Introduction

Foundational's automated data lineage traces data movement across your entire stack—from operational systems through data warehouse transformation and into BI dashboards and ML models. Use the Lineage page to explore lineage graphs, trace dependencies, and understand how changes ripple through your data stack.

How it works

Foundational's lineage engine operates at the column level across platforms.

Code-based lineage construction: Foundational parses transformation code to identify how columns are created, modified, and consumed. Foundational supports all common code frameworks like Spark, Airflow, dbt, and ORMs, as well as legacy pipelines and systems that are common in enterprises, like mainframes. This approach works even for assets that haven't been queried yet, unlike query-log-based lineage systems.

Cross-platform tracing: Lineage follows data movement across different systems. A column might originate in an operational database, be ingested into the warehouse via an ETL tool, transformed and aggregated via transformation frameworks like dbt, Spark, and others, and eventually consumed by BI tools. Foundational traces this entire path in a single lineage graph.

Foundational updates lineage automatically when there are code or data stack changes in warehouses, BI dashboards, etc.

Data lineage use cases

Use the Data Lineage page to perform these actions. To see the steps, go to Actions.

Lineage UI

To get started, why not Take the tour to get a very quick review of the Lineage Graph UI. From the menu panel, click the Support icon and go to Tasks > Lineage Graph.

Data lineage search

This is the initial view when you open the Lineage page. Use it to search / filter assets.

① Search assets

② Filter assets

③ Recent searches (left) and Top searches (right)

④ Scanned date and time log

Data lineage canvas

When you select an asset, the UI displays the lineage graph. The Inspector panel (right) gives you access to information from the Data Catalog (documentation, usage, costs, data quality issues, and data definitions).

① Search and filters

② Header: Reset, Layout graph on canvas, Share (download or share link), Collapse toggle, Zoom

③ Show on hover panel: Info icon to open the Inspector panel, search columns or hide the asset

④ Asset columns

⑤ Info icon to open the Inspector panel for the selected column

⑥ Inspector panel (displays information about the selected asset)

Actions

Discover data assets

Open an asset directly in its source platform

Open the Data Catalog and select an asset.
From the left panel, select Data Definitions.
From the center panel, click the platform name, then View this entity in source platform.
The asset opens in its native platform interface. For code, the code snippet displays immediately.

Understand asset context

Trace data lineage upstream and downstream

Use lineage to understand data flow in both directions.

Trace upstream to find source data and understand where values originate.
Trace downstream to see which reports, dashboards, and processes depend on this asset before making changes.

To view asset-level lineage:

In the lineage graph, hover over an asset. An Info icon appears.
Click the Info icon to open the Inspector panel.
In the Inspector panel, review the lineage information:
- Upstream count: Number of sources that feed data into this asset
- Downstream count: Number of consumers that use data from this asset

Alternatively, do this:

Click the + icon to the right of the asset (asset/column) to view downstream.
Click the + icon to the left of the asset (asset/column) to view upstream.

To view column-level lineage:

Click the down arrow ↓ on an asset to expand and show its columns.
Hover over a specific column. An Info icon appears.
Click the Info icon to open the Inspector panel.
In the Inspector panel, review the column's upstream and downstream lineage.

To navigate the graph:

Click and drag to pan
Scroll to zoom in/out
Use controls to expand or collapse assets

View asset details in the Inspector panel

The Inspector panel displays information from the Data Catalog, allowing you to review documentation, costs, usage, and quality issues in context.

On the Lineage page or Impact Analysis page, hover over any asset in the graph.
An Info icon appears on the asset. Click it. The Inspector panel opens on the right side with tabs:
- General: Overview, metadata, and asset documentation.
- Costs: Cost metrics
- Usage: Usage patterns

Export and share lineage graphs

From the header, click Share.
Download as CSV or share using a link.

Prevent data quality issues

View past changes to understand their impact

On the Impact Analysis page, click the icon next to the pull request ID to open the Pull Requests panel.
Click the Merged tab to view recently merged pull requests and select a pull request.
The lineage graph displays the assets that were modified by the change.
Review the Downstream Impact section to see which assets were affected after the change merged.
Use this analysis to understand the impact of past changes and identify patterns that may help with future reviews.