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lightdash download

From the Lightdash CLI, you can use the command lightdash download to download all of the charts and dashboards from your Lightdash project as code. All of the charts and dashboards will be written as .yml files to a lightdash directory wherever you’re running the command.

E.g. if you’re running this command inside your dbt directory (eg: /home/javi/dbt) then it will create a folder (/home/javi/dbt/lightdash). If you’re running this command in /home/javi/documents it will create the folder in /home/javi/documents/lightdash.

Running lightdash download will overwrite any changes you have locally

For example:

  • I run lightdash download and one of the charts that is downloaded is emea-revenue-per-month.yml
  • I make some changes to the emea-revenue-per-month.yml file and save them
  • I do not upload my changes, they are just saved locally
  • I run lightdash download again
  • The changes I made to emea-revenue-per-month.yml will be overwritten by the latest chart version downloaded from the Lightdash application

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Select specific items to download

Use lightdash download -c or lightdash download --charts to select specific charts

If you only want to download specific charts to manage as code, you can use the chart selector in the download command.

For example, if I only wanted to download a specific saved chart as code, I would run the command:

lightdash download -c https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-saved-chart

You can use the chart’s SLUG, UUID, or the URL to the saved chart to select the chart.

Use lightdash download -d or lightdash download --dashboards to select specific dashboards

This will download the dashboard and all of the charts in the dashboard as code. For example, if I only wanted to download a specific dashboard as code, I would run the command:

lightdash download -d https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-dashboard

You can use the dashboard’s SLUG, UUID, or the URL to the dashboard to select the dashboard.

To select multiple charts or dashboards, add a space between the items.

For example, this command would select two charts to download:

lightdash download -c https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-first-saved-chart https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-second-saved-chart

You can combine charts and dashboards selection in a single command. For example, this command would download a chart and a dashboard:

lightdash download -c https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-first-saved-chart -d https://app.lightdash.cloud/the-url-to-my-dashboard

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Specify a download path

Use lightdash download -p or lightdash download --path to specify a directory to download to

By default, lightdash download will create a new lightdash directory in your current working directory and write the content there. You can customize the directory that you write to using lightdash download -p. For example:

lightdash download -p /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/

This will create: /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/charts/ and /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/dashboards and save the content to these new folders.

You can also use relative paths like:

lightdash download -p ../

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Download an entire project

Use lightdash download --project <project UUID> to download all content from a specific project

Running lightdash download will download all content from your current set project (set using lightdash config set-project). But, you can download content from another project using lightdash download --project my-project-uuid. For example:

lightdash download --project 21eef0b9-5bae-40f3-851e-9554588e71a6

You can find a project’s UUID from your Lightdash URL. For example, https://app.lightdash.cloud/projects/123-project-uuid/. Here, the project UUID here is 123-project-uuid .

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lightdash upload

lightdash upload updates any content as code to your project.

From the Lightdash CLI, you can use the command lightdash upload to upload any changes you’ve made to your charts or dashboards as code. To upload new charts that you’ve created as code to your Lightdash project, you need to run lightdash upload --force

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Select specific items to upload

Use lightdash upload -c or lightdash upload --charts to select specific charts

For example, if I only wanted to upload a specific saved chart as code, I would run the command:

lightdash upload -c my-saved-chart-slug

You must specify the chart using the chart’s SLUG.

Use lightdash upload -d or lightdash upload --dashboards to select specific dashboards

For example, if I only wanted to upload a specific dashboard as code, I would run the command:

lightdash upload -d my-dashboard-slug

You must specify the dashboard using the dashboard’s SLUG.

To select multiple charts or dashboards, add a space between the items

For example, this command would select two charts to upload:

lightdash upload -c my-saved-chart-1-slug my-saved-chart-2-slug

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Specify a path to upload from.

Use lightdash upload -p or lightdash upload --path to specify a directory to upload from.

By default, lightdash upload will upload all items you have saved in the lightdash directory in your current working directory. You can customize the directory that you upload from using lightdash upload -p. For example:

lightdash upload -p /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/

This will upload all content from: /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/charts/ and /Users/katiehindson/lightdash/lightdash-analytics/dashboards.

You can also use relative paths like:

lightdash download -p ../

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Specify a project to upload to

Use lightdash upload --project <project UUID> to upload your content to a specific project.

Running lightdash upload will upload all content to your current set project (set using lightdash config set-project). But, you can upload content to another project using lightdash upload --project my-project-uuid. For example:

lightdash upload --project 21eef0b9-5bae-40f3-851e-9554588e71a6

You can find a project’s UUID from your Lightdash URL. For example, https://app.lightdash.cloud/projects/123-project-uuid/. Here, the project UUID here is 123-project-uuid .

