Syncing & Scheduling

API connectors (SaaS tools, databases, MCP servers) need to sync their data into Dinobase. File connectors (parquet, CSV) skip syncing entirely — DuckDB reads them at query time.

One-time sync

# Sync all connectors
dinobase sync

# Sync one connector
dinobase sync stripe

Output shows progress per connector:

  stripe: synced 4 tables (12,450 rows)
  hubspot: synced 3 tables (8,320 rows)

Done. 7 tables, 20,770 rows total.

Scheduled sync (daemon mode)

Run Dinobase as a daemon that syncs on configured intervals:

# Default: check every minute, sync connectors every 1 hour
dinobase sync --schedule

# Custom interval
dinobase sync --schedule --interval 30m

# Higher concurrency
dinobase sync --schedule --max-workers 20

The scheduler:

• Checks which connectors are due for a sync every 60 seconds
• Syncs due connectors concurrently (up to --max-workers at a time)
• Respects per-connector intervals set during dinobase add
• Catches errors per-connector without crashing
• Logs everything to stderr

Per-connector intervals

Each connector can have its own sync interval:

dinobase add stripe --api-key ... --sync-interval 15m
dinobase add hubspot --api-key ... --sync-interval 1h
dinobase add postgres --connection-string ... --sync-interval 6h

The scheduler uses these intervals, falling back to the global --interval default.

Supported formats: 30s, 5m, 1h, 6h, 1d.

Background sync with MCP server

Run sync alongside the MCP server:

dinobase serve --sync --sync-interval 30m

This starts the MCP server and a background sync thread. Agents always query fresh data.

Concurrent syncing

Connectors sync in parallel using a thread pool. Each connector gets its own dlt pipeline and database connection to avoid conflicts.

# Up to 20 connectors syncing at once
dinobase sync --max-workers 20

Default is 10 concurrent workers. Increase for many connectors; decrease if you hit API rate limits.

What happens during sync

1. dlt pipeline runs — fetches data from the upstream API, handles pagination and rate limiting
2. Data writes to parquet — stored in ~/.dinobase/ as parquet files
3. Metadata extraction — column descriptions fetched from the upstream API (Stripe OpenAPI, HubSpot Properties API, Postgres catalog)
4. Annotations stored — metadata saved to _dinobase.columns table
5. Sync logged — start time, end time, status, table/row counts recorded in _dinobase.sync_log

Monitoring syncs

# See last sync times and row counts
dinobase status --pretty

Sync history is stored in the _dinobase.sync_log table. You can query it directly:

dinobase query "
  SELECT source_name, status, tables_synced, rows_synced,
         started_at, finished_at, error_message
  FROM _dinobase.sync_log
  ORDER BY started_at DESC
  LIMIT 10
" --pretty

Freshness thresholds

Each connector has a freshness threshold — the maximum age before data is considered stale. The list_connectors MCP tool and dinobase status show freshness for each connector.

Defaults:

Connector category	Default threshold
SaaS APIs (Stripe, HubSpot, etc.)	1h
Databases (Postgres, MySQL, etc.)	6h
File connectors (parquet, CSV)	never stale

Override per connector:

dinobase add stripe --api-key ... --freshness 30m

Or edit config.yaml directly:

sources:
  stripe:
    type: stripe
    credentials: { api_key: sk_... }
    freshness_threshold: 30m

(The config key remains sources: for backwards compatibility.)

Refreshing stale connectors

Use dinobase refresh to re-sync stale connectors:

dinobase refresh stripe          # refresh one connector
dinobase refresh --stale         # refresh all stale connectors
dinobase refresh --stale --pretty

The refresh MCP tool lets agents trigger re-syncs:

Agent: refresh("stripe")
→ Re-syncs stripe, returns new freshness info + row counts

Live fetch for single records

When data is stale and the agent queries a single record by primary key, Dinobase automatically calls the upstream API instead of returning stale parquet data. This is fully transparent — the agent just writes SQL.

-- If intercom data is stale, this triggers GET /contacts/12345 on the Intercom API
SELECT * FROM intercom.contacts WHERE id = '12345'

The response includes "_freshness": "live" so the agent knows it got real-time data:

{
  "columns": ["id", "name", "email"],
  "rows": [{"id": "12345", "name": "Alice", "email": "alice@acme.com"}],
  "_freshness": "live",
  "_source": "intercom API"
}

When live fetch triggers:

• Connector data is stale (exceeds freshness threshold)
• Query is a simple SELECT ... FROM schema.table WHERE id = 'value'
• The connector has a YAML config in sources/configs/

When it does NOT trigger:

• Data is fresh (normal parquet query)
• Query has JOINs, multiple conditions, or aggregations
• Connector has no YAML config (e.g., custom dlt sources)
• API call fails (graceful fallback to parquet)

This covers 55 connectors with YAML configs including Intercom, Chargebee, Linear, Amplitude, and more.

File connectors skip sync

File connectors (parquet, CSV) create DuckDB views that read files at query time. They never appear in dinobase sync output:

dinobase add parquet --path ./data/ --name analytics  # instant, no sync
dinobase sync  # skips analytics, only syncs API connectors