Python

Overview

The Python client is the basis of existing OpenLineage integrations such as Airflow and dbt.

The client enables the creation of lineage metadata events with Python code. The core data structures currently offered by the client are the RunEvent, RunState, Run, Job, Dataset, and Transport classes. These either configure or collect data for the emission of lineage events.

You can use the client to create your own custom integrations.

Installation

Download the package using pip with

pip install openlineage-python

To install the package from source, use

python -m pip install .

Configuration

We recommend configuring the client with an openlineage.yml file that contains all the details of how to connect to your OpenLineage backend.

You can make this file available to the client in three ways (the list also presents precedence of the configuration):

1. Set an OPENLINEAGE_CONFIG environment variable to a file path: OPENLINEAGE_CONFIG=path/to/openlineage.yml.
2. Place an openlineage.yml file in the current working directory (the absolute path of the directory where your script or process is currently running).
3. Place an openlineage.yml file under .openlineage/ in the user's home directory (~/.openlineage/openlineage.yml).

In openlineage.yml, use a standard Transport interface to specify the transport type (http, console, kafka, file, or custom) and authorization parameters. See the example config file for each transport type.

If there is no config file found, the OpenLineage client looks at environment variables for HTTP transport.

At the end, if no configuration is found, ConsoleTransport is used, the events are printed in the console.

Environment Variables

The following environment variables are available to use:

Name	Description	Example	Since
OPENLINEAGE_CONFIG	The path to the YAML configuration file	path/to/openlineage.yml
OPENLINEAGE_CLIENT_LOGGING	Logging level of OpenLineage client and its child modules	DEBUG
OPENLINEAGE_DISABLED	When true, OpenLineage will not emit events (default: false)	false	0.9.0
OPENLINEAGE_URL	The URL to send lineage events to (also see OPENLINEAGE_ENDPOINT)	https://myapp.com
OPENLINEAGE_ENDPOINT	Endpoint to which events are sent (default: api/v1/lineage)	api/v2/events
OPENLINEAGE_API_KEY	Token included in the Authentication HTTP header as the Bearer	secret_token_123

If you are using Airflow integration, there are additional environment variables available.

HTTP transport configuration with environment variables

For backwards compatibility, the simplest HTTP transport configuration, with only a subset of its config, can be done with environment variables (all other transport types are only configurable with YAML file). This setup can be done with the following environment variables:
OPENLINEAGE_URL (required), OPENLINEAGE_ENDPOINT (optional, default: api/v1/lineage), OPENLINEAGE_API_KEY (optional).

Built-in Transport Types

HTTP

• type - string (required)
• url - string (required)
• endpoint - string specifying the endpoint to which events are sent. Default: api/v1/lineage (optional)
• timeout - float specifying a timeout value when sending an event. Default: 5 seconds. (optional)
• verify - boolean specifying whether the client should verify TLS certificates from the backend. Default: true. (optional)
• auth - dictionary specifying authentication options. Requires the type property. (optional)
  • type - string specifying the "api_key" or the fully qualified class name of your TokenProvider. (required if auth is provided)
  • apiKey - string setting the Authentication HTTP header as the Bearer. (required if type is api_key)

Example:

transport:
  type: http
  url: https://backend:5000
  endpoint: events/receive
  auth:
    type: api_key
    apiKey: f048521b-dfe8-47cd-9c65-0cb07d57591e

Console

• type - string (required)

Example:

transport:
  type: console

Kafka

Kafka transport requires confluent-kafka package to be additionally installed. It can be installed also by specifying kafka client extension: pip install openlineage-python[kafka]

• type - string (required)
• config - string containing a Kafka producer config. A dictionary that contains a Kafka producer config as in Kafka producer config (required).
• topic - string specifying the topic on what events will be sent (required)
• flush - boolean specifying whether Kafka should flush after each event. Default: true. (optional)

There's a caveat for using KafkaTransport with Airflow integration. In this integration, a Kafka producer needs to be created for each OpenLineage event. It happens due to the Airflow execution and plugin model, which requires us to send messages from worker processes. These are created dynamically for each task execution.

Example:

transport:
  type: kafka
  config:
    bootstrap.servers: mybroker
    acks: all
    retries: 3
  topic: my_topic
  flush: true

File

• log_file_path - string specifying the path of the file (if append is true, a file path is expected, otherwise a file prefix is expected). (required)
• append - boolean . If set to True, each event will be appended to a single file (log_file_path); otherwise, all events will be written separately in distinct files suffixed by a timestring. Default: false. (optional)

Example:

transport:
  type: file
  log_file_path: ol_events
  append: false

Custom Transport Type

To implement a custom transport, follow the instructions in transport.py.

