Skip to main content
Source freshness lets SQLBuild observe whether external source data changed between runs. A changed observation propagates through the dependency graph, so plans can explain which downstream models are affected and choose the correct incremental action. In a virtual environment, the same signal also participates in stale-driven execution.

​
Configuration

Source freshness is configured per source in sources/*.yml with a freshness: block. See Sources: Source freshness for the full configuration reference.

​
How observations work

During planning, SQLBuild observes the current data version of each source that has freshness configured (or that the adapter can observe automatically):
  1. Observe - query the source’s current data version using the configured strategy.
  2. Compare - compare the observed version against the last recorded observation from _sqlbuild_source_freshness in the target schema.
  3. Propagate - walk the DAG downstream from changed or unknown sources to identify which models are affected.
Sources without explicit freshness: config are auto-observed using the adapter strategy if the adapter supports table metadata and the source has a physical table (not an expression source, not a managed source).

​
Lag tolerance

For timestamp-based freshness, lag_tolerance controls how much the observed value can drift before being considered a real change. If the current timestamp is within the tolerance of the previous observation, the source is treated as unchanged. This is useful for sources where the freshness timestamp moves by seconds or minutes on every query but the underlying data hasn’t meaningfully changed.

​
State storage

In direct mode, source freshness observations are appended to _sqlbuild_source_freshness in each target schema. In virtual mode, observations are scoped to the VDE in the configured state backend. In both modes, failed work does not replace the prior successful observation, so the next plan still sees the pending source change. Direct observations are resolved across all target schemas in the project, so a source referenced by models in different schemas is tracked consistently. Use sqb freshness to observe source freshness on demand without triggering a build.