RudderStack Docs – CLI-based Data Catalog and Tracking Plan Management

Archive: Manage Data Catalog using Rudder CLI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This section explains how to create and manage events, properties, and custom data types in Data Catalog using Rudder CLI.

Important

Data Catalog management via Rudder CLI is a push-only feature, meaning you can only push changes to your RudderStack workspace. You cannot pull changes from your workspace to your local system.

Overview

RudderStack’s Data Catalog feature lets you centrally define and manage the events, properties, and data structures that power your data collection strategy. It serves as a single source of truth for your organization’s data schema, helping teams maintain consistency across different platforms and applications.

Data Catalog helps you:

Standardize event definitions and properties across all platforms
Create reusable data validation patterns with custom types
Maintain data quality through centralized schema management
Ensure consistency between different teams and applications
Track schema changes through version control

Data Catalog components

The Data Catalog consists of the following components:

Events: Events represent specific user actions or occurrences you want to track in your application. They can be events related to user actions (track), user identification (identify), view tracking (page/screen), or organization/account tracking (group).
Properties: Properties are the attributes associated with events. They provide additional context about the event and can include user properties, event-specific properties, and contextual properties shared across events.
Custom Types: Custom types are reusable validation patterns and data structures that you can use across multiple properties.

You can use these components to configure Tracking Plans that enforce consistent data collection practices.

How it works

Rudder CLI lets you manage the following Data Catalog components through YAML configuration files in your project:

Events that represent user actions or occurrences you want to track
Event Categories that group events into logical categories
Properties that provide additional context and attributes for events
Custom Types for reusable validation patterns and data structures

You can reference custom types across multiple properties, ensuring consistent data validation, standardized formats, and reduced duplication.

You can then use Rudder CLI to:

Add and validate definitions for these components locally
Deploy the Catalog components to your workspace
Manage changes through version control

In this section

See the following guides to start creating and managing your Data Catalog project in Rudder CLI:

Guide	Description
Project Setup	Set up your Data Catalog project in Rudder CLI.
Events	Define and manage your events and event categories via YAML files.
Event Categories	Group events into logical categories.
Properties	Create and manage properties in your Data Catalog via YAML files.
Custom Types	Create reusable validation patterns and reference them in your properties.
YAML Reference	Complete YAML reference for defining and using your Data Catalog resources.

Archive: Manage Tracking Plans using Rudder CLI

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This section explains how to define and manage Tracking Plans in your Data Catalog project using Rudder CLI.

Important

Tracking Plan management via Rudder CLI is a push-only feature, meaning you can only push changes to your RudderStack workspace. You cannot pull changes from your workspace to your local system.

Overview

Tracking Plans help you maintain consistent event tracking across your applications by defining which events to track, what properties to include, and how to validate the data. They serve as a contract between different teams in your organization and allows them to:

Enforce consistent event tracking across all platforms
Ensure required properties are always included
Validate incoming data against expected formats and rules
Track changes through version control
Maintain alignment between the Tracking Plan specification and its implementation

How it works

Rudder CLI lets you manage Tracking Plans through YAML configuration files in your Data Catalog project. Each Tracking Plan defines:

Events to track from your Data Catalog project
Properties associated with each event
References to Custom Types for advanced validation
Validation rules for data quality

You can then use Rudder CLI to:

Validate Tracking Plan definitions
Deploy plans to your workspace
Update existing plans
Manage changes through version control

In this section

See the following guides to learn how to create, update, and deploy Tracking Plans to your workspace using Rudder CLI:

Topic	Description
Create a Tracking Plan	Learn how to define and deploy your first Tracking Plan using Rudder CLI.
Update a Tracking Plan	Update existing Tracking Plans and manage changes.

See the End-to-end Walkthrough for a complete example of creating and managing Tracking Plans from scratch.

Archive: Conditional Validation in CLI-based Tracking Plan Management

Mon, 01 Jan 0001 00:00:00 +0000

This feature is in Alpha as part of RudderStack’s Early Access Program, where we work with early users and customers to test new features and get feedback before making them generally available.

Note that these features are functional but can change as we improve them. Contact the Product team if you have any questions.

RudderStack’s Conditional Validation feature lets you define dynamic validation rules that adapt based on specific conditions or contexts. This powerful capability addresses a common challenge in data collection — maintaining strict data quality standards while accommodating legitimate variations in your event data structure.

Overview

In real-world applications, the structure and requirements of your event data often need to change based on context. For example:

An ecommerce application that needs different product attributes for clothing versus electronics
A global application that needs to handle address formats that vary by country
A multi-tier service that needs to track different user properties based on subscription level

With the conditional validation feature, you can define different sets of property requirements based on a discriminating value. For example:

Different address formats based on the country
Varying product attributes based on the category
Dynamic event properties based on the page type

Without conditional validation, you would need to either:

Enforce all possible properties as optional, risking missing critical data
Create separate events for each variation, leading to event proliferation
Implement complex custom validation logic, increasing maintenance burden and complexity

Conditional validation solves these problems by letting you define context-aware validation rules directly in your Tracking Plan.

See the demo video below for more information:

Key features

Discriminator-based validation: Define different property requirements based on specific field values — RudderStack supports string and boolean discriminator types currently
Flexible matching: Support for exact match, multiple values, and array-based matching
Default cases: Define fallback requirements when no specific case matches
Reusable custom type variants: Create reusable custom types with variants that you can reference across your Tracking Plans

When to use conditional validation

Use conditional validation when you need to:

Handle regional variations: Different requirements based on country, region, or locale
Support multiple categories: Varying attributes for different product types or user categories
Context-specific validation: Different requirements based on user context or application state
Flexible event tracking: Adapt event properties based on where or how the event occurs

Variants

Conditional validation in RudderStack involves using two kinds of variants:

1. Event rule variants

Event rule variants let you define different property requirements for the same event based on a discriminating property. For example, a Page Viewed event might require different properties when viewed on a product page versus a search results page.

See Event Rule Variants for more information.

2. Custom type variants

Custom type variants enable you to create reusable object definitions with varying property requirements. For example, an address object might have different required fields depending on the country.

See Custom Type Variants for more information.

Get started

Choose between event rule variants or custom type variants based on your needs.
Review the Conditional Validation YAML Reference guide for syntax and structure.
Define your variants using the appropriate YAML configuration.
Validate your configuration using the Rudder CLI.
Deploy your changes using standard Git workflows.

RudderStack Docs – CLI-based Data Catalog and Tracking Plan Management

Archive: Manage Data Catalog using Rudder CLI

Overview

Data Catalog components

How it works

In this section

Archive: Manage Tracking Plans using Rudder CLI

Overview

How it works

In this section

Archive: Conditional Validation in CLI-based Tracking Plan Management

Overview

Key features

When to use conditional validation

Variants

1. Event rule variants

2. Custom type variants

Get started

See also