The type property (required) must be a fully qualified class name that can be imported.

Getting Started

To try out the client, follow the steps below to install and explore OpenLineage, Marquez (the reference implementation of OpenLineage), and the client itself. Then, the instructions will show you how to use these tools to add a run event and datasets to an existing namespace.

Prerequisites

• Docker 17.05+
• Docker Compose 1.29.1+
• Git (preinstalled on most versions of MacOS; verify your version with git version)
• 4 GB of available memory (the minimum for Docker — more is strongly recommended)

Install OpenLineage and Marquez

Clone the Marquez Github repository:

git clone https://github.com/MarquezProject/marquez.git

Install the Python client

pip install openlineage-python

Start Docker and Marquez

Start Docker Desktop Run Marquez with preloaded data:

cd marquez
./docker/up.sh --seed

Marquez should be up and running at http://localhost:3000.

Take a moment to explore Marquez to get a sense of how metadata is displayed in the UI. Namespaces – the global contexts for runs and datasets – can be found in the top right corner, and icons for jobs and runs can be found in a tray along the left side.

Next, configure OpenLineage and add a script to your project that will generate a new job and new datasets within an existing namespace (here we’re using the food_delivery namespace that got passed to Marquez with the –seed argument we used earlier).

Create a directory for your script:

..
mkdir python_scripts && cd python_scripts

In the python_scripts directory, create a Python script (we used the name generate_events.py for ours) and an openlineage.yml file.

In openlineage.yml, define a transport type and URL to tell OpenLineage where and how to send metadata:

transport:
  type: http
  url: http://localhost:5000

In generate_events.py, import the Python client and the methods needed to create a job and datasets. Also required (to create a run): the datetime and uuid packages:

from openlineage.client.run import RunEvent, RunState, Run, Job, Dataset
from openlineage.client import OpenLineageClient
from datetime import datetime
from uuid import uuid4

Then, in the same file, initialize the Python client:

client = OpenLineageClient.from_environment()

It is also possible to specify parameters such as URL for client to connect to, without using environment variables or openlineage.yaml file, by directly setting it up when instantiating OpenLineageClient:

client = OpenLineageClient(url="http://localhost:5000")

For more details about options to setup OpenLineageClient such as API tokens or HTTP transport settings, please refer to the following example

Specify the producer of the new lineage metadata with a string:

producer = "OpenLineage.io/website/blog"

Now you can create some basic dataset objects. These require a namespace and name:

inventory = Dataset(namespace="food_delivery", name="public.inventory")
menus = Dataset(namespace="food_delivery", name="public.menus_1")
orders = Dataset(namespace="food_delivery", name="public.orders_1")

You can also create a job object (we’ve borrowed this one from the existing food_delivery namespace):

job = Job(namespace="food_delivery", name="example.order_data")

To create a run object you’ll need to specify a unique ID:

run = Run(str(uuid4()))

a START run event:

client.emit(
    RunEvent(
        RunState.START,
        datetime.now().isoformat(),
        run, job, producer
    )
)

and, finally, a COMPLETE run event:

client.emit(
    RunEvent(
        RunState.COMPLETE,
        datetime.now().isoformat(),
        run, job, producer,
        inputs=[inventory],
        outputs=[menus, orders],
    )
)

Now you have a complete script for creating datasets and a run event! Execute it in the terminal to send the metadata to Marquez:

python3 generate_scripts.py

Marquez will update itself automatically, so the new job and datasets should now be visible in the UI. Clicking on the jobs icon (the icon with the three interlocking gears), will make the example.order_data job appear in the list of jobs:

When you click on the job, you will see a new map displaying the job, input and outputs we created with our script:

Full Example Source Code

#!/usr/bin/env python3
from openlineage.client.run import (
    RunEvent,
    RunState,
    Run,
    Job,
    Dataset,
    OutputDataset,
    InputDataset,
)
from openlineage.client.client import OpenLineageClient, OpenLineageClientOptions
from openlineage.client.facet import (
    SqlJobFacet,
    SchemaDatasetFacet,
    SchemaField,
    OutputStatisticsOutputDatasetFacet,
    SourceCodeLocationJobFacet,
    NominalTimeRunFacet,
    DataQualityMetricsInputDatasetFacet,
    ColumnMetric,
)
import uuid
from datetime import datetime, timezone, timedelta
import time
from random import random

PRODUCER = f"https://github.com/openlineage-user"
namespace = "python_client"
dag_name = "user_trends"

url = "http://mymarquez.host:5000"
api_key = "1234567890ckcu028rzu5l"

client = OpenLineageClient(
    url=url,
    # optional api key in case marquez requires it. When running marquez in
    # your local environment, you usually do not need this.
    options=OpenLineageClientOptions(api_key=api_key),
)

