Hi HN, I’ve been working on https://datadef.io, a tool to help data team (engineer, architect, project manager) make sense of their data universe.
The problem:
- Data models (dbt, SQL, warehouses) often grow into a tangled mess of tables, joins, and undocumented assumptions. - Lineage is either scattered across tools or missing entirely. - Documentation is usually an afterthought (and gets outdated fast).
Datadef.io aims to fix that by providing:
- Interactive canvas to map tables, relationships, and indicators. - Automatic lineage visualization to trace dependencies. - Metadata management: define table/column-level details, ownership, and KPIs. - AI-generated documentation that stays in sync with your models. - Export/share features so asset managers, analysts, and other teams don’t get lost in spreadsheets or PDFs.
It’s still early, and I’d love feedback from the HN community. In particular:
What’s missing for you in lineage/metadata/documentation tools?
How would you want to integrate a tool like this into your workflow (dbt, Databricks, Power BI, etc.)?
I’d really appreciate your thoughts, feature requests, and criticism.
Thanks!
My apologies if I missed this when looking at your product site, but how is the ongoing cost structured? Also, is this OSS with some sort of stated license model, or purely proprietary software?
It looks like a really great idea to package all these evolving best practice concepts into one product!
When I try to sign in with GitHub I get the ‘this isn’t the page you’re looking for’ github 404 error.