✍️ Schema Scribe: AI-Powered Data Documentation

Tired of writing data documentation? Let AI do it for you.

Schema Scribe is a CLI tool that scans your databases and dbt projects, uses AI to generate descriptions, and automatically updates your documentation.

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✨ See it in Action

Stop manually updating YAML files or writing Markdown tables. Let schema-scribe do the work in seconds.

Magically update dbt schema.yml	Instantly generate DB catalogs (w/ ERD)
Run schema-scribe dbt --update and watch AI fill in your missing descriptions, tags, and tests.	Point schema-scribe db at a database and get a full Markdown catalog, complete with a Mermaid ERD.

🚀 Quick Start (60 Seconds)

Get your first AI-generated catalog in less than a minute.

1. Install

Install the schema-scribe package from PyPI:

pip install schema-scribe

For specific database connectors or the web server, install optional dependencies:

# For PostgreSQL and Snowflake connectors
pip install "schema-scribe[postgres, snowflake]"

# For the web server
pip install "schema-scribe[server]"

Alternatively, to install from source for development:

git clone https://github.com/dongwonmoon/SchemaScribe.git
cd SchemaScribe
pip install -e .[all] # Installs all optional dependencies in editable mode

2. Initialize

Run the interactive wizard. It will guide you through setting up your database and LLM, automatically creating config.yaml and a secure .env file for your API keys.

schema-scribe init

3. Run!

You're all set.

For a dbt project: (Make sure dbt compile has been run to create manifest.json)

# See what's missing (CI check)
schema-scribe dbt --project-dir /path/to/your/dbt/project --check

# Let AI fix it
schema-scribe dbt --project-dir /path/to/your/dbt/project --update

# Check for documentation drift against the live database
schema-scribe dbt --project-dir /path/to/your/dbt/project --db your_db_profile --drift

# Generate a global, end-to-end lineage graph
schema-scribe lineage --project-dir /path/to/your/dbt/project --db your_db_profile --output your_mermaid_profile # 'your_mermaid_profile' must be of type 'mermaid'

For a database: (Assuming you created an output profile named my_markdown during init)

schema-scribe db --output my_markdown

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✅ Key Features

• 🤖 Automated Catalog Generation: Scans live databases or dbt projects to generate documentation. Includes AI-generated table summaries for databases.
• ✍️ LLM-Powered Descriptions: Uses AI (OpenAI, Google, Ollama) to create meaningful business descriptions for tables, views, models, and columns.
• 🧬 Deep dbt Integration:
  • Direct YAML Updates: Seamlessly updates your dbt schema.yml files with AI-generated content.
  • CI/CD Validation: Use the --check flag in your CI pipeline to fail builds if documentation is outdated.
  • Interactive Updates: Use the --interactive flag to review and approve AI-generated changes one by one.
  • Documentation Drift Detection: Use the --drift flag to compare your existing documentation against the live database, catching descriptions that have become inconsistent with reality.
• 🔒 Security-Aware: The init wizard helps you store sensitive keys (passwords, API tokens) in a .env file, not in config.yaml.
• 🔌 Extensible by Design: A pluggable architecture supports multiple backends.
• 🌐 Global End-to-End Lineage: Generate a single, project-wide lineage graph that combines physical database foreign keys with logical dbt ref and source dependencies.
• 🚀 Web API Server: Launch a FastAPI server to trigger documentation workflows programmatically. Includes built-in API documentation via Swagger/ReDoc.

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🛠️ Supported Backends

Type	Supported Providers
Databases	sqlite, postgres, mariadb, mysql, duckdb (files, directories, S3), snowflake
LLMs	openai, ollama, google
Outputs	markdown, dbt-markdown, json, confluence, notion, postgres-comment

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Command Reference

schema-scribe init

Runs the interactive wizard to create config.yaml and .env files. This is the recommended first step.

schema-scribe db

Scans a live database and generates a catalog.

• --db TEXT: (Optional) The database profile from config.yaml to use. Overrides default.
• --llm TEXT: (Optional) The LLM profile from config.yaml to use. Overrides default.
• --output TEXT: (Required) The output profile from config.yaml to use.

schema-scribe dbt

Scans a dbt project's manifest.json file.

• --project-dir TEXT: (Required) Path to the dbt project directory.
• --update: (Flag) Directly update dbt schema.yml files.
• --check: (Flag) Run in CI mode. Fails if documentation is outdated.
• --interactive: (Flag) Run in interactive mode. Prompts user for each AI-generated change.
• --drift: (Flag) Run in drift detection mode. Fails if existing documentation conflicts with the live database schema. Requires a --db profile.
• --llm TEXT: (Optional) The LLM profile to use.
• --output TEXT: (Optional) The output profile to use (if not using --update, --check, or --interactive).

Note: --update, --check, --interactive, and --drift flags are mutually exclusive. Choose only one.

schema-scribe lineage

Generates a global, end-to-end lineage graph for a dbt project.

• --project-dir TEXT: (Required) Path to the dbt project directory.
• --db TEXT: (Required) The database profile to scan for physical Foreign Keys.
• --output TEXT: (Required) The output profile (must be type 'mermaid') to write the .md file to.

schema-scribe serve

Launches the FastAPI web server.

• --host TEXT: (Optional) The host to bind the server to. Defaults to 127.0.0.1.
• --port INTEGER: (Optional) The port to run the server on. Defaults to 8000.

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🚀 Web API Server

Schema Scribe includes a built-in FastAPI web server that exposes the core workflows via a REST API. This is perfect for programmatic integration or for building a custom web UI.

1. Launch the server: (Make sure you have installed the server dependencies: pip install "schema-scribe[server]")

schema-scribe serve --host 0.0.0.0 --port 8000

2. Explore the API: Once the server is running, you can access the interactive API documentation (powered by Swagger UI) at: http://localhost:8000/docs

3. Example: Get available profiles You can interact with the API using any HTTP client, like curl.

curl -X GET "http://localhost:8000/api/profiles" -H "accept: application/json"

This will return a JSON object listing all the database, LLM, and output profiles defined in your config.yaml.

4. Example: Trigger a dbt workflow You can also trigger core workflows. For example, to run a dbt --check on a project:

curl -X POST "http://localhost:8000/api/run/dbt" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{
  "dbt_project_dir": "/path/to/your/dbt/project",
  "check": true
}'

If the documentation is outdated, the API will return a 409 Conflict status code, making it easy to integrate with CI/CD pipelines.

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💡 Extensibility

Adding a new database, LLM, or writer is easy:

1. Create a new class in the appropriate directory (e.g., schema_scribe/components/db_connectors).
2. Implement the base interface (e.g., BaseConnector).
3. Register your new class in schema_scribe/core/factory.py.

The init command and core logic will automatically pick up your new component.

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.