Connect to MotherDuck (Beta) | Sigma Documentation

This documentation describes one or more public 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.

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

Writeback functionality is not supported, including input tables, CSV uploads, 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.
Geography functions are not supported.

Create a MotherDuck connection

Click the user icon at the top right of your screen, then select Add connection.
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`.
Port	The port Sigma uses to 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).
Role	(Optional) To use a specific role for this connection, enter it in Role. If you leave this blank, Sigma uses the default role for your MotherDuck user. 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 number of seconds Sigma waits for a query to return results before canceling it. The default is 120 (2 minutes) and the maximum is 600 (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.
After you create the connection, select Browse Connection, then select Add permission to grant users in your organization access to data. See Data access overview.