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Impact Radius

Impact Radius helps you analyze changes and identify downstream impacts at the column level.

While dbt provides a similar capability using the state selector with state:modified+ to identify modified nodes and their downstream dependencies, Recce goes further. By analyzing SQL code directly, Recce enables fine-grained impact radius analysis. It reveals how changes to specific columns can ripple through your data pipeline, helping you prioritize which models—and even which columns—deserve closer attention.

Breaking Change Analysis (disabled)

Breaking Change Analysis

Usage

Show impact radius

  1. Click the Impact Radius button in the upper-left corner.

    Impact Radius button highlighted

  2. The impact radius will be displayed.

    Impact radius displayed on screen

  3. To exit impact radius view, click the close button in the upper-left corner.

    Close button for exiting impact radius view

Show impact radius for a single changed model

  1. Hover over a changed model, then click the target icon or right-click the model and click the Show Impact Radius

    Target icon for showing impact radius of a single model

  2. The impact radius for this model will be displayed.

    Impact radius for a single model displayed on screen

  3. To exit impact radius view, click the close button in the upper-left corner.

    Close button for exiting single model impact radius view

How it works

Two core features power the impact radius analysis:

Breaking Change Analysis classifies modified models into three categories:

  • Breaking changes: Impact all downstream models
  • Non-breaking changes: Do not impact any downstream models
  • Partial breaking changes: Impact only downstream models or columns that depend on the modified columns

Column-level lineage analyzes your model's SQL to identify column-level dependencies:

  • Which upstream columns are used as filters or grouping keys. If those upstream columns change, the current model is impacted.
  • Which upstream columns a specific column references. If those upstream columns change, the specific column is impacted.

Putting It Together

With the insights from the two features above, Recce determines the impact radius:

  1. If a model has a breaking change, include all downstream models in the impact radius.
  2. If a model has a non-breaking change, include only the downstream columns and models of newly added columns.
  3. If a model has a partial breaking change, include the downstream columns and models of added, removed, or modified columns.