context verify

The verify command compares your context files against a live database to detect drift — columns that were added, removed, or changed since the last introspection.

Usage

context verify --db <connection-url>

Options

Option	Description	Default
--source <name>	Use a specific data_source from config	First configured source
--db <url>	Database URL override (postgres:// or path.duckdb)	—
--context-dir <path>	Path to context files	./context
--format <type>	Output format: pretty, json	pretty

Examples

Verify all sources

context verify --db postgres://localhost:5432/myapp

Verify a specific source

context verify --db postgres://localhost:5432/myapp --source analytics

JSON output for scripting

context verify --db postgres://localhost:5432/myapp --format json

Example output

Verifying against postgres://localhost:5432/myapp...

context/public/users.context.yaml
  ✓ All columns match

context/public/orders.context.yaml
  ✗ Column "discount_code" exists in DB but missing from context
  ✗ Column "legacy_status" in context but not found in DB
  ✗ Column "total" type mismatch: context says "integer", DB says "numeric(10,2)"

context/public/sessions.context.yaml
  ✗ Table "sessions" not found in database

Summary: 1 passed, 2 drifted, 1 missing

What it checks

The verify command connects to your database, introspects tables, columns, sample values, golden queries, and guardrail filters, then runs all data/* lint rules against the results. This catches issues like missing tables, missing columns, type mismatches, stale sample values, and failing golden queries.

CI integration

# Fail the build if context has drifted
context verify --db "$DATABASE_URL" --format json | jq -e '.drifted == 0'

Fixing drift

When drift is detected, you have two options:

# Re-introspect to pick up DB changes (overwrites manual edits)
context introspect --db postgres://localhost/myapp --tables "orders"

# Or manually update the context file to match
# Then verify again
context verify --db postgres://localhost/myapp

Next steps

• Re-introspect drifted tables with context introspect
• Re-enrich after updating with context enrich