Utility Configuration

Adding a new utility to your project is as simple as adding a new key to the utilities section of the alto.toml file. The key is a user defined name for the tap and the value is a dictionary of configuration options for that tap.

Example Utility Configuration

Here is a mock example of 1 utility configuration, as you can see it can be quite concise:

TOML

alto.toml

[default.utilities.dlt] # https://dlthub.com/docs/intro
pip_url = "python-dlt[duckdb]>=0.2.0a25"
environment.PEX_INHERIT_PATH = "fallback"

YAML

alto.yaml

default:
  utilities:
    dlt: # https://dlthub.com/docs/intro
      pip_url: "python-dlt[duckdb]>=0.2.0a25"
      environment:
        PEX_INHERIT_PATH: "fallback"

JSON

alto.json

{
  "default": {
    "utilities": {
      "dlt": {
        "pip_url": "python-dlt[duckdb]>=0.2.0a25",
        "environment": {
          "PEX_INHERIT_PATH": "fallback"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Below, we will go over each of the configuration options for a utility.

---

Settings

pip_url

The pip_url is the pip installable URL of the utility. This is the same URL that you would use to install the utility via pip install. This is the only required field for a utility configuration.

Tip

Remember pip installable URLs can be a local path to a directory, tarball, zip file, or a git repo. Anything that can be used by pip can be used by alto.

executable and entrypoint

By default, alto will assume that the target exposes a script named after the target key name in the alto config. For example, if the target is named sqlfluff, alto will assume that the target exposes a script named sqlfluff. If this is not the case, you can specify the executable explicitly. You can alternatively specify the entrypoint if the package does not expose a script or you want to use something other than the default.

environment

The environment field is a dictionary of environment variables that will be set when running the target. It is fully scoped to the target and will not affect other processes.

Closing Thoughts on Utilities

A utility is any python package that you want to use in your project that is not a tap or a target. These are things you want to use in your project but might not want to install into the Docker container / venv. For example, you might want to use sqlfluff to lint your SQL files. You can add it to the utilities section and alto will automatically manage building it, caching it, and running it for you. It is easily accessible via alto invoke [plugin_name] [args]. The alto invoke [plugin_name] command will pull the plugin just-in-time if needed. This keeps your Docker container and dependency tree lighter. alto itself is still lean enough to sit next to heavier data tools like dbt, pandas, duckdb, and airflow and not have much risk for conflict whilst enabling this new path for utility management.