# generates job facet
def job(job_name, sql, location):
    facets = {"sql": SqlJobFacet(sql)}
    if location != None:
        facets.update(
            {"sourceCodeLocation": SourceCodeLocationJobFacet("git", location)}
        )
    return Job(namespace=namespace, name=job_name, facets=facets)


# geneartes run racet
def run(run_id, hour):
    return Run(
        runId=run_id,
        facets={
            "nominalTime": NominalTimeRunFacet(
                nominalStartTime=f"2022-04-14T{twoDigits(hour)}:12:00Z"
            )
        },
    )


# generates dataset
def dataset(name, schema=None, ns=namespace):
    if schema == None:
        facets = {}
    else:
        facets = {"schema": schema}
    return Dataset(namespace, name, facets)


# generates output dataset
def outputDataset(dataset, stats):
    output_facets = {"stats": stats, "outputStatistics": stats}
    return OutputDataset(dataset.namespace, dataset.name, dataset.facets, output_facets)


# generates input dataset
def inputDataset(dataset, dq):
    input_facets = {
        "dataQuality": dq,
    }
    return InputDataset(dataset.namespace, dataset.name, dataset.facets, input_facets)


def twoDigits(n):
    if n < 10:
        result = f"0{n}"
    elif n < 100:
        result = f"{n}"
    else:
        raise f"error: {n}"
    return result


now = datetime.now(timezone.utc)


# generates run Event
def runEvents(job_name, sql, inputs, outputs, hour, min, location, duration):
    run_id = str(uuid.uuid4())
    myjob = job(job_name, sql, location)
    myrun = run(run_id, hour)
    st = now + timedelta(hours=hour, minutes=min, seconds=20 + round(random() * 10))
    end = st + timedelta(minutes=duration, seconds=20 + round(random() * 10))
    started_at = st.isoformat()
    ended_at = end.isoformat()
    return (
        RunEvent(
            eventType=RunState.START,
            eventTime=started_at,
            run=myrun,
            job=myjob,
            producer=PRODUCER,
            inputs=inputs,
            outputs=outputs,
        ),
        RunEvent(
            eventType=RunState.COMPLETE,
            eventTime=ended_at,
            run=myrun,
            job=myjob,
            producer=PRODUCER,
            inputs=inputs,
            outputs=outputs,
        ),
    )


# add run event to the events list
def addRunEvents(
    events, job_name, sql, inputs, outputs, hour, minutes, location=None, duration=2
):
    (start, complete) = runEvents(
        job_name, sql, inputs, outputs, hour, minutes, location, duration
    )
    events.append(start)
    events.append(complete)


events = []

# create dataset data
for i in range(0, 5):

    user_counts = dataset("tmp_demo.user_counts")
    user_history = dataset(
        "temp_demo.user_history",
        SchemaDatasetFacet(
            fields=[
                SchemaField(name="id", type="BIGINT", description="the user id"),
                SchemaField(
                    name="email_domain", type="VARCHAR", description="the user id"
                ),
                SchemaField(name="status", type="BIGINT", description="the user id"),
                SchemaField(
                    name="created_at",
                    type="DATETIME",
                    description="date and time of creation of the user",
                ),
                SchemaField(
                    name="updated_at",
                    type="DATETIME",
                    description="the last time this row was updated",
                ),
                SchemaField(
                    name="fetch_time_utc",
                    type="DATETIME",
                    description="the time the data was fetched",
                ),
                SchemaField(
                    name="load_filename",
                    type="VARCHAR",
                    description="the original file this data was ingested from",
                ),
                SchemaField(
                    name="load_filerow",
                    type="INT",
                    description="the row number in the original file",
                ),
                SchemaField(
                    name="load_timestamp",
                    type="DATETIME",
                    description="the time the data was ingested",
                ),
            ]
        ),
        "snowflake://",
    )

    create_user_counts_sql = """CREATE OR REPLACE TABLE TMP_DEMO.USER_COUNTS AS (
            SELECT DATE_TRUNC(DAY, created_at) date, COUNT(id) as user_count
            FROM TMP_DEMO.USER_HISTORY
            GROUP BY date
            )"""

    # location of the source code
    location = "https://github.com/some/airflow/dags/example/user_trends.py"

    # run simulating Airflow DAG with snowflake operator
    addRunEvents(
        events,
        dag_name + ".create_user_counts",
        create_user_counts_sql,
        [user_history],
        [user_counts],
        i,
        11,
        location,
    )


for event in events:
    from openlineage.client.serde import Serde

    print(event)
    print(Serde.to_json(event))
    # time.sleep(1)
    client.emit(event)

The resulting lineage events received by Marquez would look like this.