Creating a new LookML project

A project is a collection of LookML files that describe how your database tables are related to each other and how Looker should interpret those tables. You can learn more about projects on the LookML projects and development model and LookML terms and concepts documentation pages. For information about accessing and editing existing projects, see the Accessing and editing project information documentation page.

A LookML project can contain more than one model file. However, if you want to specify permissions for users around seeing and editing LookML for a specific model file, you might want to create a new project. Although most permissions in Looker apply at the model level, there are some permissions that apply to the project level, including see_lookml, which lets you view LookML for a project, and develop, which lets you edit the LookML.

Looker users with the manage_models permission can create LookML models on a Looker instance.

Creating a project

To create a project, perform the following steps:

  1. Verify that you're in Development Mode.

  2. Select Projects from the Develop section of the navigation panel.

  3. On the LookML Projects page, select New LookML Project to select the options for your project.

This action opens the New Project page, where you can specify settings for your project, including the project's name and starting point.

Looker can create a project in several ways, and the steps taken depend on the Starting Point option that you choose on the New Project page. The following sections describe how these starting points work:

Automatically generating a model from your database

From the New Project page, specify the following options to automatically generate a model from a database.

  1. Project Name: Give your project a name. Project names are case-sensitive and only allow alphanumeric characters, _, ., and -. Choose the project name carefully and consider it a permanent ID for the project, since Looker uses the project name in the following ways:

    • To identify the project for API calls that have the project_id parameter.
    • To identify the project in the Looker instance's internal database.
    • To identify the project for local project import.
    • To display the project on the LookML Projects page.
    • To display the project in the Develop section of the Looker navigation panel.
    • As part of the URL for project files. For example, on a Looker instance with a URL of example.looker.com, the project manifest file for the project named ecommerce can be found at this URL: https://example.looker.com/projects/ecommerce/files/manifest.lkml.

  2. Starting Point: Choose Generate Model from Database Schema.

  3. Connection: From the drop-down menu, select the name of your database connection.

  4. Build Views From: Select one of the following options:

    • All Tables: The LookML generator creates a view file for each table in your database.
    • Single Table: The LookML generator creates a view for one table in your database. If you choose this option, enter the name of the database table.

  5. Schemas: To generate files for only one schema in your database, enter the name of the schema in the Schemas text field. You can list multiple schemas, separated by commas.

  6. Ignore Prefixes: To leave table prefixes out of your view file names, enter your database's prefixes in the Ignore Prefixes field. This field is case-sensitive. You can list multiple prefixes, separated by commas. For example, your tables are titled dwh_orders and DBS_users. If you enter dwh, DBS in the Ignore Prefixes text field, then Looker creates view files named orders and users.

Finally, click Create Project to create a project that contains the generated model.

  • The LookML generator creates one model file for the project as well as a view file for each table in the database (unless otherwise specified). Then, Looker opens the new project in the Looker IDE.
  • The LookML generator creates IDE folders for your view and model files. If your database has more than one schema, the LookML generator creates a folder for schemas.

For BigQuery connections, if you generate a LookML project from your database, Looker autopopulates field descriptions with the descriptions from your BigQuery column metadata, if any.

The generator also creates an Explore for each database table. To start querying your data, use the Explore panel to select the name of an Explore.

Cloning a public Git repository from the New Project page

If you select Clone Public Git Repository as the starting point from the New Project page, Looker copies the files from a public Git repository into your new LookML project.

Looker projects that are cloned from public Git repositories from the New Project page are read-only. However, you can import the read-only project into another of your Looker projects, where you can use the cloned repository files as a starting point for Looker extends or refinements to build up a project from there.

To clone an existing public Git repository into a Looker project, follow these steps:

  1. Verify that you're in Development Mode.
  2. From the Develop section of the Looker navigation panel, select Projects.

  3. On the LookML Projects page, depending on your instance's configuration, do one of the following:

    • Click the New LookML Project button to open the New Project page.
    • Click the New Model button to open the Create a Model page, and then in the information banner on the Create a Model page, click the click here link to open the New Project page.

  4. In the Project Name field, give your project a name. Project names are case-sensitive and can't use spaces or certain special characters. Choose the project name carefully and consider it a permanent ID for the project, since Looker uses the project name in the following ways:

    • To identify the project for API calls that have the project_id parameter.
    • To identify the project in the Looker instance's internal database.
    • To identify the project for local project import.
    • To display the project on the LookML Projects page.
    • To display the project in the Develop section of the Looker navigation panel.
    • As part of the URL for project files. For example, on a Looker instance with a URL of example.looker.com, the project manifest file for the project named ecommerce can be found at this URL: https://example.looker.com/projects/ecommerce/files/manifest.lkml.

  5. For the Starting Point field, select Clone Public Git Repository.

  6. In the Git Repository URL field, enter the URL for the public Git repository. Make sure that the URL is in the format git://github.com/example/my-repository.git.

    If you have a URL such as https://github.com/llooker/blocks_redshift_admin, you can edit it to the correct format by replacing https:// with git:// and then adding .git at the end. The URL you would enter would be git://github.com/llooker/blocks_redshift_admin.git.

  7. Click Create Project. Looker will pull all the public repository's files into a new LookML project and open the project in the Looker IDE.

Alternative method for cloning a public Git repository

The easiest way to clone a public Git repository is to clone it by using the New Project page in Looker. However, there are two disadvantages to cloning from the New Project page:

  • GitHub doesn't support git:// URLs, so you can't clone GitHub repositories from the New Projects page.
  • Git repositories that are cloned from the New Projects page are read-only.

If you have a GitHub repository or you want to be able to write to your repository, you can instead fork the repository and connect it to a blank project in Looker by performing these steps:

  1. Navigate to your Git provider and fork the repository.
  2. In Looker, create a blank project as described in the Creating a blank project section of this page.
  3. Once you create the new blank LookML project, set up the project's Git connection to your Git repository fork by using either HTTPS or SSH.

After setting up the Git connection to your repository fork, you can edit the files in the Looker IDE, and then use version control and deploy changes to production as with any standard LookML project.

Creating a blank project

If you select Blank Project as the starting point from the New Project page, Looker creates an empty project so that you can create your LookML files from scratch.

To create a blank project, follow these steps:

  1. Verify that you're in Development Mode.
  2. From the Develop section of the Looker navigation panel, select Projects.

  3. On the LookML Projects page, depending on your instance's configuration, do one of the following:

    • Click the New LookML Project button to open the New Project page.
    • Click the New Model button to open the Create a Model page, and then in the information banner on the Create a Model page, click the click here link to open the New Project page.

  4. In the Project Name field, give your project a name. Project names are case sensitive and can't use spaces or certain special characters. Choose the project name carefully and consider it a permanent ID for the project, since Looker uses the project name in the following ways:

    • To identify the project for API calls that have the project_id parameter.
    • To identify the project in the Looker instance's internal database.
    • To identify the project for local project import.
    • To display the project on the LookML Projects page.
    • To display the project in the Develop section of the Looker navigation panel.
    • As part of the URL for project files. For example, on a Looker instance with a URL of example.looker.com, the project manifest file for the project named ecommerce can be found at this URL: https://example.looker.com/projects/ecommerce/files/manifest.lkml.

  5. For the Starting Point field, choose Blank Project.

  6. Click Create Project. Looker creates the project and opens it in the Looker IDE.

Next steps

After a project is created, you can do the following: