Overview

In a previous universe, a single Mage application supported only 1 Mage project and only read files from sub-directories of the top-level Mage project.

In the new multi-verse, you can manage and run multiple different Mage projects and other non-Mage projects (e.g. dbt projects).

Available in versions >= 0.9.60

Migration guide

Please read if you have an existing project.

If you have an existing project, please read the section Migrating an existing Mage project down below after you finish reading the sections that come before.

Structure

You’ll still need a top-level directory to store all your files and folders. This top-level directory can be named anything. You’ll still start the Mage application pointing to this directory. For example: mage start multiverse_project.

Within this top-level directory, you can add any number of files and folders in any structure you see fit.

There are a few requirements:

  1. At the root of the top-level directory, create a file named settings.yaml.

  2. For any Mage related projects, there needs to be a file named metadata.yaml in the root directory of the Mage project you wish to use in this multi-project setup. For example, here is how a setup with 3 Mage projects can look:

    mutliverse_project/
        fire/
            data_loaders/
            pipelines/
            metadata.yaml
            io_config.yaml
        lightning/
            data_loaders/
            pipelines/
            metadata.yaml
            io_config.yaml
        water/
            ice/
                glacier/
                    data_loaders/
                    pipelines/
                    metadata.yaml
                    io_config.yaml
        settings.yaml
    

In the settings.yaml file, you’ll need to register the project so that Mage knows where your active projects live.

Open the settings.yaml file and add the following (adjust to your specific setup):

# multiverse_project/settings.yaml

projects:
  fire: {}
  lightning: {}
  glacier:
    path: water/ice/glacier

Note that the project named glacier has a custom path configured in the settings. This allows Mage to reference the project using glacier while supporting the flexibility of any project to be located anywhere.

For a skeleton template of a pre-configured Multi-project platform setup, clone this repository.


Project preferences

Each Mage project can have its own set of feature settings, custom designs, and more.

However, the top-level project can override these settings for each project.

To set project-wide settings, go to the project preferences page and on the left side there will be a navigation option to configure the settings for the entire platform.


Migrating an existing Mage project

If you have an existing project, take the entire project directory and add it as a sub-directory into the new top-level folder (e.g. multiverse_project).

Then, add your existing project’s name to the settings.yaml file.

This next section is very important.

Pre-existing database records

If you previously created triggers or secrets in your existing project, you must add the following into the settings.yaml file in order for those triggers and secrets to be discovered in your multi-project setup:

projects:
  # ...other projects registered
  glacier:
    path: water/ice/glacier
    database:
      query:
        # Change this value to your previously named project
        pipeline_schedules: previously_named_project
        # Change this value to your previously named project
        secrets: previously_named_project

Change the value for the key pipeline_schedules and secrets under the key database.query to the actual name of your previous project.

When Mage attempts to trigger pipelines, it’ll use the trigger’s repo_path column from the database (e.g. SQLite, PostgreSQL, etc.) and search for pipelines stored in the project located at the path. If the pipeline can’t be found at that path, then the trigger won’t start.

By adding the above mapping to your settings.yaml file, Mage can use that repo_path for pre-existing triggers. Any new trigger created will have an updated repo_path value that matches the current project’s absolute path (e.g. /home/src/multiverse_project/water/ice/glacier).

The above also applies to all secrets previously created.