Only content as code that you’ve made changes to will be uploaded

For example:

  • I have a chart that I’ve downloaded as code called total-sales-worldwide.yml in my lightdash/ directory
  • I only make changes to that chart’s .yml
  • I run lightdash upload
  • total-sales-worldwide.yml is the only file that gets uploaded because it’s the only file that I made changes to

For example:

  • Katie has a chart that she’s downloaded as code called total-sales-worldwide.yml in her lightdash/ directory
  • She doesn’t make any changes to the chart as code
  • Javi opens the same chart, Total sales worldwide, in the Lightdash application, makes some changes, and saves them
  • Now, Katie’s total-sales-worldwide.yml and the Total sales worldwide chart in the application are different.
  • Katie runs lightdash upload
  • Katie’s total-sales-worldwide.yml does not get uploaded because she made no changes to the chart as code
  • Javi’s changes to the Total sales worldwide chart that he made in the Lightdash application are not overwritten (the version he created is what we see in the Lightdash application)
Content that’s been downloaded as code can still be updated in the Lightdash application

For example:

  • There is a Lightdash project called Stellar Marketing
  • Priyanka runs lightdash download and downloads all of the project’s content as code, including a chart called Total new clients
  • Jake opens the Total new clients chart in the Lightdash application and makes some changes
  • Priyanka doesn’t run lightdash download, so the total-new-clients.yml chart that Priyanka has as code is the old version of the chart, before Jake updated it.
  • Priyanka makes changes to total-new-clients.yml then runs lightdash upload and uploads her changes and overwrites the changes that Jake made in the Lightdash application.
  • Both Jake and Priyanka can update the same chart as code, or in the Lightdash application.

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Lightdash content templates

You can use the lightdash download and lightdash upload commands to easily build templates for Lightdash content and reuse these templates to build new or update existing projects.

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Creating a new Lightdash project from a Lightdash template

If you’re creating many dbt projects with similar models and want to easily spin up new versions of these projects, but with different table, field, or chart names, then you can use content as code to create a Lightdash template of your project to reuse.

To do this, you’ll need to:

  • Take your existing Lightdash project with all of the content that you want to copy.
  • In the CLI, run lightdash download to download all of the content as code from the project
  • Navigate to your new dbt project that you want to connect to Lightdash.
  • Copy-paste over the lightdash/ directory inside your new dbt project with all of the content as code from your template project (or, only copy over the content that you want to use in your new project)
  • Once you’re happy with your content, you’re going to run lightdash config set-project and select your new Lightdash project from the list of projects
  • Then, you’ll run lightdash upload --force to upload all of the content as code you’ve added in your lightdash/ directory to your new Lightdash project

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Adding content to an existing project from a Lightdash template

Sometimes, if you’re managing multiple dbt projects with similar models, you want to be able to easily create and manage the same charts and dashboards across all of the projects at the same time. You can do this with content as code to create a Lightdash template project.

  • You want to create a Lightdash project that only contains all of the content that you want to share across your projects
  • From your CLI, you can run lightdash download to download all of this content as code
  • You can then copy-paste the .yml files that get written across to any of the other dbt projects you have where you want to reuse the same charts and dashboards.
  • Once you’ve copied over any content that you wanted to manage across projects, from the CLI, you should run lightdash config set-project and select the project where you’ve added these new charts/dashboards as code to.
  • Then, you should run lightdash upload to upload all of the new content as code.

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Using community templates

Alongside making templates from your own project, you can also use templates from the lightdash-templates repo to quickly build dashboards on top of common datasets.

For example, if you are using BigQuery as your data warehouse, you can use the community templates to build a usage tracking dashboard in a matter of minutes.

There are detailed instructions within the repo, but the general steps are as follows:

  • Identify the content you wish to implement, and navigate to the relevant folder.
  • Copy the content from the Lightdash folder into your dbt project.
  • Run lightdash upload --force to push your new content to Lightdash.

Note that these templates still rely on access to an underlying dbt model containing the relevant data, you might need to create or adjust this following the instructions in the lightdash-templates repo.

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Dashboard as code yml reference

The yml configuration for dashboards as code is extensive. It covers both dashboards and individual charts. The best way to start is often to create your content in the Lightdash UI, download it, and in most cases the structure will be fairly intuitive. Below are outlines of the structures you will find for both types of content to provide some additional context.

The examples below are not exhaustive, so if you have additional questions, you can always reach out to our support team for more details.

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Dashboards

These are the simpler of the two content types.

Alongside the standard information, such as the name, description, updated at, slug and space information, you’ll find details for each tile and the content that exists within it and detailed filter information.

Here’s an example of a basic dashboard with three tiles and a couple of filters. We’ve added some comments for context!

Dashboards as code example
name: My cool dashboard
description: Shows a few of our KPIs
updatedAt: "2025-01-01T10:15:47.406Z"
tiles: 
    # Each tile is represented here with a co-ordinate
    # referencing their location on the dashboard grid.
  - x: 18
    "y": 5
    h: 6
    w: 18
    tabUuid: null
    type: saved_chart
    properties:
      title: ""
      hideTitle: false
      chartSlug: company-sales 
      # Chart tiles always point towards a specific and unique chart slug
      # this will match up with the chart slug from the charts yml code.
    tileSlug: company-sales
  - x: 0
    "y": 5
    h: 6
    w: 18
    tabUuid: null
    type: saved_chart
    properties:
      title: ""
      hideTitle: false
      chartSlug: customer-counts
    tileSlug: customer-counts
  - x: 0
    "y": 0
    h: 5
    w: 36
    tabUuid: null
    type: markdown
    properties:
      title: My cool dashboard
      hideTitle: false
      content: |- # Markdown tiles have their config stored here under 'content'.
        This is an example of a markdown tile

