Installation

stevin is a Python 3.11+ CLI, published on PyPI.

Alpha

Every release so far is a pre-release (0.1.0a1, …), which installers skip unless asked — hence the flags below. Try it on a dev catalog before a production one.

uv tooluvxpipxpip

uv tool install --prerelease allow stevin
stevin --version

uvx --prerelease allow stevin plan -t dev

pipx install --pip-args=--pre stevin
stevin --version

pip install --pre stevin

From source

git clone https://github.com/kostavo-oss/stevin
cd stevin
uv sync
uv run stevin --version

Connecting to a workspace

stevin delegates authentication to the Databricks SDK's unified auth, so anything that works for the Databricks CLI works here.

Per target, with profiles — the usual setup, since dev and prod tend to be different workspaces. Log in once per workspace with the Databricks CLI, then name the profile and a SQL warehouse on each target:

databricks auth login --host https://adb-1111.1.azuredatabricks.net --profile dev
databricks auth login --host https://adb-2222.2.azuredatabricks.net --profile prod

targets:
  dev:
    vars: {catalog: dev}
    profile: dev
    warehouse_id: abc123def456
  prod:
    vars: {catalog: prod}
    profile: prod
    warehouse_id: 789ghi012jkl

--profile on any command overrides the target's.

From the environment — what CI does. With no profile set anywhere, the SDK's defaults apply:

export DATABRICKS_HOST="https://adb-1234567890.1.azuredatabricks.net"
export DATABRICKS_TOKEN="dapi..."
export DATABRICKS_WAREHOUSE_ID="abc123def456"

Statements run on a SQL warehouse via the Statement Execution API, so a warehouse id — from the target, --warehouse-id, or DATABRICKS_WAREHOUSE_ID — is required for everything except validate and show.

validate needs nothing

stevin validate is a pure spec lint — no credentials, no network. It is the right thing to run in a pre-commit hook.

Coming from deltaplan

Up to 0.2.0a4 stevin was released as deltaplan. The rename changed what you type; it did not change anything in a workspace.

Before	Now	If you do nothing
uv tool install deltaplan	uv tool uninstall deltaplan, then uv tool install --prerelease allow stevin	—
deltaplan plan	stevin plan	deltaplan still runs: it says its new name on stderr, then does what stevin does
deltaplan.yml	stevin.yml	The old file is still found, and the command line says it can be renamed
uses: misja-pronk/deltaplan@v0	uses: kostavo-oss/stevin@v0	—
import deltaplan, DeltaplanError	import stevin, StevinError	—

With uv tool, uninstall deltaplan first. stevin brings a deltaplan command of its own — the one in the table above — so uv won't install it beside the old package, which has a command of that name too. The install stops with Executable already exists: deltaplan. Take the old one out, then install stevin the way the top of this page says:

uv tool uninstall deltaplan

Nothing is lost by it: the deltaplan command comes with stevin from then on.

What is on your tables stays. A table deltaplan made carries the property deltaplan.managed, a seeded one deltaplan.seed, and a rewrite stages its data in <table>__deltaplan_rewrite. stevin reads and writes those same names, so a table deltaplan managed is a table stevin manages — nothing is claimed again, and the first plan after the upgrade is the plan you would have had before it. The same goes for the history_schema your project names: it is yours, whatever it is called.