Below are detailed reference docs about data development in Lightdash. That includes the YAML in Lightdash Semantic Layer and anywhere you need to use SQL.

Overview

Lightdash Development Reference Docs

Lightdash

Lightdash instantly turns your dbt project into a full-stack BI platform.

Welcome to Lightdash

Welcome to Lightdash! We're going to try to get you developing, exploring or just browsing your data in no time.

Getting started

AI Analyst

Lightdash allows you to embed your dashboards using expirable URLs and tokens (embed URLs from now on). This is a great way to enable self-serve analytics in your own application and platform by leveraging the insights you've got in Lightdash and making them available to your own users.

How to embed content

Reference docs are broken down into the categories below.

Lightdash Reference Docs

The Lightdash CLI is the recommended way to develop your Lightdash project. It makes development faster and easier, as well as giving you options for building more powerful automation to manage your Lightdash projects.

Lightdash CLI reference

Self-Host Lightdash

Lightdash is open-source and licensed under the MIT license. This means that you are free to self-host Lightdash on your own infrastructure but without any warranty or support from the Lightdash team.

Lightdash Cloud vs. Self-Hosted

Self-host Lightdash using docker compose

Self-Host Lightdash with Restack

Updating Lightdash to the latest version

FAQs

There are a few ways you can get in touch with the team. Here's which one to use depending on your situation:

Contact Us

Learn what dbt's package-lock.yml file does, why it matters for your data projects, and how to manage it effectively.

Guide to package-lock.yml in dbt

Introduction

Lightdash API (0.1411.0)

These routes allow users to manage their own user account.

My Account

GetAuthenticatedUser

RegisterUser

Create a new one-time passcode for the current user's primary email.
The user will receive an email with the passcode.

CreateEmailOneTimePasscode

Get the verification status for the current user's primary email

GetEmailVerificationStatus

List the organizations that the current user can join.
This is based on the user's primary email domain and the organization's allowed email domains.

ListMyAvailableOrganizations

Add the current user to an organization that accepts users with a verified email domain.
This will fail if the organization email domain does not match the user's primary email domain.

JoinOrganization

DeleteMe

createWarehouseCredentials

updateWarehouseCredentials

deleteWarehouseCredentials

getLoginOptions

Rotate personal access token

Each user is a member of a single organization. These routes allow users to manage their organization. Most actions are only available to admin users.

Organizations

GetMyOrganization

Creates a new organization, the current user becomes the Admin of the new organization.
This is only available to users that are not already in an organization.

CreateOrganization

UpdateMyOrganization

Deletes an organization and all users inside that organization

DeleteMyOrganization

Gets all projects of the current user's organization

ListOrganizationProjects

Gets all the members of the current user's organization

ListOrganizationMembers

Get the member profile for a user in the current user's organization by uuid

GetOrganizationMemberByUuid

Deletes a user from the current user's organization

DeleteOrganizationMember

Gets the allowed email domains for the current user's organization

ListOrganizationEmailDomains

Updates the allowed email domains for the current user's organization

UpdateOrganizationEmailDomains

Gets all the groups in the current user's organization

ListGroupsInOrganization

Creates a new group in the current user's organization

CreateGroupInOrganization

Projects belong to a single organization. These routes allow users to manage their projects, browse content, and execute queries. Users inside an organization might have access to a project from an organization-level role or they might be granted access to a project directly.

Projects

GetExplores

SetExplores

GetExplore

CompileQuery

DownloadCsvFromExplore

GetProject

ListChartsInProject

ListChartSummariesInProject `Deprecated` 

ListChartSummariesInProject

ListSpacesInProject

GetProjectAccessList

Calculate all metric totals from a metricQuery

CalculateTotalFromQuery

getUserWarehouseCredentialsPreference

updateUserWarehouseCredentialsPreference

getCustomMetrics

Update project metadata like upstreamProjectUuid
we don't trigger a compile, so not for updating warehouse or credentials

updateProjectMetadata

deleteProjectSemanticLayerConnection

updateProjectSemanticLayerConnection

getDashboards

createDashboard

updateDashboards

createPreview

getTags

createTag

deleteTag

updateTag

getChartsAsCode

getDashboardsAsCode

upsertChartAsCode

upsertDashboardAsCode

Get validation results for a project. This will return the results of the latest validation job.

GetLatestValidationResults

Validate content inside a project. This will start a validation job and return the job id.

Validation jobs scan all charts and dashboards inside a project to find any broken references
to metrics or dimensions that aren't available. Results are available after the job is completed.

ValidateProject

DeleteValidationDismiss

CreateSpaceInProject

DeleteSpace

Updates the membership profile for a user in the current user's organization

UpdateOrganizationMember

Get access list for a project. This is a list of users that have been explictly granted access to the project.
There may be other users that have access to the project via their organization membership.

Get a project explicit member's access.
There may be users that have access to the project via their organization membership.

NOTE:
We don't use the API on the frontend. Instead, we can call the API
so that we make sure of the user's access to the project.

GetProjectMemberAccess

RevokeProjectAccessForUser

GrantProjectAccessToUser

UpdateSpace

AddSpaceUserAccess

RevokeSpaceAccessForUser

AddSpaceGroupAccess

RevokeGroupSpaceAccess

getCatalog

getMetadata

getAnalytics

getAnalyticsField

getMetricsCatalog

getMetric

getMetricsWithTimeDimensions

Get dimensions that can be used to segment metrics

getSegmentDimensions

addCategoryToCatalogItem

removeCategoryFromCatalogItem

updateCatalogItemIcon

getMetricsTree

createMetricsTreeEdge

deleteMetricsTreeEdge

createComment

getComments

deleteComment

resolveComment

getCsvUrl

Promote dashboard to its upstream project

promoteDashboard

promoteDashboardDiff

Install the Lightdash GitHub App and link to an organization

installGithubAppForOrganization

Callback URL for GitHub App Authorization also used for GitHub App Installation with combined Authorization

githubOauthCallback

uninstallGithubAppForOrganization

getGithubListRepositories

GetConfiguration

CreatePullRequestForChartFields

CreatePullRequestForCustomMetrics

getAccessToken

Upload results from query to Google Sheet

uploadGsheet

getSlackChannels

Update slack notification channel to send notifications to scheduled jobs fail

UpdateCustomSettings

getGroup

deleteGroup

updateGroup

addUserToGroup

removeUserFromGroup

getGroupMembers

addProjectAccessToGroup

removeProjectAccessFromGroup

updateProjectAccessForGroup

runMetricExplorerQuery

runMetricTotal

Gets notifications for a user based on the type

getNotifications

updateNotification

getPinnedItems

updatePinnedItemsOrder

Run a raw sql query against the project's warehouse connection

RunSqlQuery

postRunUnderlyingDataQuery

RunMetricQuery

PostChartResults

PostDashboardTile

Get chart version history from last 30 days

GetChartHistory

GetChartVersion

getChartVersionResults

postChartVersionRollback

Calculate metric totals from a saved chart

CalculateTotalFromSavedChart

promoteChart

promoteChartDiff

DownloadCsvFromSavedChart

getSchedulerLogs

getScheduler

deleteScheduler

updateScheduler

updateSchedulerEnabled

getScheduledJobs

Get a generic job status
This method can be used when polling from the frontend

Welcome to Lightdash

Getting started tutorials

Guides

References

Self-hosting

Contact

Lightdash Development Reference Docs

Dimensions.

Metrics

Tables

Joins

Preview Projects

Validator

SQL Runner

Content as Code

SQL Variables

Caching