Lineage extractor

The Prophecy lineage extractor is a Python tool that retrieves and exports lineage information from Prophecy projects and pipelines. It supports project, pipeline, and branch-level lineage extraction, with optional features like emailing reports.

You can run the extractor manually or integrate it into a CI workflow to automate report generation. Automating lineage extraction helps teams:

• Keep lineage reports up to date with every commit or scheduled run.
• Share lineage insights across teams through version control or email.
• Monitor upstream column changes using recursive lineage extraction.

This page covers how to run the extractor via command line and how to automate it using GitHub Actions or GitLab CI.

Command

Use the lineage extractor Python command to export the lineage of a specific pipeline.

Argument	Type	Required	Description
--project-id	String	Yes	Prophecy project ID. You can find it in the project URL. Example: https://app.prophecy.io/metadata/entity/projects/57040 where 57040 is the project ID.
--pipeline-id	String	Depends	One or more pipeline IDs in ProjectID/PipelineName format, comma-separated. Required for the lineage reader; optional for the knowledge-graph reader.
--output-dir	String	Yes	Directory path where the extractor writes the lineage report.
--reader	String	No	Reader to use. Set to lineage for Spark projects or knowledge-graph for SQL projects.
--fmt	String	No	Output format. Use excel (default) or openlineage (JSON in OpenLineage format).
--branch	String	No	Branch to extract lineage from. Defaults to main.
--send-email	Flag	No	Sends the report by email. Requires SMTP configuration. Learn more in Integration with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI.
--run-for-all	Flag	No	Generates lineage for all pipelines in the project, rather than just one pipeline.

Spark example

python -m prophecy_lineage_extractor \
  --project-id 9900 \
  --reader lineage \
  --pipeline-id 9900/my_pipeline \
  --output-dir ./test \
  --branch test1234 \
  --send-email \
  --run-for-all

SQL example

python -m prophecy_lineage_extractor \
  --project-id 6493 \
  --reader knowledge-graph \
  --branch test1234 \
  --output-dir ./test \
  --run-for-all \
  --fmt openlineage

Integration with GitHub Actions or GitLab CI

This section walks you through automating the extraction of lineage reports from your Prophecy pipelines using a CI workflow in GitHub Actions or GitLab CI. You'll set up a script that pulls lineage data, generates an Excel report, and optionally sends it by email or commits it back to your repository.

Prerequisites

• A Prophecy project hosted in an external GitHub or GitLab repository.
• Access to the repository and permissions to set up CI/CD pipelines.
• A Prophecy Personal Access Token (PAT).
• (Optional) To enable email reports, you must have SMTP credentials.

Set environment variables and secrets

To configure lineage extraction behavior related to authentication, email delivery, and output settings, you’ll need to provide several inputs. While you can hardcode these values directly into your CI workflow YAML, it's strongly recommended to store them as environment variables or secrets. This approach keeps sensitive data like access tokens and SMTP credentials secure, avoids leaking secrets into version control, and makes it easier to update values across environments without modifying the workflow file.

GitHub

1. Go to your repository’s Settings > Secrets and variables > Actions.
2. Add the listed variables under Secrets and Variables tabs.

GitLab

1. Go to your repository’s Settings > CI/CD > Variables.
2. Add each as a variable and mark secrets appropriately.

Variable/Secret	Description
PROPHECY_PAT	Personal Access Token used to authenticate with Prophecy.
SMTP_USERNAME	Username for the email account used to send reports.
SMTP_PASSWORD	Password needed for the email account.
MONITOR_TIME_ENV	Duration of the monitoring window in minutes (default: 150).
GIT_COMMIT	Set to 1 to enable committing generated output to Git.
OUTPUT_DIR	Directory path where lineage files are stored.
OPENLINEAGE_URL	URL for sending OpenLineage events. If not set, and format is openlineage, events are written as JSON files in OUTPUT_DIR/<PROJECT-ID>/.

Set up workflow configuration

To automate lineage extraction and optionally email or commit the resulting reports, you’ll need to set up a CI workflow in your repository. The configuration below provides templates for both GitHub Actions and GitLab CI, which install the extractor, run it with your parameters, and optionally commit the results. These templates assume you've already configured the required environment variables and secrets. Customize them with your specific project and pipeline details before running.

