How to use a YAML file or environment variables to populate credentials

This guide will explain how to use a YAML file and/or environment variables to populate credentials (or any value) in your great_expectations.yml project config.

Prerequisites: This how-to guide assumes you have already:

Steps

  1. Decide where you would like to save the desired credentials or config values - in a YAML file, environment variables, or a combination - then save the values. In most cases, we suggest using a config variables YAML file. YAML files make variables more visible, easily editable, and allow for modularization (e.g. one file for dev, another for prod).

Note:

  • In the great_expectations.yml config file, environment variables take precedence over variables defined in a config variables YAML

  • Environment variable substitution is supported in both the great_expectations.yml and config variables config_variables.yml config file.

If using a YAML file, save desired credentials or config values to great_expectations/uncommitted/config_variables.yml or another YAML file of your choosing:

# great_expectations/uncommitted/config_variables.yml

my_postgres_db_yaml_creds:
  drivername: postgres
  host: 127.0.0.778
  port: '7987'
  username: administrator
  password: ${MY_DB_PW}
  database: postgres

Note:

  • If you wish to store values that include the dollar sign character $, please escape them using a backslash \ so substitution is not attempted. For example in the above example for postgres credentials you could set password: pa\$sword if your password is pa$sword. Say that 5 times fast, and also please choose a more secure password!

  • When you save values via the CLI, they are automatically escaped if they contain the $ character.

  • You can also have multiple substitutions for the same item, e.g. database_string: ${USER}:${PASSWORD}@${HOST}:${PORT}/${DATABASE}

If using environment variables, set values by entering export ENV_VAR_NAME=env_var_value in the terminal or adding the commands to your ~/.bashrc file:

export POSTGRES_DRIVERNAME=postgres
export POSTGRES_HOST=localhost
export POSTGRES_PORT='5432'
export POSTGRES_USERNAME=postgres
export POSTGRES_PW=''
export POSTGRES_DB=postgres
export MY_DB_PW=password
  1. If using a YAML file, set the config_variables_file_path key in your great_expectations.yml or leave the default.

# great_expectations/great_expectations.yml

config_variables_file_path: uncommitted/config_variables.yml
  1. Replace credentials or other values in your great_expectations.yml with ${}-wrapped variable names (i.e. ${ENVIRONMENT_VARIABLE} or ${YAML_KEY}).

# great_expectations/great_expectations.yml

datasources:
  my_postgres_db:
    class_name: SqlAlchemyDatasource
    data_asset_type:
      class_name: SqlAlchemyDataset
      module_name: great_expectations.dataset
    module_name: great_expectations.datasource
    credentials: ${my_postgres_db_yaml_creds}
  my_other_postgres_db:
    class_name: SqlAlchemyDatasource
    data_asset_type:
      class_name: SqlAlchemyDataset
      module_name: great_expectations.dataset
    module_name: great_expectations.datasource
    credentials:
      drivername: ${POSTGRES_DRIVERNAME}
      host: ${POSTGRES_HOST}
      port: ${POSTGRES_PORT}
      username: ${POSTGRES_USERNAME}
      password: ${POSTGRES_PW}
      database: ${POSTGRES_DB}

Additional Notes

  • The default config_variables.yml file located at great_expectations/uncommitted/config_variables.yml applies to deployments created using great_expectations init.