The Looker Continuous Integration (CI) features let you run tests on your LookML project to deliver more reliable, efficient, and user-friendly data experiences. You can use the CI validators to catch issues with SQL, data tests, content, and LookML before they hit production to verify your LookML and prevent query errors for your users. You can also configure the CI validators to run automatically when a pull request is submitted to your LookML repository.
CI is composed of the following validators, which run different checks against your Looker instance:
- SQL Validator — Verifies that the dimensions in your Explores run correctly against your database.
- Assert Validator — Runs any LookML data tests that were created by your Looker developers and returns all failures and errors.
- Content Validator — Runs the Looker content validation to test for errors in the Looks and dashboards in your LookML project.
- LookML Validator — Runs the LookML Validator to test for LookML errors in the project.
To use these validators on your LookML instance, you can create a CI suite, which defines a set of validators and their options that are associated with your LookML project. See the following pages for information on CI suites:
- Creating a Continuous Integration suite
- Running Continuous Integration suites
- Viewing the results of a CI run
Requirements
To use Continuous Integration, you need the following:
A Looker-hosted instance that is enabled for Continuous Integration.
A Looker CI user account. When you enable Continuous Integration on your instance, Looker automatically creates 10 Looker CI users in the Looker CI Users user group with the Looker CI Users role. A Looker admin can view the Looker CI users from the Service Accounts tab of the Users Admin page.
Compliance capabilites of Continuous Integration
Looker CI is not included in the FedRAMP High, FedRAMP Moderate, or DoD Impact Level 5 (IL5) authorization boundaries.
Prior to enabling the Looker CI setting for your Looker instance, consult with your authorizing body to determine whether Looker CI's compliance offerings meet your organization's specific security and regulatory requirements.
For Looker (Google Cloud core) instances, each Assured Workloads control package that becomes available will add Looker CI features as default offerings as that package's change requirements and processes are met.
Enabling Continuous Integration
To enable Continuous Integration, a Looker admin must perform the following tasks:
- Enable the instance for Continuous Integration in the Continuous Integration page of the Looker Admin panel.
- Install the CI GitHub app in your GitHub organization. (This is highly recommended for all implementations, and required if you want to use pull requests to trigger CI validation runs).