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GitHub Actions

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Overview

Prequel offers GitHub Actions to automate updates to your models and products based on .json config files stored in your GitHub repo.

Use these to:

  • Keep your model/product configs version-controlled
  • Automatically sync changes to Prequel on every commit
  • Define your data contract directly in code

Supported Actions

You can use the following GitHub Actions provided by Prequel:

  • prequel-co/apply-model-configs@v1 — upserts models
  • prequel-co/apply-product-configs@v1 — upserts products

These GitHub actions utilize the Prequel API and apply config files from your repo directly into your Prequel instance.

Note that the sample is set up to update configs for your production environment in Prequel. To set up an action that will update staging configs, update the branches field to point to your staging branch, and pass it your PREQUEL_STAGING_API_KEY instead of the production one.

# This is a basic workflow to help you get started with Prequel Actions

name: Prequel Continuous Delivery

# Controls when the workflow will run
on:
  # Triggers the workflow on push or pull request events but only for the "main" branch
  push:
    branches: [ "main" ]

  # Allows you to run this workflow manually from the Actions tab
  workflow_dispatch:

jobs:
  sync:
    name: Sync with Prequel
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v2

      - name: Upsert Models
        uses: prequel-co/apply-model-configs@v1
        with:
          host: https://api.prequel.co
          api_key: ${{ secrets.PREQUEL_API_KEY }}
          mode: export
          dir: prequel/models/*.json

      - name: Upsert Products
        uses: prequel-co/apply-product-configs@v1
        with:
          host: https://api.prequel.co
          api_key: ${{ secrets.PREQUEL_API_KEY }}
          mode: export
          dir: prequel/products/*.json

Model Config Format

Model config files live in your repo. The default locations prequel/models/*.json and prequel/products/*.json can be overwritten with the dir field). Each file describes one model and is passed into the apply-model-configs action. Data model configuration is documented in full below.

{
  "model_name": "logs",
  "columns": [
    {
      "name_in_source": "id",
      "name_in_destination": "id",
      "data_type": "text",
      "is_primary_key": true,
      "is_last_modified": false
    },
    {
      "name_in_source": "log",
      "name_in_destination": "event_log",
      "description":"A descriptive text entry of the event that occured.",
      "data_type": "text",
      "is_primary_key": false,
      "is_last_modified": false
    },
    {
      "name_in_source": "updated_at",
      "name_in_destination": "updated_at",
      "data_type": "timestamp",
      "is_primary_key": false,
      "is_last_modified": true
    }
  ],
  "partition_by": ["date(updated_at)"],
  "source_table": "source_schema.application_logs",
  "source_name": "Example Production Source",
  "organization_column": "organization_id"
}

📝

Tip: Using source_name instead of source_id provides stability across both staging and prod environments, whereas source_id is environment-specific.

Product Config Format

Product config files live in your repo (e.g. prequel/products/*.json) and define which models are grouped together into a "product" for sync. Each file defines one product. Product configuration is documented in more detail below.

{
  "models": ["transactions"]
}

📘

Currently, you cannot attach a model to a product from the model config itself — products must reference the model explicitly using this method.

FAQ

Can I use branch names to isolate models per environment?

Yes. A common pattern is to override model_name based on branch name to prevent collisions. This can be done using custom scripting in your workflow or naming conventions in your files.

Where should I store these config files?

These should live in your GitHub repo (e.g., prequel/models/*.json, prequel/products/*.json). They are pulled by the GitHub Action and applied to Prequel automatically.

Additional resources

Updated about 13 hours ago