rill-rillyaml

Instructions for developing rill.yaml

Introduction

rill.yaml is a required configuration file located at the root of every Rill project. It defines project-wide settings, similar to package.json in Node.js or dbt_project.yml in dbt.

Core Concepts

Project metadata

There are no required properties in rill.yaml, but it is common to configure:

• display_name: Human-readable name shown in the UI
• description: Brief description of the project's purpose
• compiler: Deprecated property that is commonly found in old projects

Default OLAP connector

The olap_connector property sets the default OLAP database for the project. Models output to this connector by default, and metrics views query from it unless explicitly overridden.

Common values are duckdb or clickhouse. If not specified, Rill initializes a managed DuckDB database and uses it as the default OLAP connector.

Mock users for security testing

The mock_users property defines test users for validating security policies during local development. Each mock user can have:

• email (required): The user's email address
• name: Display name
• admin: Boolean indicating admin privileges
• groups: List of group memberships
• Custom attributes for use in security policy expressions

When mock users are defined and security policies exist, a "View as" dropdown appears in the dashboard preview.

Environment variables

The env property sets default values for non-sensitive variables. These can be referenced in resource files using templating syntax ({{ .env.<variable> }}). Sensitive secrets should go in .env instead.

Resource type defaults

Project-wide defaults can be set for resource types using plural keys:

• models: Default settings for all models (e.g., refresh schedules)
• metrics_views: Default settings for all metrics views (e.g., first_day_of_week)
• explores: Default settings for explore dashboards (e.g., time_ranges, time_zones)
• canvases: Default settings for canvas dashboards

Individual resources can override these defaults.

Path management

• ignore_paths: List of paths to exclude from parsing (use leading /)
• public_paths: List of paths to expose over HTTP (defaults to ['./public'])

Environment overrides

The dev and prod properties allow environment-specific configuration overrides.

Minimal Example

A minimal rill.yaml for a new project:

display_name: My Analytics Project

Complete Example

A comprehensive rill.yaml demonstrating common configurations:

display_name: Sales Analytics
description: Sales performance dashboards with partner access controls

olap_connector: duckdb

# Non-sensitive environment variables
env:
  default_lookback: P30D
  data_bucket: gs://my-company-data

# Mock users for testing security policies locally
mock_users:
  - email: admin@mycompany.com
    name: Admin User
    admin: true
  - email: partner@external.com
    groups:
      - partners
  - email: viewer@mycompany.com
    tenant_id: xyz

# Project-wide defaults for models
models:
  refresh:
    cron: 0 0 * * *

# Project-wide defaults for metrics views
metrics_views:
  smallest_time_grain: day

# Project-wide defaults for explore dashboards
explores:
  defaults:
    time_range: P3M
  time_zones:
    - UTC
    - America/New_York
    - Europe/London
  time_ranges:
    - PT24H
    - P7D
    - P30D
    - P3M
    - P12M

# Exclude non-Rill files from parsing
ignore_paths:
  - /docs

Reference documentation

Here is a full JSON schema for the rill.yaml syntax:

$schema: http://json-schema.org/draft-07/schema#
allOf:
    - properties:
        ai_connector:
            description: Specifies the default AI connector for the project. Defaults to Rill's internal AI connector if not set.
            type: string
        ai_instructions:
            description: Extra instructions for LLM/AI features. Used to guide natural language question answering and routing.
            type: string
        compiler:
            description: Specifies the parser version to use for compiling resources
            type: string
        description:
            description: A brief description of the project
            type: string
        display_name:
            description: The display name of the project, shown in the upper-left corner of the UI
            type: string
        features:
            description: Optional feature flags. Can be specified as a map of feature names to booleans.
            type: object
      title: Properties
      type: object
    - description: |
        Rill allows you to specify the default OLAP engine to use in your project via `rill.yaml`.
        :::info Curious about OLAP Engines?
        Please see our reference documentation on [OLAP Engines](/developers/build/connectors/olap).
        :::
      properties:
        olap_connector:
            description: Specifies the default OLAP engine for the project. Defaults to duckdb if not set.
            examples:
                - olap_connector: clickhouse
            type: string
      title: Configuring the default OLAP Engine
      type: object
    - description: |
        In `rill.yaml`, project-wide defaults can be specified for a resource type within a project. Unless otherwise specified, _individual resources will inherit any defaults_ that have been specified in `rill.yaml`. For available properties that can be configured, please refer to the YAML specification for each individual resource type - [model](models.md), [metrics_view](metrics-views.md), and [explore](explore-dashboards.md)

        :::note Use plurals when specifying project-wide defaults
        In your `rill.yaml`, the top level property for the resource type needs to be **plural**, such as `models`, `metrics_views` and `explores`.
        :::

