dataherald

Query your structured data in natural language.

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Dataherald is a natural language-to-SQL engine built for enterprise-level question answering over structured data. It allows you to set up an API from your database that can answer questions in plain English. You can use Dataherald to:

• Allow business users to get insights from the data warehouse without going through a data analyst
• Enable Q+A from your production DBs inside your SaaS application
• Create a ChatGPT plug-in from your proprietary data

This project is undergoing swift development, and as such, the API may be subject to change at any time.

If you would like to learn more, you can join the Discord or read the docs.

Overview

Background

The latest LLMs have gotten remarkably good at writing SQL. However we could not get existing frameworks to work with our structured data at a level which we could incorporate into our application. That is why we built and released this engine.

Goals

Dataherald is built to:

• Be modular, allowing different implementations of core components to be plugged-in
• Come batteries included: Have best-in-class implementations for components like text to SQL, evaluation
• Be easy to set-up and use with major data warehouses
• Get better with usage
• Be fast

Get Started

The simplest way to set up Dataherald is to use the hosted version. We are rolling this service to select customers. Sign up for the waitlist.

You can also self-host the engine locally using Docker. By default the engine uses Mongo to store application data.

How to Run Dataherald (with local Mongo) using Docker

1. Create .env file, you can use the .env.example file as a guide. You must set these fields for the engine to start.

cp .env.example .env

Specifically the following 5 fields must be manually set before the engine is started.

LLM_MODEL is employed by evaluators and natural language generators that do not necessitate an extensive context window.

AGENT_LLM_MODEL, on the other hand, is utilized by the NL-to-SQL generator, which relies on a larger context window.

#OpenAI credentials and model 
OPENAI_API_KEY = 
LLM_MODEL = 
AGENT_LLM_MODEL = 
ORG_ID =

#Encryption key for storing DB connection data in Mongo
ENCRYPT_KEY = 

While not strictly required, we also strongly suggest you change the MONGO username and password fields as well.

Follow the next commands to generate an ENCRYPT_KEY and paste it in the .env file like this ENCRYPT_KEY = 4Mbe2GYx0Hk94o_f-irVHk1fKkCGAt1R7LLw5wHVghI=

# Install the package cryptography in the terminal
pip3 install cryptography

# Run python in terminal
python3

# Import Fernet
from cryptography.fernet import Fernet

# Generate the key
Fernet.generate_key()

2. Install and run Docker

3. Create a Docker network for communication between services.

We need to set it up externally to enable external clients running on docker to communicate with this app. Run the following command:

docker network create backendnetwork

4. Build docker images, create containers and raise them. This will raise the app and mongo container

docker-compose up --build

You can skip the --build if you don't have to rebuild the image due to updates to the dependencies

5. Check that the containers are running, you should see 2 containers

docker ps

It should look like this:

CONTAINER ID   IMAGE            COMMAND                  CREATED         STATUS         PORTS                      NAMES
72aa8df0d589   dataherald-app   "uvicorn dataherald.…"   7 seconds ago   Up 6 seconds   0.0.0.0:80->80/tcp         dataherald-app-1
6595d145b0d7   mongo:latest     "docker-entrypoint.s…"   19 hours ago    Up 6 seconds   0.0.0.0:27017->27017/tcp   dataherald-mongodb-1

6. In your browser visit http://localhost/docs

See Docker App container logs

Once app container is running just execute the next command

docker-compose exec app cat dataherald.log

Connect to Docker MongoDB container

Once your mongo container is running you can use any tool (Such as NoSQLBooster) to connect it. The default values are:

HOST: localhost # inside the docker containers use the host "mongodb" and outside use "localhost"
PORT: 27017
DB_NAME: dataherald
DB_USERNAME = admin
DB_PASSWORD = admin

Connecting to and Querying your SQL Databases

Once the engine is running, you will want to use it by:

1. Connecting to you data warehouses
2. Adding context about the data to the engine
3. Querying the data in natural language

Connecting to your data warehouses

We currently support connections to Postgres, BigQuery, Databricks, Snowflake and AWS Athena. You can create connections to these warehouses through the API or at application start-up using the envars.