GitHub Actions

In your GitHub repository:

1. Select Add file > Create new file.
2. Name the file .github/workflows/prophecy_lineage_extractor.yml.
3. Paste the following YAML into the file.

name: Run Prophecy Lineage extractor on main

on:
  push:
    branches:
      - main
    paths:
      - "datasets/**"
      - "pipelines/**"
      - "pbt_project.yml"
      - ".github/workflows/prophecy_lineage_extractor.yml"

permissions:
  contents: write

jobs:
  extract-and-mail-prophecy-lineage:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    env:
      OUTPUT_DIR: "output"
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
      - name: Set up Python
        uses: actions/setup-python@v4
        with:
          python-version: "3.9"

      - name: Install Package
        run: |
          pip install --no-cache-dir prophecy-lineage-extractor

      - name: Extract and Send Prophecy Lineage
        env:
          PROPHECY_URL: "https://<custom>.prophecy.io"
          MONITOR_TIME_ENV: ${{ vars.MONITOR_TIME_ENV }}
          PROPHECY_PAT: ${{ secrets.PROPHECY_PAT }}
          SMTP_HOST: "smtp.gmail.com"
          SMTP_PORT: "587"
          SMTP_USERNAME: ${{ secrets.SMTP_USERNAME }}
          SMTP_PASSWORD: ${{ secrets.SMTP_PASSWORD }}
          RECEIVER_EMAIL: "<myRecipient@company.com>"
        run: |
          python -m prophecy_lineage_extractor --project-id <YOUR_PROJECT_ID> --pipeline-id <YOUR_PROJECT_ID>/pipelines/<YOUR_PIPELINE_NAME> --send-email --output-dir $OUTPUT_DIR --branch main

      - name: Commit file to output directory
        env:
          GIT_COMMIT: ${{ vars.GIT_COMMIT }}
        run: |
          if [[ $GIT_COMMIT == "1" ]]; then
              git config --global user.name '<YOUR_GIT_USERNAME>'
              git config --global user.email '<YOUR_GIT_EMAIL>'
              git add $OUTPUT_DIR/*
              git commit -m "[Github Action: main]: Adding Excel lineage report"
              git push
          else
              echo "Committing to Git is not enabled"

GitLab CI

In your GitLab repository:

1. Create a file named .gitlab-ci.yml at the root level.
2. Paste the following YAML.

stages:
  - extract

variables:
  GIT_COMMIT: "1"
  OUTPUT_DIR: "output_dev"

extract_and_mail:
  stage: extract
  image: python:3.9
  script:
    - pip install --no-cache-dir prophecy-lineage-extractor
    - |
      export PROPHECY_URL="$PROPHECY_URL"
      export PROPHECY_PAT="$PROPHECY_PAT"
      export SMTP_USERNAME="$SMTP_USERNAME"
      export SMTP_PASSWORD="$SMTP_PASSWORD"
      export SMTP_HOST="smtp.gmail.com"
      export SMTP_PORT="587"
      export RECEIVER_EMAIL="<myRecipient@company.com>"
      export MONITOR_TIME_ENV="50"
    - |
      BRANCH="dev"
      python -m prophecy_lineage_extractor \
        --project-id <YOUR_PROJECT_ID> \
        --pipeline-id <YOUR_PROJECT_ID>/pipelines/<YOUR_PIPELINE_NAME> \
        --send-email \
        --output-dir $OUTPUT_DIR \
        --branch $BRANCH
    - |
      if [ "$GIT_COMMIT" == "1" ]; then
        git config --global user.name '<YOUR_GIT_USERNAME>'
        git config --global user.email '<YOUR_GIT_EMAIL>'
        git add $OUTPUT_DIR/*
        git commit -m "[GitLab CI - $BRANCH] Adding Excel lineage report"
        git remote add gitlab_origin https://oauth2:$ACCESS_TOKEN@gitlab.com/your-repo-path.git
        git push gitlab_origin HEAD:$BRANCH -o ci.skip
      else
        echo "Committing to Git is not enabled"
  only:
    refs:
      - dev

Make sure you modify the template with your own details:

• Replace PROPHECY_URL with your Prophecy URL.
• Update with your ProjectID and PipelineID.
• Modify the receiver email.
• Set your global Git username and email.

Verify lineage file creation

After a successful run, you should see a directory matching OUTPUT_DIR in your repo containing Excel lineage files like pipeline_name_lineage.xlsx. This XLSX file will show detailed lineage information about your pipeline.

Troubleshooting

If your workflow doesn't run as expected:

• Check for error messages in GitHub workflow run logs or GitLab job logs.
• Verify that you have set all environment variables and secrets correctly.
• Ensure your Prophecy access token is valid and has the necessary permissions.
• Confirm that the Project ID and Pipeline ID are correct in the workflow file.