materialize-docs

Materialize Documentation

This skill provides comprehensive documentation for Materialize, a streaming database for real-time analytics.

How to Use This Skill

When a user asks about Materialize:

1. For SQL syntax/commands: Read files in the sql/ directory
2. For core concepts: Read files in the concepts/ directory
3. For data ingestion: Read files in the ingest-data/ directory
4. For transformations: Read files in the transform-data/ directory

Documentation Sections

Administrations

• Usage (Self-Managed): administration/usage/index.md
• Usage & billing (Cloud): administration/billing/index.md

Architecture Patterns

Patterns for building with Materialize.

• Live Context Graph: architecture-patterns/live-context-graph/index.md
• Use an ontology table: architecture-patterns/ontology/index.md

Concepts

Learn about the core concepts in Materialize.

• Namespaces: concepts/namespaces/index.md
• Clusters: concepts/clusters/index.md
• Hydration: concepts/hydration/index.md
• Indexes: concepts/indexes/index.md
• Reaction Time, Freshness, and Query Latency: concepts/reaction-time/index.md
• Sinks: concepts/sinks/index.md
• Snapshotting: concepts/snapshotting/index.md
• Sources: concepts/sources/index.md
• Views: concepts/views/index.md

Ingest data

Best practices for ingesting data into Materialize from external systems.

• Amazon EventBridge: ingest-data/webhooks/amazon-eventbridge/index.md
• AWS PrivateLink connections (Cloud-only): ingest-data/network-security/privatelink/index.md
• Change a webhook source's included headers: ingest-data/webhooks/change-included-headers/index.md
• CockroachDB CDC using Kafka and Changefeeds: ingest-data/cdc-cockroachdb/index.md
• Debezium: ingest-data/debezium/index.md
• Fivetran: ingest-data/fivetran/index.md
• HubSpot: ingest-data/webhooks/hubspot/index.md
• Kafka: ingest-data/kafka/index.md
• MongoDB: ingest-data/mongodb/index.md
• Monitoring data ingestion: ingest-data/monitoring-data-ingestion/index.md
• (and 14 more files in this section)

Manage Materialize

• Appendix: Alternative cluster architectures: manage/appendix-alternative-cluster-architectures/index.md
• Disaster recovery (Cloud): manage/disaster-recovery/index.md
• Monitoring and alerting: manage/monitor/index.md
• Operational guidelines: manage/operational-guidelines/index.md
• Use dbt to manage Materialize: manage/dbt/index.md
• Use mz-deploy to manage Materialize: manage/mz-deploy/index.md
• Use Terraform to manage Materialize: manage/terraform/index.md

Materialize console

Introduction to the Materialize Console, user interface for Materialize

• Admin (Cloud-only): console/admin/index.md
• Clusters: console/clusters/index.md
• Connect (Cloud-only): console/connect/index.md
• Create new: console/create-new/index.md
• Database object explorer: console/data/index.md
• Integrations: console/integrations/index.md
• Monitoring: console/monitoring/index.md
• SQL Shell: console/sql-shell/index.md
• User profile: console/user-profile/index.md

Overview

Learn how to efficiently transform data using Materialize SQL.

• Dataflow troubleshooting: transform-data/dataflow-troubleshooting/index.md
• Dictionary compression: transform-data/dictionary-compression/index.md
• FAQ: Indexes: transform-data/faq/index.md
• Freshness troubleshooting: transform-data/freshness-troubleshooting/index.md
• How to monitor freshness in Materialize: transform-data/monitor-freshness/index.md
• Idiomatic Materialize SQL: transform-data/idiomatic-materialize-sql/index.md
• Optimization: transform-data/optimization/index.md
• Patterns: transform-data/patterns/index.md
• Troubleshooting: transform-data/troubleshooting/index.md
• Updating materialized views: transform-data/updating-materialized-views/index.md

References

• Explain plan operators: reference/explain-plan-operators/index.md
• Ingestion performance: reference/performance/index.md
• Isolation levels: reference/isolation-level/index.md
• M.1 to cc size mapping: reference/m1-cc-mapping/index.md
• System catalog: reference/system-catalog/index.md
• System clusters: reference/system-clusters/index.md

Security

• Appendix: security/appendix/index.md
• Cloud: security/cloud/index.md
• Self-managed: security/self-managed/index.md

Self-Managed Deployments

Learn about the key components and architecture of self-managed Materialize deployments.

• Appendix: self-managed-deployments/appendix/index.md
• Configuring System Parameters: self-managed-deployments/configuration-system-parameters/index.md
• Deployment guidelines: self-managed-deployments/deployment-guidelines/index.md
• FAQ: self-managed-deployments/faq/index.md
• Installation: self-managed-deployments/installation/index.md
• Materialize CRD Field Descriptions: self-managed-deployments/materialize-crd-field-descriptions/index.md
• Materialize Operator Configuration: self-managed-deployments/operator-configuration/index.md
• Self-managed release versions: self-managed-deployments/release-versions/index.md
• Troubleshooting: self-managed-deployments/troubleshooting/index.md
• Upgrading: self-managed-deployments/upgrading/index.md

Serve results

Serving results from Materialize

• SELECT and SUBSCRIBE: serve-results/query-results/index.md
• Sink results: serve-results/sink/index.md
• Use BI/data collaboration tools: serve-results/bi-tools/index.md
• Use foreign data wrapper (FDW): serve-results/fdw/index.md

SQL commands

SQL commands reference.

• Namespaces: sql/namespaces/index.md
• ALTER CLUSTER: sql/alter-cluster/index.md
• ALTER CLUSTER REPLICA: sql/alter-cluster-replica/index.md
• ALTER CONNECTION: sql/alter-connection/index.md
• ALTER DATABASE: sql/alter-database/index.md
• ALTER DEFAULT PRIVILEGES: sql/alter-default-privileges/index.md
• ALTER INDEX: sql/alter-index/index.md
• ALTER MATERIALIZED VIEW: sql/alter-materialized-view/index.md
• ALTER NETWORK POLICY (Cloud): sql/alter-network-policy/index.md
• ALTER ROLE: sql/alter-role/index.md
• (and 109 more files in this section)

Tools and integrations

Get details about third-party tools and integrations supported by Materialize

• ADBC (Arrow Database Connectivity): integrations/adbc/index.md
• Agent Skills: integrations/coding-agent-skills/index.md
• Client libraries: integrations/client-libraries/index.md
• Connect to Materialize via HTTP: integrations/http-api/index.md
• Connect to Materialize via WebSocket: integrations/websocket-api/index.md
• Connection Pooling: integrations/connection-pooling/index.md
• **Foreign data wrapper (FDW) **: integrations/fdw/index.md
• MCP Servers and agent skills: integrations/mcp-server/index.md
• mz - Materialize CLI: integrations/cli/index.md
• mz-debug: integrations/mz-debug/index.md
• (and 1 more files in this section)

Quick Reference

Common SQL Commands

Command	Description
CREATE SOURCE	Connect to external data sources (Kafka, PostgreSQL, MySQL)
CREATE MATERIALIZED VIEW	Create incrementally maintained views
CREATE INDEX	Create indexes on views for faster queries
CREATE SINK	Export data to external systems
SELECT	Query data from sources, views, and tables

Key Concepts

• Sources: Connections to external data systems that stream data into Materialize
• Materialized Views: Views that are incrementally maintained as source data changes
• Indexes: Arrangements of data in memory for fast point lookups
• Clusters: Isolated compute resources for running dataflows
• Sinks: Connections that export data from Materialize to external systems