Connecting through the API

You can define a DB connection through a call to the following API endpoint POST /api/v1/database-connections. For example:

Example 1. Without a SSH connection

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/database-connections' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "alias": "my_db_alias",
  "use_ssh": false,
  "connection_uri": "sqlite:///mydb.db",
  "path_to_credentials_file": "my-folder/my-secret.json" # Required for bigquery
}'

Example 2. With a SSH connection

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/database-connections' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "alias": "my_db_alias",
  "use_ssh": true,
  "ssh_settings": {
    "db_name": "db_name",
    "host": "string",
    "username": "string",
    "password": "string",
    "remote_host": "string",
    "remote_db_name": "string",
    "remote_db_password": "string",
    "private_key_password": "string",
    "db_driver": "string"
  }
}'

If you need to set up an SSH connection to connect to your DB you need to fill out all the ssh_settings fields

By default, DB credentials are stored in database_connection collection in MongoDB. Connection URI information is encrypted using the ENCRYPT_KEY you provided as an environment variable

Connecting to supported Data warehouses

You can generate the connection_uri parameter in the API call for each of the supported warehouses by using the steps outlined below.

Postgres

"connection_uri": postgresql+psycopg2://<user>:<password>@<host>:<port>/<db-name>

Databricks

"connection_uri": databricks://token:<token>@<host>?http_path=<http-path>&catalog=<catalog>&schema=<schema-name>

Snowflake

"connection_uri": snowflake://<user>:<password>@<organization>-<account-name>/<database>/<schema>

AWS Athena

"connection_uri": awsathena+rest://<aws_access_key_id>:<aws_secret_access_key>@athena.<region_name>.amazonaws.com:443/<schema_name>?s3_staging_dir=<s3_staging_dir>&work_group=primary

BigQuery To connect to BigQuery you should create a json credential file. Please follow Steps 1-3 under "Configure BigQuery Authentication in Google Cloud Platform" in this tutorial.

IMPORTANT: Please ensure the service account only has "Viewer" permissions.

Once you have your credential json file you can store it inside this project for example I created the folder private_credentials and inside I stored my credential file my-db-123456acbd.json

You should set in the endpoint param path_to_credentials_file the path, for example:

"path_to_credentials_file": "private_credentials/my-db-123456acbd.json"

"connection_uri": bigquery://<project>/<database>

Adding Context

Once you have connected to the data warehouse, you should add context to the engine to help improve the accuracy of the generated SQL. Context can currently be added in one of three ways:

1. Scanning the Database tables and columns
2. Adding verified SQL (golden SQL)
3. Adding string descriptions of the tables and columns

While only the Database scan part is required to start generating SQL, adding verified SQL and string descriptions are also important for the tool to generate accurate SQL.

Scanning the Database

The database scan is used to gather information about the database including table and column names and identifying low cardinality columns and their values to be stored in the context store and used in the prompts to the LLM. You can trigger a scan of a database from the POST /api/v1/table-descriptions/sync-schemas endpoint. Example below

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/table-descriptions/sync-schemas' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
    "db_connection_id": "db_connection_id",
    "table_names": ["table_name"]
  }'

Since the endpoint identifies low cardinality columns (and their values) it can take time to complete. Therefore while it is possible to trigger a scan on the entire DB by not specifying the table_names, we recommend against it for large databases.