        :::info Hierarchy of inheritance and property overrides
        As a general rule of thumb, properties that have been specified at a more _granular_ level will supercede or override higher level properties that have been inherited. Therefore, in order of inheritance, Rill will prioritize properties in the following order:
        1. Individual [models](models.md)/[metrics_views](metrics-views.md)/[explore](explore-dashboards.md) object level properties (e.g. `models.yaml` or `explore-dashboards.yaml`)
        2. [Environment](/developers/build/models/templating) level properties (e.g. a specific property that have been set for `dev`)
        3. [Project-wide defaults](#project-wide-defaults) for a specific property and resource type
        :::
      properties:
        canvases:
            description: Defines project-wide default settings for canvases. Unless overridden, individual canvases will inherit these defaults.
            examples:
                - canvases:
                    defaults:
                        time_range: P7D
                    time_ranges:
                        - PT24H
                        - P7D
                    time_zones:
                        - UTC
                  explores:
                    defaults:
                        time_range: P24M
                    time_ranges:
                        - PT24H
                        - P6M
                    time_zones:
                        - UTC
                  metrics_views:
                    first_day_of_week: 1
                    smallest_time_grain: month
                  models:
                    refresh:
                        cron: 0 * * * *
            type: object
        explores:
            description: Defines project-wide default settings for explores. Unless overridden, individual explores will inherit these defaults.
            type: object
        metrics_views:
            description: Defines project-wide default settings for metrics_views. Unless overridden, individual metrics_views will inherit these defaults.
            type: object
        models:
            description: Defines project-wide default settings for models. Unless overridden, individual models will inherit these defaults.
            type: object
      title: Project-wide defaults
      type: object
    - description: "Primarily useful for [templating](/developers/build/connectors/templating), variables can be set in the `rill.yaml` file directly. This allows variables to be set for your projects deployed to Rill Cloud while still being able to use different variable values locally if you prefer. \n:::info Overriding variables locally\nVariables also follow an order of precedence and can be overridden locally. By default, any variables defined will be inherited from `rill.yaml`. However, if you manually pass in a variable when starting Rill Developer locally via the CLI, this value will be used instead for the current instance of your running project:\n```bash\nrill start --env numeric_var=100 --env string_var=\"different_value\"\n```\n:::\n:::tip Setting variables through `.env`\nVariables can also be set through your project's `<RILL_PROJECT_HOME>/.env` file (or using the `rill env set` CLI command), such as:\n```bash\nvariable=xyz\n```\nSimilar to how [connector credentials can be pushed / pulled](/developers/build/connectors/credentials#pulling-credentials-and-variables-from-a-deployed-project-on-rill-cloud) from local to cloud or vice versa, project variables set locally in Rill Developer can be pushed to Rill Cloud and/or pulled back to your local instance from your deployed project by using the `rill env push` and `rill env pull` commands respectively.\n:::\n"
      properties:
        env:
            description: To define a variable in `rill.yaml`, pass in the appropriate key-value pair for the variable under the `env` key
            examples:
                - env:
                    numeric_var: 10
                    string_var: string_value
            type: object
      title: Setting variables
      type: object
    - description: |
        The public_paths and ignore_paths properties in the rill.yaml file provide control over which files and directories are processed or exposed by Rill. The public_paths property defines a list of file or directory paths to expose over HTTP. By default, it includes ['./public']. The ignore_paths property specifies a list of files or directories that Rill excludes during ingestion and parsing. This prevents unnecessary or incompatible content from affecting the project.
        :::tip
        Don't forget the leading `/` when specifying the path for `ignore_paths` and this path is also assuming the relative path from your project root.
        :::
      properties:
        ignore_paths:
            description: A list of file or directory paths to exclude from parsing. Useful for ignoring extraneous or non-Rill files in the project
            examples:
                - ignore_paths:
                    - /path/to/ignore
                    - /file_to_ignore.yaml
            items:
                type: string
            type: array
        public_paths:
            description: List of file or directory paths to expose over HTTP. Defaults to ['./public']
            items:
                type: string
            type: array
      title: Managing Paths in Rill
      type: object
    - description: "During development, it is always a good idea to check if your [access policies](/developers/build/metrics-view/security) are behaving the way you designed them to before pushing these changes into production. You can set mock users which enables a drop down in the dashboard preview to view as a specific user. \n:::info The View as selector is not visible in my dashboard, why?\nThis feature is _only_ enabled when you have set a security policy on the dashboard. By default, the dashboard and it's contents is viewable by every user.\n:::\n"
      properties:
        mock_users:
            description: A list of mock users used to test dashboard security policies within the project
            examples:
                - mock_users:
                    - admin: true
                      email: john@yourcompany.com
                      name: John Doe
                    - email: jane@partnercompany.com
                      groups:
                        - partners
                    - email: anon@unknown.com
                    - custom_variable_1: Value_1
                      custom_variable_2: Value_2
                      email: embed@rilldata.com
                      name: embed
            items:
                properties:
                    admin:
                        description: Indicates whether the mock user has administrative privileges
                        type: boolean
                    email:
                        description: The email address of the mock user. This field is required
                        type: string
                    groups:
                        description: An array of group names that the mock user is a member of
                        items:
                            type: string
                        type: array
                    name:
                        description: The name of the mock user.
                        type: string
                required:
                    - email
                type: object
            type: array
      title: Testing access policies
      type: object
    - properties:
        dev:
            description: Overrides any properties in development environment.
            type: object
        prod:
            description: Overrides any properties in production environment.
            type: object
      title: Common Properties
      type: object
description: The `rill.yaml` file contains metadata about your project.
id: rill-yaml.schema.yaml
title: Project YAML
type: object