## Lineage overview

URL: https://docs.atlan.com/product/capabilities/build-apps/sdks/python/how-tos/lineage

> Understand lineage in Atlan's Python SDK — lineage is modeled as Process entities with inputs and outputs, enabling programmatic creation and traversal of data pipeline dependencies.

# Lineage overview

Lineage in Atlan is defined by `Process` entities. These link [assets](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/build-your-first-metadata-workflow/llms.txt) together by `inputs` and `outputs`, and there can be any number of each of these:

```mermaid
graph LR
	s1[(Source 1)]
	s2[(Source 2)]
	s3[(Source 3)]
	t1[(Target 1)]
	t2[(Target 2)]
	p([Process])
	s1 & s2 & s3-->|inputs|p-->|outputs|t1 & t2
```

Through Atlan's APIs, you can [create your own lineage](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/manage-lineage/llms.txt) as well as [traverse lineage](https://docs.atlan.com/llms/platform/python/traverse-lineage/llms.txt) programmatically.

_Last updated: 15 May 2026._

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