Metabase Doris and VeloDB Driver

A standalone, analytics-focused Metabase community driver for Apache Doris and VeloDB. It connects to a Doris FE through the MySQL protocol and models Doris metadata as catalog -> database -> table.

Release target: v1.0.0

Compatibility

The v1.0.0 driver preserves the complete 29-capability contract advertised by the legacy official Doris driver. An automated parity test locks those capability values, including schema and field discovery, joins, date and text expressions, timezone handling, standard deviation, and the capabilities that remain intentionally disabled.

This driver also adds verified behavior beyond that baseline:

• advanced Query Builder support for full joins, approximate percentile/median, regular-expression extraction, string splitting, timezone conversion, and LAG/LEAD window offsets;
• integer and floating-point expression casts;
• identifiers containing spaces;
• microsecond-precision current time through NOW(6);
• Doris type aliases and integer display widths, including DATEV2, JSONB, and types such as INT(11);
• richer field metadata for nullability, defaults, comments, and auto/generated flags when Doris exposes those values;
• Doris global/system timezone discovery;
• Doris-compatible connection defaults and error messages.

Validated Metabase versions:

Metabase	Automated driver suite	Live Doris integration
0.59.6.3	Passed	Not run
0.60.1	Passed	Passed
0.60.2.2	Passed	Not run

These are exact tested versions, not a claim of compatibility with every later Metabase release.

Catalog And Metadata Support

The driver supports the internal catalog and external catalogs exposed by Doris.

• Internal catalog field sync uses one ordered, streaming query against information_schema.columns. This avoids one metadata round trip per table.
• External catalog field sync uses Doris SHOW DATABASES, SHOW TABLES, and SHOW FULL COLUMNS statements because connector-backed metadata is not uniformly available through information_schema.
• Include/exclude filters can limit synchronized databases. System schemas are excluded by default.
• ARRAY, MAP, and JSON retain useful top-level Metabase types. STRUCT, VARIANT, HLL, and BITMAP remain visible as opaque fields. Nested child fields are not unfolded.

External catalog completeness depends on what the selected Doris connector exposes. In particular, Doris can return empty EXTRA and GENERATION_EXPRESSION values through information_schema.columns. In that case Metabase cannot identify auto-increment or generated columns even though the driver preserves those flags when present.

Requirements

• Java 21
• Metabase 0.59.6.3, 0.60.1, or 0.60.2.2
• A reachable Apache Doris FE MySQL protocol endpoint, normally port 9030
• Clojure CLI only when building or running the test suite from source

Download And Install

The GitHub release asset is created only after the v1.0.0 tag is published. Once that release exists, download it from GitHub Releases. The expected asset name is:

doris.metabase-driver-v1.0.0.jar

Until the tag is published, build the artifact from source; do not treat the Releases link as proof that a release is already available.

Copy the downloaded or locally built JAR into Metabase's plugin directory and restart Metabase:

cp target/doris.metabase-driver.jar /path/to/metabase/plugins/
java -jar /path/to/metabase.jar

The Metabase startup log should report that the doris driver was registered. Add a database in the Metabase admin UI and select Apache Doris.

Build

From the repository root:

clojure -T:build jar

The source-only community-driver artifact is written to:

target/doris.metabase-driver.jar

Test

Run the default suite against Metabase 0.60.1:

bash scripts/run-unit-tests.sh

Run the complete validated matrix:

for version in 0.59.6.3 0.60.1 0.60.2.2; do
  METABASE_TEST_VERSION="$version" bash scripts/run-unit-tests.sh
done

The test script downloads the selected official Metabase JAR into the ignored .cache/test-deps/ directory and checks its pinned SHA-256 digest before executing the suite. See TESTING.md for test scope, live prerequisites, and the release gate.

Connection Settings

Setting	Meaning
Host	Doris FE host
Port	Doris FE MySQL protocol port; defaults to 9030
Catalog	Doris catalog; defaults to internal
Database	Optional database; leave empty to sync visible databases
Username / Password	Doris credentials
SSL	Enable JDBC TLS
Sync Schemas Include	Optional comma-separated database allowlist
Sync Schemas Exclude	Optional comma-separated database denylist; exclusion wins
Additional options	Additional MariaDB JDBC URL parameters

When Database is set, metadata sync stays within that database. Without it, the driver discovers visible databases inside the selected catalog and applies the include/exclude filters before listing tables.

Deliberate Limits

• Metabase uploads, writeback actions, and persisted models are not supported. Native SQL runs with the configured Doris user's permissions; use a read-only Doris account when writes must be prevented.
• Field-filter, card-reference, and table-reference native template tags are not advertised.
• Primary-key, foreign-key, index, and table-privilege metadata are not synchronized.
• Nested fields inside Doris complex values are not expanded for Query Builder.
• Percentile and median use PERCENTILE_APPROX, so their results are approximate.
• Regular-expression lookahead and lookbehind are not advertised.
• Named timezone conversion depends on the timezone data available to the connected Doris deployment.
• External catalog behavior and metadata completeness remain connector-dependent.

The capability parity claim covers the legacy driver's 29 advertised capability flags. It does not imply support for features the legacy driver also disabled, untested future Metabase versions, or every external catalog implementation.

Repository Layout

.
|-- .github/workflows/       # CI and release automation
|-- resources/               # Metabase plugin manifest
|-- scripts/                 # Unit and live validation helpers
|-- src/metabase/driver/     # Driver implementation
|-- test/metabase/driver/    # Compatibility and behavior tests
|-- build.clj
|-- deps.edn
|-- README.md
`-- TESTING.md