how to enable column level lineage in databricks

prathamesh1982 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 16:38:53 GMT

I have bronze layer data which is directly referred in silver. there are one or two columns from bronze layer which are used to build silver column.

is there any way I can have column-level lineage shown in databricks like table lineage

@DATA @lineage

Re: how to enable column level lineage in databricks

balajij8 — Tue, 18 Aug 2026 17:02:17 GMT

Hi Prathamesh,

Column level lineage is tracked automatically in Databricks if the tables are governed by Unity Catalog. You do not need to configure explicit column tracking or alter the pipeline code, once your bronze-to-silver transformations run on Unity Catalog enabled compute, the lineage graph captures column-level dependencies out of the box.

You can open Catalog Explorer, navigate to the Silver table, and switch to the Lineage tab. Selecting an individual column from the table schema will filter the lineage graph to show the exact upstream Bronze column's feeding into it, the execution context and any downstream Gold layer dependencies consuming that column.

You can first confirm whether the setup meets the prerequisites for lineage capture

Unity Catalog Governance: Both your Bronze and Silver tables must exist in a Unity Catalog as lineage is not captured for tables in the legacy hive_metastore.
Compute Access Mode: Your transformations must run on UC-compliant compute (eg Serverless/Pro SQL Warehouse, a cluster configured with Shared access mode or a Single User cluster with Unity Catalog enabled).
Ingestion: Lineage capture is handled natively across interactive notebooks, automated workflows, SQL queries without manual setup.

You can also use system tables to find it via SQL

-- Find which bronze columns feed into silver columns SELECT source_table_full_name, source_column_name, target_table_full_name, target_column_name, event_time FROM system.access.column_lineage WHERE source_table_full_name = 'workspace.default.table' ORDER BY target_table_full_name, target_column_name, event_time DESC; -- See what columns in silver use a specific bronze column SELECT DISTINCT target_table_full_name, target_column_name FROM system.access.column_lineage WHERE source_table_full_name = 'workspace.default.table' AND source_column_name = 'r_id' -- Change column name ORDER BY target_table_full_name, target_column_name;

topic how to enable column level lineage in databricks in Data Engineering

how to enable column level lineage in databricks

Re: how to enable column level lineage in databricks