Connect to MotherDuck (Beta)

This documentation describes one or more private beta features that are in development. Beta features are subject to quick, iterative changes; therefore the current user experience in the Sigma service can differ from the information provided in this page.

This page should not be considered official published documentation until Sigma removes this notice and the beta flag on the corresponding feature(s) in the Sigma service. For the full beta feature disclaimer, see Beta features.

If you are interested in joining a limited test group and enabling this feature in your Sigma organization, contact Support or reach out to your Account Executive.

Sigma supports secure connections to MotherDuck. This document explains how to connect your Sigma organization to your MotherDuck database, and describes relevant feature limitations.

User requirements

You must be assigned the Admin account type or an account type with the Manage connections feature permission enabled.
You must have a MotherDuck account and database, along with a MotherDuck Read Scaling access token to authenticate.

Limitations

The following limitations apply to MotherDuck connections:

Input tables and write-back functionality are not supported, including CSV uploads, use of input tables, and running Python code.
Materialization and warehouse views are not supported.
Export to cloud storage is not supported.
SSH tunnel connections are not supported.
OAuth authentication is not supported.
Using sample connections is not supported.
User attributes for role and warehouse switching are not supported.
The following functions are not supported:
- Geography

Create a MotherDuck connection

Click the user icon at the top right of your screen. The user icon is usually composed of your initials.
In the drop-down menu, select Add connection. The Add new connection page appears.
In the Connection Details section, specify the following:


Name	Enter a Name for the new connection. Sigma displays this name in the connection list.
Type	Select MotherDuck.

In the Connection credentials section, specify the following:


Host	The address of your MotherDuck Postgres endpoint, for example `pg.us-east-1-aws.motherduck.com`. You can find this value in the MotherDuck UI under Settings > Integrations > Postgres endpoint.
Port	The port through which Sigma should connect to MotherDuck. The default is `5432`.
User	The username configured for your MotherDuck Postgres endpoint connection.
Token	Your MotherDuck Read Scaling access token (read-only). To generate one, in the MotherDuck UI, click your organization name in the top left, select Settings, then select + Create token and choose the Read Scaling token type.
Role	(Optional) To specify a role to be used for this connection, enter a value for Role. If no role is provided, the user’s default role in Snowflake is used. To dynamically set the role based on a user attribute value assigned in Sigma, turn on the Set by user attribute toggle for the Role field. See Dynamically assign roles used by a connection.

In the Connection features section, specify the following:


Connection timeout	The time before timeout (or cancellation), in seconds, that Sigma waits for the query to return results. The default is 120, or 2 minutes. The maximum is 600, or 10 minutes.
Use friendly names	Turn the toggle on or off. Friendly names make column names from the data source more readable. For example, a database column ORDER_NUMBER or OrderNumber appears as Order Number.

Select Create.
Once your connection has been created, select Browse Connection. You can then select Add permission to grant data access for users in your organization. See Data access overview.