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/executions/<run_id>/; that statement ledger stores only an SQL digest, not SQL text. Executed SQL artifacts are stored separately under the sensitive target/run/ tree.

Documentation

Full documentation is available at docs.sqlbuild.com.

Runtime operator and extension contracts:

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-0.76.5.tar.gz (1.4 MB view details)

Uploaded Source

Built Distributions

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

sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl (5.5 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+Windows x86-64

sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl (5.8 MB view details)

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

sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl (5.7 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+manylinux: glibc 2.17+ ARM64

sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl (5.4 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+macOS 11.0+ ARM64

sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl (5.6 MB view details)

Uploaded CPython 3.12+macOS 10.12+ x86-64

File details

Details for the file sqlbuild-0.76.5.tar.gz.

File metadata

  • Download URL: sqlbuild-0.76.5.tar.gz
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 1.4 MB
  • Tags: Source
  • Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? Yes
  • Uploaded via: twine/7.0.0 CPython/3.13.14

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.76.5.tar.gz
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 0a8466d7c41eb63139c8aa39afcbc8b4e4448f4b3fd3382e8c16ed2e4e12efc3
MD5 711a4295ae978d043423995a6f3243a9
BLAKE2b-256 c0819b33072e8a51ab4eccd655c1db7b0eea7104442fa25f147ba27f50a38f9a

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5.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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl.

File metadata

  • Download URL: sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl
  • Upload date:
  • Size: 5.5 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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-win_amd64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 ad3697aa1d0ba4cb66578c568bf2ad7c628f38e5bc1b14f39da435b9abbc17ac
MD5 6f5ae041a3ec3fc08bac6f1332e2f8bb
BLAKE2b-256 2f8167359ee6aedbadfc7f863635e33cbb3f9fad6d2417a3cb4e8320b86c5fbc

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5-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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_x86_64.manylinux2014_x86_64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 0b4b3271df71aca6a3baab72c3dfdec313dcbba86d88925e5a575edf8c615590
MD5 82f43258a41a6ef27b0039d5f87dde63
BLAKE2b-256 24de184c4f4d91c561b535261f62c88b85000a2d6ed0729ef2fcad0920968758

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5-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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-manylinux_2_17_aarch64.manylinux2014_aarch64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 e660c12294f28728359791fbc4cddc98d81a39ca9659414369da389074232bdb
MD5 e3643fd1d67431868640f475cd8a2e85
BLAKE2b-256 7a8e16078f07e14ce88113b56259f0ced947452ed12cbe29403cb6b955a37f06

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5-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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_11_0_arm64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 037b2762b67b1825815f529c5898523ebc50ad57cb3ef44273b21520d9cf7d09
MD5 684d8f90e345f90ddad86c8df5e0765b
BLAKE2b-256 dae916383d9106af0b9a0c2c99ab761e00d6a06b5e248bd5c383ec80cb92896e

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5-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-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl.

File metadata

File hashes

Hashes for sqlbuild-0.76.5-cp312-abi3-macosx_10_12_x86_64.whl
Algorithm Hash digest
SHA256 474a47a4afae4cd30378143fec9db0fefcabc830b763d83c12d47df61c347cb3
MD5 19e7a2d793f6816b1d54d504f553a1b0
BLAKE2b-256 a29f3773e64f4bcd834e0123e16d4a6248b9c0daaeb65756f67637e159932888

See more details on using hashes here.

Provenance

The following attestation bundles were made for sqlbuild-0.76.5-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

This release

0.76.5 This release

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

0.74.1

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