Introduction

SQLTide compiles typed SQL models into ClickHouse tables and materialized views, plans their dependencies, and rebuilds them from retained streaming history.

These guides describe SQLTide 0.60.0. New to streaming SQL? Start with the local quickstart: one adopted input table, one typed model, and a live insert. Upgrading an existing project? Read From StreamBuild to SQLTide before connecting.

Each pipeline has an effective operational mode:

• Direct mode is the default. sqt build rebuilds selected models at their ordinary names and replays retained history without a publish step.
• Virtual environments are an explicit opt-in. sqt build creates deployment-specific tables, sqt deployment audit assesses them, promotion switches stable views, and retained publications can be compared or rolled back as a complete graph.
• Mixed builds stage selected virtual pipelines first, then apply selected direct pipelines in the same CLI invocation. Relationships cannot cross the mode boundary.

What SQLTide manages

• Strict, explicitly typed MODEL() SQL
• Managed Kafka landing through ClickHouse’s Kafka engine
• Adopted ClickHouse stream tables that SQLTide does not own
• Materialized-view dependency graphs with driving and side-reference edges
• Inclusive, at-least-once replay across offset, timestamp, landed-at, and cursor boundaries
• SQL-native model tests, macro tests, and data-quality audits
• Single-process scheduled audits using the warehouse clock
• A local UI for plans, runs, deployments, lineage, Kafka lag, topics, and retained source messages
• Offline compile artifacts for review and automation

SQLTide currently supports ClickHouse only. It does not provide dbt compatibility, authored seeds, UDF management, or a generic multi-warehouse abstraction.

Choose a workflow

Direct-mode quickstart

Build a small adopted-source pipeline against local ClickHouse.

Direct mode

Understand destructive rebuilds, replay, failure, and rerun behavior.

Virtual environments

Stage, inspect, assess, compare, promote, roll back, diagnose, and clean deployments.

Development UI

Explore lineage, sources, messages, plans, quality, and durable runs.

Orders demo

Run the checked-in Kafka-to-ClickHouse direct-mode example.

Core loop

sqt discover
sqt compile
sqt plan
sqt build
sqt test
sqt audit
sqt dev

Run commands from anywhere inside a project, or pass --project-dir explicitly.

sqt build already runs applicable audits. Use the separate sqt audit command when you want to rerun live checks later without rebuilding.