        Emojis work here 🎉

        So do
        - bullet
        - points

        And so on...
filters: 
  # Filters are split by whether they are performed 
  # on a metric, dimension or table calculation. 
  # Here we have two filters, both on dimensions.
  metrics: []
  dimensions:
    - target: 
      # All of the config for a single filter exists under target. 
      # Here we can see the underlying field that is being used to filter
      # and the default value assigned if one exists.
        fieldId: orders_date_day
        fieldName: date_day
        tableName: orders
      values:
        - 30
      disabled: false
      operator: inThePast
      settings:
        completed: false
        unitOfTime: days
      tileTargets: {} 
    # Note that if we were just applying the filter to specific tiles 
    # on the dash, we would see that info here.
    - target:
        fieldId: customers_is_verified
        fieldName: is_verified
        tableName: customers
      values: []
      disabled: false
      operator: notNull
      tileTargets: {}
  tableCalculations: []
tabs: []
slug: my-cool-dashboard
spaceSlug: my-space
version: 1
downloadedAt: "2025-01-02T10:15:47.406Z"

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Charts

Charts store a large amount of configuration, and so are more complex and more variable that what you will find within the dashboard yml files.

Again, you will find basic information such as the name, description, updated at, slug and space information. But on top of that we also store all of the possible configuration you might have included in a chart. This includes things like:

  • Dimensions
  • Metrics
  • Custom Fields
  • Table Calculations
  • Filters
  • Visualization Configuration
  • Formatting
  • Sorting

Each of the above can have a number of sub categories of information. With that in mind, below is an example highlighting most of the above options, but you might come across variances depending on your exact chart configs!

Here’s an image of the chart that we have generated code for, and just below that is the code itself.

Charts as code example
name: My cool chart
description: Shows sales since December 2023
tableName: orders
updatedAt: "2024-02-12T18:12:03.345Z"
metricQuery: 
  # metricQuery stores all the information that 
  # allows us to generate the results set.
  exploreName: orders
  dimensions:
    - orders_ordered_at_month
  metrics:
    - orders_total_orders_amount
    - orders_order_id_unique_count_of_orders
  filters: 
    dimensions:
      and: 
        # here we list all 'and' type filters 
        # note we might also have 'or' type filters under an 'or' option
        - target:
            fieldId: orders_ordered_at_month
          values:
            - 2023-12
          operator: greaterThanOrEqual
          required: false

        - target:
            fieldId: orders_status
          values:
            - shipped
            - completed
            - placed
          operator: equals
          required: false
  sorts:
    - fieldId: orders_ordered_at_month
      descending: true
  limit: 500
  metricOverrides: 
    # Metric overrides are often in the form of formatting changes.
    # here we are changing a basic number to a currency.
    orders_total_orders_amount:
      formatOptions:
        type: currency
        round: 0
        currency: GBP
        separator: default
  tableCalculations:
    - name: average_order_value_1
      displayName: Average order value
      sql: >- # Table calculation config is stored directly in yml
        ${orders.total_orders_amount}/${orders.order_id_unique_count_of_orders}
      format:
        type: currency
        round: 2
        currency: GBP
        separator: default
      type: number
  additionalMetrics: 
    # This is an example of a custom metric that 
    # has been added by the user in the UI
    - name: order_id_unique_count_of_orders
      label: Unique count of orders
      description: "Count distinct of Order id on the table Orders"
      sql: ${TABLE}.order_id
      table: orders
      type: count_distinct
      baseDimensionName: order_id
      formatOptions:
        type: default
        separator: default
  customDimensions: []
chartConfig: 
    # Here is where all the config is stored to 
    # translate your results set into a chart.
    # Note that this is the section that changes the most 
    # with different chart types, but it's usually fairly 
    # intuitive to understand!
  type: cartesian
  config:
    layout:
      xField: orders_ordered_at_month
      yField:
        - orders_total_orders_amount
        - average_order_value_1
    eChartsConfig:
      yAxis:
        - name: Order amount
        - name: Avg order value
      series: 
        # Here you can see all of the details around the chart config, 
        # I have a complex dual axis chart here, with both bars and lines.
        - type: bar
          encode:
            xRef:
              field: orders_ordered_at_month
            yRef:
              field: orders_total_orders_amount
          yAxisIndex: 0
          isFilteredOut: false
        - type: line
          label:
            show: true
            position: top
          encode:
            xRef:
              field: orders_ordered_at_month
            yRef:
              field: average_order_value_1
          yAxisIndex: 1 
            # This index indicates that this is the right hand side y axis.
          isFilteredOut: false
      tooltip: "" # If I had custom tooltip config, it would show up here!
slug: my-cool-chart
tableConfig:
  columnOrder:
    - orders_ordered_at_month
    - orders_total_orders_amount
    - orders_order_id_unique_count_of_orders
    - average_order_value_1
spaceSlug: my-space
version: 1
downloadedAt: "2025-04-09T10:44:01.104Z"
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