Rill Workshop Instructions
📊 Slide Deck: View the workshop presentation

Creating your git commits project
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Install Rill:
curl https://rill.sh | sh
Start Rill:
rill start rill-git-analytics
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Rill opens in your browser. Click on Start with an empty project
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Enable AI Features in Rill Developer (Beta)
Add the following to rill.yaml:
features:
developerChat: true
generateCanvas: true
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Add -> Data (Top left) → Select Google Cloud Storage → Skip credentials part (It's a public source)
Location:
gs://rilldata-public/db_repos/commits.json.gz
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Wait for data to load (might take 1-2 mins depending on network speed)
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Generate dashboard using AI
Get familiar with core concepts
Check and review project files one by one:
- Project Metadata (rill.yaml) - project level metadata
- Sources (sources/commits.yaml) - source definition for reading data from GCS to DuckDB
- Metrics View (metrics/commits_metrics.yaml) - Dimensions, measures, security policies
- Explore (dashboards/commits_metrics_explore.yaml) - Exploratory dashboard for commits
- Canvas (dashboards/commits_metrics_canvas.yaml) - Report style canvas dashboard
Quick Edits using AI as copilot
Use prompt below -
Add a new dimension `commit_uri` that points to commits on GitHub
Add a new measure for the number of committers as count distinct authors
- Notice the tool calls being made
- Explore these new dimensions and measures
- Find 1 insight and share it
- Popular projects, Top contributors
- Compare activity across projects over time
Editing code outside of Rill
- Open project in your fav IDE/CLI
- Add a new file models/file_changes.sql
- Copy contents from file_changes.sql
- Create a new Metrics View in the same way
- file_changes_metrics.yaml
- Que: What is the lag between adding the file and it reflecting in Rill
- BI-as-Code allows any AI-enabled IDE for making changes
Deploy your project to Rill cloud
- Click on Deploy button top right
- Need signup if have not previously used Rill
Try conversational BI in rill cloud
- Who are top 10 committers for clickhouse repository in last 3 months
- Which commit deleted the most amount of lines?
- Can you spot this commit as anomaly on dashboards?
- Which repository has the highest number of commits in last 1 year?
- Show me number of commits over time
Further tune AI behavior by adding more business context
- Add business rules additional ai_instructions at project or metrics view level
- e.g. My financial year starts on April 1
- Refer to AI Configuration documentation
Fun things to try:
- Add ai instruction for AI to respond in hindi or any other language of your choice. (Multi-lingual support)
- Ask AI to add respond more funnily
- Ask AI to praise you in every response
- Add thanking notes
- Share the most fun/unexpected response you got :)
Your own git commits data
Connect using MCP server
Advanced Security policies
Embedding Rill in your applications
- Check out public Rill Demo Projects
- Example projects on GitHub
- Like & Star the Rill project on GitHub if you found it useful
- For any questions reach on Discord or report issues
- If you are building something similar, let's connect, collaborate and share ideas