The specification for OpenLineage is formalized as a JsonSchema OpenLineage.json. An OpenAPI spec is
also provided for HTTP-based implementations: OpenLineage.yml The documentation is published at:
https://openlineage.github.io/ It allows extensions to the spec using Custom Facets
as described in this document.
-
Run Event: an event describing an observed state of a job run. Sending at least a START event and a COMPLETE/FAIL/ABORT event is required. Additional events are optional.
-
Job: a process definition that consumes and produces datasets (defined as its inputs and outputs). It is identified by a unique name within a namespace (which is assigned to the scheduler starting the jobs). The Job evolves over time, and this change is captured when the job runs.
-
Dataset: an abstract representation of data. It has a unique name within the datasource namespace derived from its physical location (db.host.database.schema.table, for example). Typically, a Dataset changes when a job writing to it completes. Similarly to the Job and Run distinction, metadata that is more static from run to run is captured in a DatasetFacet (for example, the schema that does not change every run), but what changes every Run is captured as an InputFacet or an OutputFacet (for example, what subset of the data set was read or written, such as a time partition).
-
Run: An instance of a running job with a start and completion (or failure) time. A run is identified by a globally unique ID relative to its job definition. A run ID must be a UUID.
-
Facet: A piece of metadata attached to one of the entities defined above.
Example: Here is an example of a simple start run event not adding any facet information:
{
"eventType": "START",
"eventTime": "2020-12-09T23:37:31.081Z",
"run": {
"runId": "3b452093-782c-4ef2-9c0c-aafe2aa6f34d",
},
"job": {
"namespace": "my-scheduler-namespace",
"name": "myjob.mytask",
},
"inputs": [
{
"namespace": "my-datasource-namespace",
"name": "instance.schema.table",
}
],
"outputs": [
{
"namespace": "my-datasource-namespace",
"name": "instance.schema.output_table",
}
],
"producer": "https://github.com/OpenLineage/OpenLineage/blob/v1-0-0/client",
"schemaURL": "https://openlineage.io/spec/1-0-0/OpenLineage.json#/definitions/RunEvent"
}
The OpenLineage API defines events to capture the lifecycle of a Run for a given Job. When a job is being run, we capture metadata by sending run events when the state of the job transitions to a different state. We might observe different aspects of the job run at different stages. This means that different metadata might be collected in each event during the lifecycle of a run. All metadata is additive. For example, if more inputs or outputs are detected as the job is running, we might send additional events specifically for those datasets without re-emitting previously observed inputs or outputs. Example:
- When the run starts, we collect the following Metadata:
- Run ID
- Job ID
- eventType: START
- event time
- source location and version (e.g., git sha)
- If known: Job inputs and outputs (input schema, etc.)
- When the run completes:
- Run ID
- Job ID
- eventType: COMPLETE
- event time
- Output datasets schema (and other metadata).
Facets are pieces of metadata that can be attached to the core entities:
- Run
- Job
- Dataset (Inputs or Outputs)
A facet is an atomic piece of metadata identified by its name. This means that emitting a new facet with the same name for the same entity replaces the previous facet instance for that entity entirely. It is defined as a JSON object that can be either part of the spec or custom facets defined in a different project.
Custom facets must use a distinct prefix named after the project defining them to avoid collision with standard facets defined in the OpenLineage.json spec. They have a _schemaURL field pointing to the corresponding version of the facet schema (as a JSONPointer: $ref URL location ).
The versioned URL must be an immutable pointer to the version of the facet schema. For example, it should include a tag of a git sha and not a branch name. This should also be a canonical URL. There should be only one URL used for a given version of a schema.
Custom facets can be promoted to the standard by including them in the spec.
Naming of custom facets should follow the pattern {prefix}{name}{entity}Facet
PascalCased.
The prefix must be a distinct identifier named after the project defining them to avoid colision with standard facets
defined in the OpenLineage.json spec. The entity is the core entity for which the facet is attached.
When attached to a core entity, the key should follow the pattern {prefix}_{name}
, where both prefix and name are in
snakeCase.
An example of a valid name is BigQueryStatisticsJobFacet
and key is bigQuery_statistics
.
-
nominalTime: Captures the time this run is scheduled for. This is a typical usage for a time-based scheduled job. The job has a nominal schedule time that will be different from the actual time at which it is running.
-
parent: Captures the parent job and run when the run has been spawned from a parent run. For example, in the case of Airflow, there is often a run for a DAG that then spawns runs for individual tasks that refer to the parent run as the DAG run. Similarly, when a SparkOperator starts a Spark job, this creates a separate run that refers to the task run as its parent.
-
errorMessage: Captures the error message, programming language - and optionally stack trace - when a run fails.
-
sourceCodeLocation: Captures the source code location and version (e.g., git sha) of the job.
-
sourceCode: Captures the language (e.g., Python) and actual source code of the job.
-
sql: Capture the SQL query if the job is a SQL query.
-
ownership: Captures the owners of the job
-
schema: Captures the schema of the dataset
-
dataSource: Captures the Database instance containing the dataset (e.g., Database schema, Object store bucket, etc.)
-
lifecycleStateChange: Captures the lifecycle states of the dataset (alter, create, drop, overwrite, rename, truncate, etc.).
-
version: Captures the dataset version when versioning is defined by the database (e.g., Iceberg snapshot ID)
-
columnLineage: Captures the column-level lineage
-
ownership: Captures the owners of the dataset
-
dataQualityMetrics: Captures dataset-level and column-level data quality metrics when scanning a dataset whith a DataQuality library (row count, byte size, null count, distinct count, average, min, max, quantiles).
-
dataQualityAssertions: Captures the result of running data tests on a dataset or its columns.
- outputStatistics: Captures the size of the output written to a dataset (row count and byte size).
SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
Copyright 2018-2023 contributors to the OpenLineage project