Build your first connector
Connect Databasin to a data source in about ten minutes.
Everything in Databasin starts with a connector — a configured connection to a database, API, cloud bucket, or file share. Before you can pipeline it, query it, or ask Databasin One about it, you need a connector pointing at it.
This guide walks you through creating your first one.
Before you start
You'll need:
- A project (create one from the home screen if you don't have it yet).
- Credentials for the source you're connecting to: a hostname and user, or an API key, or storage keys — whatever that source uses.
- Two minutes of undivided attention from whoever holds those credentials.
If you're just kicking the tires, connect to something small and non-critical — a dev Postgres, a test sandbox, a sample CSV in a bucket. You can always add the production source later.
Step 1 — Open the connector gallery
Connectors live inside the Integrations hub. From a project, open Integrations, switch to the Connectors tab, and click Create. The connector gallery opens.
(If you remember Connectors as its own sidebar section — it moved. Everything connector-related is now under Integrations. See The Integrations hub.)
Step 2 — Pick the right connector
The gallery is one searchable grid. Type in the search box to filter it, or narrow by the category dropdown. There are 11 categories, led by the flagship Databasin Native tier:
Databasin Native · RDBMS · Big Data & NoSQL · File & API · Marketing · CRM & ERP · E-Commerce · Accounting · Collaboration · AI & LLM · Generic API
A few cues on the cards:
- A small ✨ badge marks Databasin Native connectors that ship a ready-made semantic layer — so Databasin One can answer questions about that data right away, with no modeling.
- A Coming Soon badge marks connectors that aren't active yet.
For the difference between the native and broader tiers, see How connectors work. For the full, live list, see the connector catalog.
Step 3 — Fill out the form
Connector forms are dynamic — they change to fit the source — but the shape is consistent:
- Name — how you'll recognize this connector in lists. Be specific: "Prod Postgres — finance" beats "DB 1".
- Auth & configuration — whatever that source needs: an API key, an OAuth sign-in, a host and credentials, storage keys. Native connectors include a guided setup that tells you exactly where to find each value.
- Test Connection — where the connector supports it, run this before saving. It tells you what's wrong if the connection fails.
Once you save a connector, the credentials are encrypted and no one — including you — can read them back in plaintext. You can rotate them at any time, but you can't "peek."
The lakehouse query engines — Trino, Doris, Spark, and DuckDB — and their staging storage show up as system-managed connectors. Databasin provisions these for you, so there's no form to fill out. They're how your synced data becomes queryable.
Step 4 — Use it
Once saved, the connector is immediately available to:
- Pipelines, as a source or destination.
- Databasin One, via the data-context picker.
- Lakehouse, as a catalog you can query.
- Automations, as a step in a workflow.
If the test fails
Most first-connector failures come down to one of these:
- Firewall / allowlist — Databasin's outbound IP isn't permitted on your source.
- Auth — wrong username, wrong method (Basic vs. token), or the user isn't granted on that database.
- Permissions — the user authenticates but lacks
SELECTon the schema, so no tables appear. - Network — the source is reachable but slow, or behind a VPN route Databasin can't reach.
If none of those fix it, open the Help tab in the right sidebar — there's a support link, and we read those.