Set up GX Cloud

To get the most out of GX Cloud, you'll need to request a GX Cloud Beta account, generate and record access tokens, set environment variables, and then install and start the GX Cloud agent. If you're using Snowflake, see Quickstart for GX Cloud and Snowflake.

Request a GX Cloud Beta account

1. Go to the GX Cloud Beta sign-up page.

2. Complete the sign-up form and then click Submit.

3. If you're invited to view a GX Cloud demonstration, click Schedule a time to connect here in the confirmation email to schedule a time to meet with a Great Expectations (GX) representative. After your meeting you'll be sent an email invitation to join your GX Cloud organization.

4. In your GX Cloud email invitation, click click here to set your password and sign in.

5. Enter your email address and password, and then click Continue to GX Cloud. Alternatively, click Log in with Google and use your Google credentials to access GX Cloud.

Prepare your environment

1. Download and install Python. See Active Python Releases.

2. Download and install pip. See the pip documentation.

3. Download and install Docker. See Get Docker.

Get your user access token and organization ID

You'll need your user access token and organization ID to set your environment variables. Don't commit your access tokens to your version control software.

1. In GX Cloud, click Settings > Tokens.

2. In the Access tokens pane, click Create user access token.

3. Complete the following fields:

   • Token name - Enter a name for the token that will help you quickly identify it.

   • Role - Select Admin. For more information about the available roles, click Information (?) .

4. Click Create.

5. Copy and then paste the user access token into a temporary file. The token can't be retrieved after you close the dialog.

6. Click Close.

7. Copy the value in the Organization ID field into the temporary file with your user access token and then save the file.

   GX recommends deleting the temporary file after you set the environment variables.

Set the environment variables and start the GX Cloud agent

Environment variables securely store your GX Cloud access credentials. The GX Cloud agent runs open source GX code in GX Cloud, and it allows you to securely access your data without connecting to it or interacting with it directly.

Currently, the GX Cloud user interface is configured for Snowflake and this procedure assumes you have a Snowflake Data Source. If you don't have a Snowflake Data Source, you won't be able to connect to Data Assets, create Expectations and Expectation Suites, run Validations, or create Checkpoints.

1. Start the Docker Engine.

2. Run the following code to set the GX_CLOUD_ACCESS_TOKEN, GX_CLOUD_ORGANIZATION_ID, and GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD environment variables, install GX Cloud and its dependencies, and start the GX Cloud agent:

   Terminal input

   docker run --rm -e GX_CLOUD_ACCESS_TOKEN="<user_access_token>" -e GX_CLOUD_ORGANIZATION_ID="<organization_id>" -e GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD="<snowflake_password>" greatexpectations/agent

   Replace user_access_token and organization_id with the values you copied previously, and snowflake_password with your own value.

3. Optional. If you created a temporary file to record your user access token and Organization ID, delete it.

4. Optional. Run docker ps or open Docker Desktop to confirm the agent is running.

   If you stop the GX Cloud agent, close the terminal, and open a new terminal you'll need to set the environment variables again.

   To edit an environment variable, stop the GX Cloud agent, edit the environment variable, save the change, and then restart the GX Cloud agent.

Secure your GX API Data Source connection strings

When you use the GX API and not GX Cloud to connect to Data Sources, you must obfuscate your sensitive Data Source credentials in your connection string. Data Source connection strings are persisted in GX Cloud backend storage. Connection strings containing plaintext credentials are stored as plaintext.

1. Store your credential value as an environment variable by entering export ENV_VAR_NAME=env_var_value in the terminal or adding the command to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file. For example:

   Terminal input

   export GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD=<password-string>

   Prefix environment variable names with GX_CLOUD_.

2. Create a Data Source connection string using the environment variable name instead of the credential value. For example:

   Example Data Source connection string

   snowflake://<user-name>:${GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD}@<account-name>/<database-name>/<schema-name>?warehouse=<warehouse-name>&role=<role-name>

   Environment variable names must be enclosed by curly braces and be preceded by a dollar sign. For example: ${GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD}. Do not use interpolation to add credential values to connection strings.

3. Use the environment variable to supply the credential value when you run the GX Agent. For example:

   Terminal input

   docker run --rm -e GX_CLOUD_SNOWFLAKE_PASSWORD="<snowflake_password>" -e GX_CLOUD_ACCESS_TOKEN="<user_access_token>" -e GX_CLOUD_ORGANIZATION_ID="<organization_id>" greatexpectations/agent

Next steps

• Create a Data Asset