GitHub - bruin-data/dac: dac is a dashboard-as-code tool. Build interactive dashboards using YAML and JSX. Built-in semantic layer. Get your agents to build standardized, reviewable dashboards.

3 min read Original article ↗

DAC is a Dashboard-as-Code tool for defining, validating, and serving dashboards from YAML and TSX.

  • Dynamic charts, tabs, loops and conditionals with TSX.
  • Built-in AI agent via Codex: chat with your dashboard live and get it updated.
  • Supports all the major databases: Postgres, MySQL, Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, Databricks, and more via Bruin
  • Built-in semantic layer: define metrics and dimensions once in semantic/, reference them from any widget. DAC generates the SQL.

It is built for AI agents to build dashboards in a reliable and reviewable way.

DAC dashboard demo

TSX YAML
export default (
  <Dashboard name="Simple Dashboard" connection="my_db">
    <Row>
      <Metric
        name="Total Revenue"
        col={4}
        sql="SELECT SUM(amount) AS value FROM sales"
        column="value"
        prefix="$"
        format="number"
      />
    </Row>
  </Dashboard>
)
name: Sales Overview
connection: warehouse

rows:
  - widgets:
      - name: Revenue
        type: metric
        sql: SELECT SUM(amount) AS value FROM sales
        column: value
        prefix: "$"
        col: 4

Install

Install the latest stable DAC release:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bruin-data/dac/main/install.sh | bash

Install the latest edge build from main:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bruin-data/dac/main/install.sh | bash -s -- --channel edge

DAC uses your existing Bruin connections and currently shells out to bruin query for query execution. The install script installs the Bruin CLI first when bruin is not already available on your PATH.

Quickstart

Create a new starter project:

dac init my-dashboards
cd my-dashboards
dac validate --dir .
dac serve --dir . --open

The starter includes a SQL-backed YAML dashboard, a semantic YAML dashboard, and a semantic model under semantic/.

dac init also installs DAC's bundled dashboard authoring skill for Claude and Codex:

ls .claude/skills/create-dashboard/SKILL.md
ls .codex/skills/create-dashboard

For existing projects, run dac skills install --dir ..

If you cloned the repository and have dac installed, you can also run one of the bundled example projects:

dac serve --dir examples/basic-yaml

Examples

The repository includes four self-contained example projects under examples/:

Example What it shows
examples/basic-yaml A standard YAML dashboard with filters, SQL queries, and query files.
examples/basic-tsx A TSX dashboard that uses load-time queries to generate layout from the database.
examples/semantic-yaml A YAML dashboard that reads semantic models from semantic/ and compiles widgets in the backend.
examples/semantic-tsx A TSX dashboard using external semantic models and backend semantic query compilation.

Project Layout

.
├── cmd/         CLI entrypoints
├── pkg/         Dashboard loading, semantic engine, server, query backends
├── frontend/    React frontend embedded into the DAC binary
├── docs/        VitePress documentation source
├── examples/    Runnable example projects for YAML, TSX, and semantic dashboards
├── resources/   README and documentation assets
└── testdata/    Internal fixtures used by tests

Development

make deps
make test
make build
make dev

The main development commands are defined in the Makefile. Use make targets rather than ad-hoc go build or npm run build commands so frontend embedding and build flags stay consistent.

Telemetry

DAC sends anonymous usage events to help us understand which commands are used and where they fail. Each event includes the command name, run duration, OS/architecture, DAC version, and an anonymous install ID stored at ~/.dac/telemetry.json.

We do not collect:

  • SQL queries, query results, or row counts
  • Dashboard or widget contents, names, or file paths
  • Connection names, hosts, credentials, project IDs, or dataset names
  • Any environment variables or shell history

To disable telemetry, set either of these environment variables:

export TELEMETRY_OPTOUT=1
# or the industry-standard:
export DO_NOT_TRACK=1

Builds without a telemetry write key (the default for make build) are silent and send nothing.

Documentation

License

AGPL-3.0-only. See LICENSE.