Sidecar Docs

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What is Sidecar?

Sidecar is a data catalog that connects to your entire data stack — dbt, Snowflake, BigQuery, Looker, and more — to give your team a unified view of your data assets, lineage, and metadata.

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Connect Your Data Stack

Each integration guide walks you through setup step by step.

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Metadata-Only Access

By default, Sidecar operates in a metadata-only mode. This means Sidecar does not query or access the underlying data in your warehouse. Instead, we work with metadata about your stack, such as:

• Table and column names
• Schema structure
• Lineage and dependencies
• dbt metadata
• Query history metadata
• Operational signals and usage patterns

Our goal is to build context about how your data platform works without requiring access to the data itself.

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Exceptions

The primary exception is optional automated dbt test generation. If enabled, Sidecar may query limited warehouse data in order to automatically generate and validate common dbt tests, including:

• Primary key tests
• Not null tests
• Unique tests
• Accepted values tests

This functionality is optional and can be disabled at any time.

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Business Context Integrations

Sidecar can also integrate with tools like Slack and Jira. These integrations help enrich the context layer with institutional and business knowledge that typically does not exist in metadata alone. In some cases, Slack may also be used purely for operational notifications and alert delivery. In those scenarios, Sidecar does not need to ingest Slack conversation history or message content. When enabled for contextual enrichment, data from these systems is used solely to improve discovery, lineage understanding, operational awareness, and AI-assisted workflows within Sidecar. These context-enrichment capabilities can be disabled if preferred.

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Need Help?

If you run into any issues during setup, reach out to us at support@sidecardata.com or via your dedicated Slack channel.