Meltano on Github Actions

This template uses cookiecutter to generate a GitHub Actions orchestrated Meltano project.

For a list of pre-made Singer taps and targets, see the Meltano Hub.

Benefits to using GitHub Actions

• Requires only a GitHub account to deploy a fully automated Meltano project with logging, alerting, and incremental state
• Configuration is version controlled and maintained as code
• Low barrier to entry, a working project can be deployed on a schedule in a couple of hours
• Easy management of secrets
• Low cost. See the free minutes for your plan here, and the incremental cost outside of your free minutes here.

Limitations of using GitHub Actions

• There is a 6 hour maximum run time for any isolated individual job in a workflow. This often means that backfills need to be performed outside of GitHub actions.
• No way of exposing the Meltano UI

Usage prerequisites:

• Python >= 3.7
• pipx
• meltano
• cookiecutter

Install pipx with:

pip install pipx
pipx ensurepath

Install Meltano with:

pipx install meltano

Install Cookiecutter with:

pipx install cookiecutter

Instructions

1. In your terminal, navigate to the parent folder in which you'd like the project to be created.
2. Run cookiecutter https://github.com/brooklyn-data/meltano-on-github-actions and follow the prompts.
3. From inside the newly generated project, search for all 'TODO' strings, and complete any actions required.
4. Once ready to publish, initialize Git with git init.
5. Create an empty repository in GitHub.
6. Take the .git URL of the newly created remote repository, and run git remote add origin <.git url>.
7. Stage and commit the generated project files with git add -A and git commit -m 'Initial commit'.
8. Make sure the branch is named main by running git branch -M main.
9. Finally, push the created project to the remote repository with git push -u origin main.
10. Configure any required secrets in the GitHub repo.

Slack alerts

Slack alerts on failure are enabled using the official Slack GitHub action, using 'Technique 2: Slack App'. To configure:

1. Create a Slack App for the workspace, with a suitable name (e.g. Meltano).
2. Add the chat.write bot scope under OAuth & Permissions.
3. Install the app to the workspace.
4. Copy the app's Bot Token from the OAuth & Permissions page and add it as a secret in the repo settings named SLACK_BOT_TOKEN.
5. Invite the bot user into the channel you wish to post messages to (/invite @bot_user_name).
6. Copy the Slack channel's Channel ID (from the channel's About section, accessed by clicking the drop down arrow next to the channel's name) into another repository secret named SLACK_CHANNEL_ID.

About Brooklyn Data Co.

We are a full-stack data and analytics team, focused on leadership, process improvement, implementation, and advanced analytics. Read more about what we do and check out our open roles!