB
  • Tags: CPython 3.12+, Windows x86-64
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 2f8167dc33c6aa9fb7c8cc356af497cd961e50be9bbcb42bf5f0a5238839c3ab
MD5 41e49c0d1f35045d683a72e9a3f03e72
BLAKE2b-256 d280cdefaf166ee2f5d18d19d8814f40cd8a1f601a1f4d46c8b7b3bdba7e036b

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 e1894ae33d3b8dbd5c8f378299271285edb5b54553a20703ae47d73b871c4508
MD5 9f22e691c27beb8a8b0280de1e42790b
BLAKE2b-256 4d3aa0988f90aca3246247cb6cd35fa3402368dd3f9d6c2302b285acd9265436

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 8c6b1f0987ac28ae0cc634bd2d33f5ba8496cc0e083f2f0102d52543eb824a9d
MD5 0abbf059f6a8c25aefc8b8525ba0ca18
BLAKE2b-256 c4f804abfb5f2e047ca573f1d252f891973ebd407deb75968a3a0845bec2eb25

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 2ee308f4c5dda4f5519dfd675321073d4a9739c7963ce1bd67cd9a16d0088a25
MD5 55e1bede00da4df7b11c1ed18e36a26c
BLAKE2b-256 6d3d12753a07bbc9e126d20ea270d7538b1f42eee7f98c5b42c16d83bd72aca0

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 a86b671c61742e5b5b00ff7de4dd3198d57963b0fbebf05b20fbd6f8d829effc
MD5 64c56aed3d024db49fcc4f2c6e0f932a
BLAKE2b-256 2bf7c9185194a399149016c894276121b41daee217179c7e079c5c2eaece9418

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.74.1-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl:

Publisher: publish.yml on chio-labs/sqlbuild

Attestations: Values shown here reflect the state when the release was signed and may no longer be current.

Release history Release notifications | RSS feed

0.83.2

6 files

0.83.1

6 files

0.83.0

6 files

0.82.6

6 files

0.82.5

6 files

0.82.4

6 files

0.82.3

6 files

0.82.2

6 files

0.82.1

6 files

0.82.0

6 files

0.81.2

6 files

0.81.1

6 files

0.81.0

6 files

0.80.2

6 files

0.80.1

6 files

0.80.0

6 files

0.79.0

6 files

0.78.0

6 files

0.77.2

6 files

0.77.1

6 files

0.77.0

6 files

0.76.9

6 files

0.76.8

6 files

0.76.7

6 files

0.76.6

6 files

0.76.5

6 files

0.76.4

6 files

0.76.3

6 files

0.76.2

6 files

0.76.1

6 files

0.76.0

6 files

0.75.1

6 files

0.75.0

6 files

0.74.4

6 files

0.74.3

6 files

0.74.2

6 files

This release

0.74.1 This release

6 files

0.74.0

6 files

0.73.0

6 files

0.72.2

6 files

0.72.1

6 files

0.72.0

6 files

0.71.6

6 files

0.71.5

6 files

0.71.4

6 files

0.71.3

6 files

0.71.2

6 files

0.71.1

6 files

0.71.0

6 files

0.70.0

6 files

0.69.0

6 files

0.68.0

6 files

0.67.2

6 files

0.67.1

6 files

0.67.0

6 files

0.66.6

6 files

0.66.5

6 files

0.66.4

6 files

0.66.3

6 files

0.66.2

6 files

0.66.1

6 files

0.66.0

6 files

0.65.6

6 files

0.65.5

6 files

0.65.4

6 files

0.65.3

6 files

0.65.2

6 files

0.65.1

6 files

0.65.0

6 files

0.64.0

6 files

0.63.8

6 files

0.63.7

6 files

0.63.6

6 files

0.63.5

6 files

0.63.4

6 files

0.63.3

6 files

0.63.2

6 files

0.63.1

6 files

0.63.0

6 files

0.62.2

6 files

0.62.1

6 files

0.62.0

6 files

0.61.0

6 files

0.60.0

6 files

0.59.0

6 files

0.58.0

6 files

0.57.0

6 files

0.56.2

6 files

0.56.1

6 files

0.56.0

6 files

0.55.9

6 files

0.55.8

6 files

0.55.7

6 files

0.55.6

6 files

0.55.5

6 files

0.55.4

6 files

0.55.3

6 files

0.55.2

6 files

0.55.1

6 files

0.55.0

6 files

0.54.2

6 files

0.54.1

6 files

0.54.0

5 files

0.53.0

2 files

0.52.0

2 files

0.51.0

2 files

0.50.0

2 files

0.49.0

2 files

0.48.7

2 files

0.48.6

2 files

0.48.5

2 files

0.48.4

2 files

0.48.3

2 files

0.48.2

2 files

0.48.1

2 files

0.48.0

2 files

0.47.0

2 files

0.46.0

2 files

0.45.5

2 files

0.45.4

2 files

0.45.3

2 files

0.45.2

2 files

0.45.1

2 files

0.45.0

2 files

0.44.4

2 files

0.41.1

2 files

0.41.0

2 files

0.40.1

2 files

0.40.0

2 files

0.39.3

2 files

0.39.2

2 files

0.39.1

2 files

0.39.0

2 files

0.38.6

2 files

0.38.5

2 files

0.38.4

2 files

0.38.3

2 files

0.38.2

2 files

0.38.1

2 files

0.38.0

2 files

0.37.7

2 files

0.37.6

2 files

0.37.5

2 files

0.37.4

2 files

0.37.3

2 files

0.37.2

2 files

0.37.1

2 files

0.36.0

2 files

0.35.0

2 files

0.34.0

2 files

0.33.0

2 files

0.32.0

2 files

0.31.0

2 files

0.30.1

2 files

0.30.0

2 files

0.29.0

2 files

0.28.1

2 files

0.28.0

2 files

0.27.0

2 files

0.26.2

2 files

0.26.1

2 files

0.26.0

2 files

0.25.1

2 files

0.25.0

2 files

0.24.0

2 files

0.23.0

2 files

0.22.1

2 files

0.22.0

2 files

0.21.0

2 files

0.20.1

2 files

0.20.0

2 files

0.19.0

2 files

0.18.0

2 files

0.16.2

2 files

0.16.1

2 files

0.15.0

2 files

0.14.0

2 files

0.13.0

2 files

0.12.0

2 files

0.10.0

2 files

0.9.0

2 files

0.8.0

2 files

0.7.0

2 files

0.4.0

2 files

0.3.0

2 files

0.2.1

2 files

0.2.0

2 files

0.0.1

2 files

Anthropic, PBC Visionary sponsor Bloomberg Visionary sponsor Hudson River Trading Visionary sponsor Meta Visionary sponsor NVIDIA Visionary sponsor Microsoft Sustainability sponsor Depot Continuous Integration AWS Cloud computing and Security Sponsor Datadog Monitoring Fastly CDN Google Download Analytics Sentry Error logging StatusPage Status page