Deploy to Snowflake Private Preview

Once your simulations show the model is ready, certify and deploy it to Snowflake Cortex Analyst. CES compiles your YAML semantic model into a Snowflake Semantic View and creates it directly in your account using your Atlan service role.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure:

• You've built a context repository and the initial semantic model is generated. See Build your context repository.
• You've refined the model and it answers your target questions accurately. See Refine with Chat & build.
• Your simulations pass consistently with no regressions. See Run simulations.
• The required Snowflake grants are in place. See Grant Snowflake permissions.

Certify your context repository

Certifying a context repository marks it as ready for production. It creates a versioned snapshot of the semantic model at that point in time, so the deployed version is always traceable to a specific certified state. To make changes after certifying, you create a new draft from the certified model, update it, and certify again.

1. From your context repository, click Certify.

2. Add a certification note describing what the repository covers and any known limitations.

3. Click Confirm. The repository moves from Draft to Active.

Deploy your context repository

Deploying pushes the certified semantic model to your Snowflake account as a Semantic View. Once deployed, it's available to end users through Cortex Analyst.

1. From your certified context repository, click Deploy.

2. Confirm the target database and schema. These default to the values configured on the Configure page. Change them here if you want to deploy to a different environment, for example, a staging schema before promoting to production.

3. Enter a name for the semantic view, or accept the default derived from your repository name.

4. Click Deploy. CES calls Snowflake's native SYSTEM$CREATE_SEMANTIC_VIEW_FROM_YAML function, which validates the YAML and creates or replaces the semantic view atomically. Re-deploys are idempotent.

After deployment, the semantic view is available at <target_database>.<target_schema>.<semantic_view_name>.

Grant access and verify

After the semantic view is deployed, grant end users access and confirm the view is visible in Snowflake.

1. Grant your business users access to query the semantic view through Cortex Analyst. Replace <consumer_role> with the Snowflake role assigned to your users.

   -- Grant access to a specific semantic view
   GRANT REFERENCES, SELECT ON SEMANTIC VIEW <target_database>.<target_schema>.<semantic_view_name>
     TO ROLE <consumer_role>;
   
   -- Grant access to all future semantic views in the schema
   GRANT SELECT ON FUTURE SEMANTIC VIEWS IN SCHEMA <target_database>.<target_schema>
     TO ROLE <consumer_role>;
   GRANT REFERENCES ON FUTURE SEMANTIC VIEWS IN SCHEMA <target_database>.<target_schema>
     TO ROLE <consumer_role>;

2. Verify the semantic view is available in your target schema.

   SHOW SEMANTIC VIEWS IN SCHEMA <target_database>.<target_schema>;

   You can also navigate to the deployed semantic view in the Atlan catalog. CES crawls it automatically after deployment and links it back to the context repository.

Monitor with Observe tab

The Observe tab surfaces live production query traces so you can act on real user failures without leaving CES.

1. Open the Observe tab in your context repository. Each trace shows the question a user asked, the SQL Cortex Analyst generated, the result, and any feedback the user left.

2. For a failing trace, click Suggest fixes to get AI-proposed YAML changes. Review the suggestion, then click Apply and retest to validate it with your question set.

3. For a passing trace, click Promote to add it to your question set as a verified question/query pair. This seeds the next simulation with real production examples.

4. If a production query surfaces a business term that isn't in your model, click Extract term to add it to your Atlan glossary and map it back to the relevant column.

Failures you fix and promote become part of the question set, which drives the next certification cycle.

Update deployed context repositories

After a repository is live, use this process to make changes without disrupting end users. The existing semantic view stays active until the new version is certified and deployed.

To update a deployed context repository, for example to add a new metric or fix a definition, you create a new draft from the certified model, make your changes, and deploy again. The existing semantic view is replaced atomically, so end users experience no downtime and existing grants are preserved.

1. From your context repository, click Edit. CES creates a new draft from the current certified model.
2. Make your changes in the YAML editor or via Chat & build.
3. Re-run your question set through Run simulations to confirm nothing has regressed.
4. Certify the updated model and click Deploy. CES replaces the existing semantic view in place. All previous certification versions are retained in the repository history.

Next steps

• Start a new context repository for an adjacent domain. Connect shared business terms consistently via the Atlan glossary to avoid conflicting definitions across repositories.