topic Re: Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted in Data Engineering

Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted

dikla — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:45:00 GMT

Hi,
I’m experimenting with the new API to create a Genie Space.
I’m able to successfully create the space, but the join definitions are not created, even though I’m passing a join_specs object in the same format returned by GET /spaces/{id} for an existing space.

Here is the full payload I’m sending (simplified for clarity):

# Tables and Join Keys CUSTOMER_TABLE = "mycatalog.customer.data" ORDERS_TABLE = "mycatalog.shipbob.orders" JOIN_KEY = "CUSTOMER_ID" CUSTOMER_ALIAS = "data" ORDERS_ALIAS = "orders" MINIMAL_GENIE_CONFIG = { "version": 1, "data_sources": { "tables": [ { "identifier": CUSTOMER_TABLE, "column_configs": [ {"column_name": "CUSTOMER_ID", "get_example_values": True}, {"column_name": "FIRST_NAME", "get_example_values": True, "build_value_dictionary": True}, {"column_name": "LOYALTY_STATUS", "get_example_values": True, "build_value_dictionary": True}, ] }, { "identifier": ORDERS_TABLE, "column_configs": [ {"column_name": "CUSTOMER_ID", "get_example_values": True}, {"column_name": "ORDER_DATE", "get_example_values": True}, {"column_name": "ORDER_ID", "get_example_values": True}, ] } ], "join_specs": [ { "id": uuid.uuid4().hex[:32], "left": {"identifier": ORDERS_TABLE, "alias": ORDERS_ALIAS}, "right": {"identifier": CUSTOMER_TABLE, "alias": CUSTOMER_ALIAS}, "sql": [ f"`{ORDERS_ALIAS}`.`{JOIN_KEY}` = `{CUSTOMER_ALIAS}`.`{JOIN_KEY}`", "--rt=FROM_RELATIONSHIP_TYPE_MANY_TO_ONE--" ] } ], "sql_snippets": { "measures": [ { "id": uuid.uuid4().hex[:32], "sql": [f"COUNT(DISTINCT {ORDERS_ALIAS}.ORDER_ID)\n"], "display_name": "ORDERS.TOTAL_ORDER_COUNT", "instruction": ["Calculates the total count of unique orders.\n"] } ] } }, "instructions": { "prompt": [ f"You are a test assistant. You can join {ORDERS_TABLE} and {CUSTOMER_TABLE} on {JOIN_KEY}.\n" ], "example_question_sqls": [] }, "title": NEW_SPACE_TITLE, "description": "Minimal configuration using confirmed working tables and join structure." } serialized_space_str = json.dumps(MINIMAL_GENIE_CONFIG) payload = { "warehouse_id": warehouse_id, "serialized_space": serialized_space_str, "title": genie_space_config["title"], "description": genie_space_config["description"], }

The space is created, but the join defined in join_specs doesn’t appear in the resulting space.
Only the tables are created.

Question:
Is there any documentation describing the expected structure or constraints for creating:

join_specs
common SQL expressions
measures
directly through the API?

I’ve only found the high-level schema in GET /spaces/{id}, but not how to correctly POST join definitions so they persist.

Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted

Raman_Unifeye — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 16:26:57 GMT

@dikla - The Databricks Genie API currently only documents the high‑level schema for spaces (via GET /spaces/{id}), but the join_specs, sql_snippets, and measures objects are not fully supported for persistence when passed directly in POST /spaces. That’s why your join_specs disappear — the API ignores them unless they conform to the internal schema used by Genie’s space builder.

Current Limitiations:

Joins: Must be inferred by Genie or added manually in the UI; API does not persist them.
Measures / SQL snippets: Same limitation — they can be read via GET /spaces/{id} but not reliably written via POST.

Re: Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted

dikla — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:06:05 GMT

@Raman_Unifeye

@Raman_Unifeye Thanks for the detailed explanation — that really helps clarify why my join specs weren’t being persisted.

Do you know if support for persisting join_specs, sql_snippets, and measures via the API is planned for an upcoming release?

Re: Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted

Raman_Unifeye — Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:51:24 GMT

No committed timeline has been published or I came across at least

Re: Issues Creating Genie Space via API Join Specs Are Not Persisted

mtaran — Tue, 06 Jan 2026 18:51:28 GMT

The serialized space JSON is incorrect. It has `join_specs` and `sql_snippets` nested under `data_sources`, but they should be nested under `instructions` instead. There they apply as expected.