Multi-Repo guide
Although mono repos are convenient and easy to use, sometimes your organization may choose to use multiple repos. SQLMesh provides native support for multiple repos and makes it easy to maintain data consistency and correctness even with multiple repos. If you are wanting to separate your systems/data and provide isolation, checkout the isolated systems guide.
Bootstrapping multiple projects
Setting up SQLMesh with multiple repos is quite simple. Copy the contents of this example multi-repo project.
To bootstrap the project, you can point SQLMesh at both projects.
$ sqlmesh -p examples/multi/repo_1 -p examples/multi/repo_2/ plan
======================================================================
Successfully Ran 0 tests against duckdb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
`prod` environment will be initialized
Models
└── Added:
├── silver.d
├── bronze.a
├── bronze.b
└── silver.c
Models needing backfill (missing dates):
├── bronze.a: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
├── bronze.b: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
├── silver.d: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
└── silver.c: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
Apply - Backfill Tables [y/n]: y
bronze.a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
silver.c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
bronze.b ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
silver.d ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
All model batches have been executed successfully
Virtually Updating 'prod' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 0:00:00
The target environment has been updated successfully
You can see that all 4 models were planned and applied even though bronze is in repo_1 and silver is in repo_2.
Editing and planning one project
Make a non-breaking change to bronze.a by adding column c.
--- a/examples/multi/repo_1/models/a.sql
+++ b/examples/multi/repo_1/models/a.sql
@@ -4,4 +4,5 @@ MODEL (
SELECT
1 AS col_a,
- 'b' AS col_b
+ 'b' AS col_b,
+ 'c' AS col_c
Run a plan with just repo_1.
$ sqlmesh -p examples/multi/repo_1 plan
======================================================================
Successfully Ran 0 tests against duckdb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Differences from the `prod` environment:
Models
├── Directly Modified:
│ └── bronze.a
└── Indirectly Modified:
├── bronze.b
├── silver.d
└── silver.c
---
+++
@@ -1,3 +1,4 @@
SELECT
1 AS col_a,
- 'b' AS col_b
+ 'b' AS col_b,
+ 'c' AS col_c
Directly Modified: bronze.a (Non-breaking)
└── Indirectly Modified Children:
├── silver.c
├── bronze.b
└── silver.d
Models needing backfill (missing dates):
└── bronze.a: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
Apply - Backfill Tables [y/n]: y
bronze.a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
All model batches have been executed successfully
Virtually Updating 'prod' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 0:00:00
The target environment has been updated successfully
SQLMesh detects the entire lineage of the non-breaking change even though you only have one project "checked out".
Make a breaking change and backfill
Change col_a to 1 + 1.
--- a/examples/multi/repo_1/models/a.sql
+++ b/examples/multi/repo_1/models/a.sql
@@ -3,5 +3,6 @@ MODEL (
);
SELECT
- 1 AS col_a,
- 'b' AS col_b
+ 1 + 1 AS col_a,
+ 'b' AS col_b,
+ 'c' AS col_c
$ sqlmesh -p examples/multi/repo_1 plan
======================================================================
Successfully Ran 0 tests against duckdb
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Differences from the `prod` environment:
Models
├── Directly Modified:
│ └── bronze.a
└── Indirectly Modified:
├── bronze.b
├── silver.d
└── silver.c
---
+++
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
SELECT
- 1 AS col_a,
+ 1 + 1 AS col_a,
'b' AS col_b,
'c' AS col_c
Directly Modified: bronze.a (Breaking)
└── Indirectly Modified Children:
├── silver.d
├── bronze.b
└── silver.c
Models needing backfill (missing dates):
├── bronze.a: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
├── bronze.b: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
├── silver.d: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
└── silver.c: (2023-04-17, 2023-04-17)
Apply - Backfill Tables [y/n]: y
bronze.a ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
silver.c ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
bronze.b ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
silver.d ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 1/1 • 0:00:00
All model batches have been executed successfully
Virtually Updating 'prod' ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 100.0% • 0:00:00
The target environment has been updated successfully
SQLMesh correctly detects a breaking change and allows you to perform a multi-repo backfill.
Configuring projects with multiple repositories
To add support for multiple repositories, add a project key to the config file in each of the respective repos.
Even if you do not have a need for multiple repos now, consider adding a project key so that you can easily support multiple repos in the future.
Running migrations with multiple repositories
When doing a migration, pass in a single repo path using the -p flag. It doesn't matter which repo you choose.
Multi-Repo dbt projects
SQLMesh also supports multiple repos for dbt projects, allowing it to correctly detect changes and orchestrate backfills even when changes span multiple dbt projects.
You can watch a quick demo of this setup or experiment with the multi-repo dbt example yourself.
Multi-repo mixed projects
Native SQLMesh projects can be used alongside dbt projects in a multi-repo setup.
This allows managing and sourcing tables from either project type within the same multi-repo project and facilitates a gradual migration from dbt to SQLMesh.
Use the same syntax as SQLMesh-only multi-repo projects to execute a multi-repo project with either dbt or a combination of dbt and SQLMesh projects:
SQLMesh will automatically detect dependencies and lineage across both SQLMesh and dbt projects, even when models are sourcing from different project types.
For an example of this setup, refer to the mixed SQLMesh and dbt example.