Metabase questions, on live data.
Add Basalt as a PostgreSQL database in Metabase. Questions and dashboards query views directly, with results in milliseconds.
Overview
How it works.
Metabase uses its built-in PostgreSQL driver to connect over the wire protocol. Basalt exposes views as tables with column types and comments, so the query builder and models work without extra mapping.
Setup
Set it up in three steps.
01
Connect the tool
Create a read-only role and add a PostgreSQL database in Metabase admin. Turn off scheduled syncs; schemas update on change.
# create a read-only login for Metabase basalt connect metabase --role readonly
✓ role metabase_ro created · 18 views granted
✓ host pg.us-east-1.basalt.dev:5432 · TLS required
02
Shape it with a view
Write plain SQL over the source. Basalt keeps the view current with every record and tracks lineage back to the topic, partition and offset.
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW revenue_by_min AS SELECT date_trunc('minute', ts) AS minute, currency, sum(amount) AS revenue, count(*) AS payments FROM payments WHERE status = 'captured' GROUP BY 1, 2;
03
Read it from anywhere
Every view is an endpoint the moment it exists. Call it over REST, connect with any Postgres client, or use the SDK from your app.
curl https://api.basalt.dev/v1/views/revenue_by_min?limit=5 \ -H "Authorization: Bearer $BASALT_TOKEN"
✓ 200 OK · 5 rows · served from eu-north-1 in 3.1 ms
Included
What you get.
01
Built-in driver
Uses Metabase's PostgreSQL driver on Cloud or self-hosted. No plugin.
02
Query builder
Views appear as tables, so non-SQL users can filter and group them.
03
Live dashboards
Set auto-refresh to one minute without load on your source databases.
04
Column metadata
Types and descriptions carry over, so semantic types are set for you.
Related
