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Lightdash

ANALYTICS
Velocity6.3

Lightdash chips away at the SQL barrier with NL-to-formula table calcs and metric-tree visualization.

bi-platformsemantic-layerai-assisted-authoringself-servedbt-nativecustomization
◆Current state
The release cadence is high and the work spans three areas: lowering the technical barrier (spreadsheet-style formulas in table calculations, plain references to grand totals), enriching what a chart and dashboard can express (color palettes at every scope, row/column limits, rich-text table cells), and self-serve operability (default user spaces, expiring preview projects, dashboard-version rollbacks that include chart configs). The Canvas now hosts persistent metric trees, hinting at a heavier semantic-layer story.
◆Where it's heading
Lightdash is positioning between a dbt-native semantic layer (where SQL-fluent analysts live) and a self-serve BI tool (where business users live). The intent-driven formula editor and reference-total functions chip away at the SQL prerequisite for table calculations, while Saved Trees push the metric model into something visually editable. Underneath, the platform is doing the unglamorous self-serve work — personal spaces, palette hierarchies, preview hygiene — that BI products need to survive in larger orgs.
◆Prediction
Expect the formula editor to grow into broader AI-assisted authoring (filters, joins, custom dimensions) and Saved Trees to evolve into a more general semantic-layer view that consumes from dbt and produces governance artifacts. Color and palette work suggests embedded/customer-facing BI ambitions next.

◆Recent moves

  1. 2d ago

    🧹 Preview projects now clean themselves up

    Preview projects now expire automatically (30 days by default, with --expires-in override) and show an expiry badge. Small QoL fix that solves the universal Lightdash gripe of preview clutter in the project switcher.

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  2. 7d ago

    🎨 Paint your charts your way: color palettes at every level

    Color palettes can now be set at chart, dashboard, space, project, or org level with a precedence chain. Sets up the visual customization needed for executive dashboards that must respect brand systems and for embedded/customer-facing surfaces.

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  3. 13d ago

    ✂️ Trim your charts with row and column limits

    Charts get a Data section with row limits (show/hide first/last N) and column limits for pivots — clean way to drop incomplete trailing periods or build top-N views without rewriting the underlying query.

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  4. 21d ago

    🌳 Saved Trees: visualize how your metrics connect

    Saved Trees lets users map metric hierarchies and dependencies on the Canvas and persist them. The semantic-layer story is taking visual shape — a metric is no longer just a row in a YAML file but a node in a shared graph.

    View source ↗
  5. 22d ago

    🟰 Introducing spreadsheet formulas in table calculations

    ⚡ SPARK

    Table calculations now accept spreadsheet-style formulas and an intent-to-formula editor that turns natural-language descriptions like 'rank partners by profit margin' into the formula on Tab. A meaningful drop in the SQL prerequisite for ad-hoc analysis.

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  6. 23d ago

    ➕​ Reference totals in table calculations

    New total() and row_total() functions for SQL table calculations make percent-of-total and pivot-row contribution formulas straightforward. The kind of primitive that turns a class of common requests from custom SQL into a one-line calc.

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