Propagate metadata through lineage

App

You can use the Metadata Propagator app to push metadata—such as owner groups, certificates, tags, and custom metadata—from upstream assets to their downstream dependents through lineage. This is useful when you want metadata set on a source or staging table to flow automatically to the transformed and reporting assets that depend on it, without having to update each asset individually.

This guide shows how to set up and run a Metadata Propagator workflow to propagate owner groups and certificates downstream through lineage.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, make sure you have:

• Access to the Metadata Propagator app. You can verify this by searching for Metadata Propagator in the Atlan marketplace. If you don't have access, contact Atlan support or your Atlan customer team to request it.
• An Atlan API token with sufficient permissions to read and write asset metadata. Your Atlan admin can generate one from the API tokens section in the Atlan admin panel.
• Lineage already established between your source and target assets. The Metadata Propagator follows existing lineage relationships and doesn't create them.
• A clear understanding of which assets are your source assets and which metadata you want to propagate.

Setup workflow

This guide walks through propagating owner groups and certificates from a set of source tables downstream through lineage. This is a typical pattern for data teams who want governance metadata set on curated, upstream tables to flow down to all derived assets in the same pipeline.

1. In your Atlan workspace, go to the homepage and click New workflow in the top navigation bar.

2. Search for Metadata Propagator, and then select Set up workflow.

3. In the Authentication screen, paste your Atlan API token into the API token field. This token enables the workflow to access dynamic asset and metadata dropdowns in later steps.

4. In the Configurations screen:

   • Under Attributes to propagate, select Owner Groups and Certificate. These are the attributes that get copied from each source asset to its downstream dependents.

   • Under Propagation direction, select Lineage, then:

     • Set Lineage direction to Downstream.
     • Leave Lineage depth empty to propagate through the full depth of the lineage graph.
     • Leave Check direct dependency at its default (Yes) to propagate only to assets with a single upstream dependency, which avoids applying conflicting metadata when multiple sources feed into the same target.

   • Under Propagation mode, select Replace to overwrite any existing owner group or certificate values on the target assets with those from the source.

   • Under Operation type, select Preview. You'll run a preview first to verify the results before committing any changes.

   • Leave Mode set to Full so all matching assets are evaluated.

5. In the Filters screen, narrow down the source asset population:

   • Set Connector to the connector of your source tables (for example, Snowflake).
   • Set Connection to the specific connection that contains your source tables.
   • Optionally, set Certificate to Verified to restrict propagation to assets that have already been certified, ensuring only trusted metadata flows downstream.

   Leave all other filters empty to include all matching assets within the selected connection.

6. Skip the Source Custom Metadata Filters screen unless you need to filter source assets by custom metadata values.

7. In the Impacted Asset Filters screen, leave all filters empty to propagate to all downstream assets reachable through lineage. You can optionally restrict by Asset Type (for example, only Tables or Views) to prevent propagation to report-level assets.

8. Skip the Impacted Custom Metadata Filters screen unless you need to restrict target assets by custom metadata values.

9. Run the workflow in Preview mode. After it completes, download the generated CSV file from the workflow run output and review it to confirm that the expected source assets and downstream targets are listed with the correct attribute values.

10. Once you've confirmed the preview results look correct, return to the workflow configuration, change Operation type to Propagate, and run the workflow again to apply the metadata changes.

11. Open one of the target assets in Atlan to verify that the owner group and certificate have been applied from the source asset.

For a complete list of all configuration options—including custom metadata propagation, hierarchy-based propagation, relationship-based propagation, and name matching—see the Metadata Propagator reference.

Need help?

If you encounter any issues configuring or running the app, contact Atlan support.

See also

• Metadata Propagator: Complete configuration reference for all propagation options, filters, and matching settings.
• What is lineage: Learn how Atlan represents upstream and downstream asset relationships through lineage.
• Tag propagation: Atlan's built-in tag propagation feature and how it compares to using the Metadata Propagator app.