Connection as code
Connection as code is the practice of treating a dashboard tool’s data sources as named, declarative objects that dashboards reference by name, with credentials kept apart from the dashboard specs rather than embedded in them.
It applies the BI-as-code idea to the part of the stack that is usually set up once in a settings screen and then forgotten. When connections are named objects, a reviewer can see which source a dashboard reads from without ever seeing a secret.
How it works in dvt
A dvt connection is a named object with a type (Snowflake, Postgres, BigQuery, or Google Sheets), an auth method, and the non-sensitive settings that type needs: a Postgres host and database, a BigQuery project, or a Google Sheets spreadsheetId. Credentials are stored envelope-encrypted and are never returned to a client, so they cannot leak into a spec, a screenshot, or an agent’s context.
The connection’s name is the sourceId a panel references, so every chart in a dashboard spec states exactly which source it queries. dvt connects to Snowflake, Postgres, BigQuery, and Google Sheets this way, and runs each panel’s query against that source when the dashboard is viewed.