Set up a local analytics project

Keep the course work isolated

Analytics engineers make changes in a development environment before touching shared data. For this course, your development environment is a local Git repository with a local DuckDB database. Nothing needs access to a production warehouse.

Bruin is the implementation tool in the exercises. The same project boundary exists in other tools: code and configuration live in version control, while credentials and environment-specific values stay outside model files.

Install and initialize Git

For this course, you only need Git installed and initialized inside the project folder. You do not need a GitHub account, a remote repository, a branch, or a commit to get started.

Install Git if git --version does not print a version. After you create analytics-engineering-course/ and move into it, run git init. That is all the Git setup required at this point. The later Git lesson explains commits, pull requests, and publishing the finished project to GitHub.

Ask your coding agent about Git

Install and verify the CLI

Install Bruin on macOS, Linux, or Windows through Git Bash or WSL:

curl -LsSf https://getbruin.com/install/cli | sh

Then verify both tools used in the course:

bruin version
git --version

Both commands should print a version. If bruin is not found, add ~/.local/bin to your PATH and open a new terminal.

Create the project

Run these commands from the directory where you keep development projects:

mkdir analytics-engineering-course
cd analytics-engineering-course
git init
bruin init empty commerce

git init turns the new folder into a repository. bruin init empty commerce then creates the pipeline inside that repository, so Git can track the Bruin files alongside the rest of the project.

The empty template includes a commerce/assets/placeholder file. Inspect it, then remove only that generated file before continuing:

rm commerce/assets/placeholder

Keep local files out of Git

The empty template creates the pipeline folder, but it does not create .gitignore or .bruin.yml. Create .gitignore before you add the local connection:

.bruin.yml
*.duckdb
*.duckdb.wal
logs/

Bruin writes local run and query logs to logs/. Ignore those files and the local DuckDB database with the connection settings from the start.

After the next configuration step, your project should look like this:

analytics-engineering-course/
├─ .bruin.yml
├─ .gitignore
└─ commerce/
   ├─ assets/
   └─ pipeline.yml

The repository is the project. commerce/ is one pipeline inside it. Bruin calls each dataset or task an asset, and stores them in commerce/assets/.

Configure the local connection

Create .bruin.yml in the repository root and add this DuckDB connection:

environments:
  default:
    connections:
      duckdb:
        - name: "duckdb-default"
          path: "./commerce/commerce.duckdb"

This course connection has no password, but real projects often keep credentials in .bruin.yml. The .gitignore rule keeps that boundary intact.

Update commerce/pipeline.yml:

name: commerce
schedule: daily
start_date: "2026-01-01"
default_connections:
  duckdb: duckdb-default

The schedule will matter when the reporting table starts updating only selected dates. The default connection keeps individual DuckDB assets from repeating the same connection name.

Validate the local project

Run this command from the repository root, beside .bruin.yml:

bruin validate commerce/pipeline.yml

The bruin connections test command is not supported for this DuckDB connection type. Validation confirms that Bruin can read the project and its connection settings. A later pipeline run will confirm that DuckDB can create and query the local database file.

Ask your coding agent

The agent can perform the same setup while you review each change:

Checkpoint

Before continuing, confirm:

• bruin version succeeds.
• You ran git init inside analytics-engineering-course/.
• bruin validate commerce/pipeline.yml succeeds.
• commerce/pipeline.yml validates as YAML in your editor.

environments:
  default:
    connections:
      duckdb:
        - name: "duckdb-default"
          path: "./commerce/commerce.duckdb"