ADR 015: Data Governance Standards
Status: Proposed | Date: 2025-07-28
Context
Data transformation pipelines require basic governance to ensure quality and compliance. SQLMesh provides built-in capabilities for contracts and lineage that reduce governance overhead.
Decision
Use SQLMesh’s semantic understanding for automated data governance with git-based workflows.
Priority Focus Areas
- Data Contracts: SQLMesh model definitions serve as schema contracts with automatic breaking change detection
- Column-Level Lineage: Automatic lineage tracking through SQLMesh semantic analysis
- Quality Validation: SQLMesh unit tests and data diff for transformation validation
- Audit Integration: Follow ADR 007: Centralized Security Logging for transformation logs
Consequences
Benefits:
- Automated data quality validation and contract enforcement
- Git-based workflow with familiar version control processes
- Immediate feedback preventing data governance violations
Risks if not implemented:
- Manual data governance creating operational overhead
- Inconsistent data quality across analytics pipelines
- Undetected contract violations affecting downstream systems