Get a scanned db

Once a database was scanned you can use this endpoint to retrieve the tables names and columns

curl -X 'GET' \
  '<host>/api/v1/table-descriptions?db_connection_id=64dfa0e103f5134086f7090c&table_name=foo' \
  -H 'accept: application/json'

Adding verified SQL

Sample NL<>SQL pairs (golden SQL) can be stored in the context store and used for few-shot in context learning. In the default context store and NL 2 SQL engine, these samples are stored in a vector store and the closest samples are retrieved for few shot learning. You can add golden SQL to the context store from the POST /api/v1/golden-records endpoint

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/golden-records' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '[
        {
            "nl_question":"what was the most expensive zip code to rent in Los Angeles county in May 2022?", 
            "sql": "SELECT location_name, metric_value FROM table_name WHERE dh_county_name = '\''Los Angeles'\'' AND dh_state_name = '\''California'\''   AND period_start='\''2022-05-01'\'' AND geo_type='\''zip'\'' ORDER BY metric_value DESC LIMIT 1;", 
            "db":"db_name"
        }
  ]'

Adding string descriptions

In addition to database table_info and golden_sql, you can set descriptions or update the columns per table and column. All request body fields are optional, and only the fields that are explicitly set will be used to update the resource.

curl -X 'PATCH' \
  '<host>/api/v1/table-descriptions/64dfa0e103f5134086f7090c' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "description": "Tabla description",
  "columns": [
    {
      "name": "column1",
      "description": "string",
      "is_primary_key": false,
      "data_type": "string",
      "low_cardinality": true,
      "categories": [
        "string"
      ],
      "foreign_key": false
    },
    {
      "name": "column2",
      "description": "string",
      "is_primary_key": false,
      "data_type": "string",
      "low_cardinality": true,
      "categories": [
        "string"
      ],
      "foreign_key": false
    }
  ]
}'

Adding database level instructions

You can add database level instructions to the context store manually from the POST /api/v1/instructions endpoint These instructions are passed directly to the engine and can be used to steer the engine to generate SQL that is more in line with your business logic.

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/instructions' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "instruction": "This is a database level instruction"
  "db_connection_id": "db_connection_id"
}'

Getting database level instructions

You can get database level instructions from the GET /api/v1/instructions endpoint

curl -X 'GET' \
  '<host>/api/v1/instructions?page=1&limit=10&db_connection_id=12312312' \
  -H 'accept: application/json'

Deleting database level instructions

You can delete database level instructions from the DELETE /api/v1/instructions/{instruction_id} endpoint

curl -X 'DELETE' \
  '<host>/api/v1/instructions/{instruction_id}' \
  -H 'accept: application/json'

Updating database level instructions

You can update database level instructions from the PUT /api/v1/instructions/{instruction_id} endpoint Try different instructions to see how the engine generates SQL

curl -X 'PUT' \
  '<host>/api/v1/instructions/{instruction_id}' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
  "instruction": "This is a database level instruction"
}'

Querying the Database in Natural Language

Once you have connected the engine to your data warehouse (and preferably added some context to the store), you can query your data warehouse using the POST /api/v1/questions endpoint.

curl -X 'POST' \
  '<host>/api/v1/questions' \
  -H 'accept: application/json' \
  -H 'Content-Type: application/json' \
  -d '{
        "question": "Your question in natural language",
        "db_connection_id": "db_connection_id"
    }'

Replacing core modules

The Dataherald engine is made up of replaceable modules. Each of these can be replaced with a different implementation that extends the base class. Some of the main modules are:

1. SQL Generator -- The module that generates SQL from a given natural language question.
2. Vector Store -- The Vector DB used to store context data such as sample SQL queries
3. DB -- The DB that persists application logic. By default this is Mongo.
4. Evaluator -- A module which evaluates accuracy of the generated SQL and assigns a score.

In some instances we have already included multiple implementations for testing and benchmarking.

Contributing

As an open-source project in a rapidly developing field, we are open to contributions, whether it be in the form of a new feature, improved infrastructure, or better documentation.

For detailed information on how to contribute, see here.

Mongo errors

The Mongo installation is configured to store application data in the /dbdata folder. In case you want to wipe the local DB, try completely deleting /dbdata before rebuilding the databases.