include

models/<schema>.yml

version: 2

models:
  
  # top-level model properties
  - name: <model_name>
    columns:
      - name: <column_name> # required
    
    # versions of this model
    versions:
      - v: <version_identifier> # required
        columns:
          - include: '*' | 'all' | [<column_name>, ...]
            exclude:
              - <column_name>
              - ... # declare additional column names to exclude
          
          # declare more columns -- can be overrides from top-level, or in addition
          - name: <column_name>
            ...

Definition

The specification of which columns are defined in a model's top-level columns property to include or exclude in a versioned implementation of that model.

include is either:

• a list of specific column names to include
• '*' or 'all', indicating that all columns from the top-level columns property should be included in the versioned model

exclude is a list of column names to exclude. It can only be declared if include is set to one of '*' or 'all'.

The columns list of a versioned model can have at most one include/exclude element.

You may declare additional columns within the version's columns list. If a version-specific column's name matches a column included from the top level, the version-specific entry will override that column for that version.

Default

By default, include is "all", and exclude is the empty list. This has the effect of including all columns from the base model in the versioned model.

Example

models/customers.yml

models:
  - name: customers
    columns:
      - name: customer_id
        description: Unique identifier for this table
        data_type: text
        constraints:
          - type: not_null
        tests:
          - unique
      - name: customer_country
        data_type: text
        description: "Country where the customer currently lives"
      - name: first_purchase_date
        data_type: date
    
    versions:
      - v: 4
      
      - v: 3
        columns:
          - include: "*"
          - name: customer_country
            data_type: text
            description: "Country where the customer first lived at time of first purchase"
      
      - v: 2
        columns:
          - include: "*"
            exclude:
              - customer_country
      
      - v: 1
        columns:
          - include: []
          - name: id
            data_type: int

Because v4 has not specified any columns, it will include all of the top-level columns.

Each other version has declared a modification from the top-level property:

• v3 will include all columns, but it reimplements the customer_country column with a different description
• v2 will include all columns except customer_country
• v1 doesn't include any of the top-level columns. Instead, it declares only a single integer column named id.