Add resources to a Databricks app

Your Databricks apps can integrate with various Databricks platform features, such as Databricks SQL for querying data, Databricks Jobs for data ingestion and processing, Mosaic AI Model Serving to access generative AI models, and Databricks secrets for managing sensitive information. In the context of apps, these platform features are referred to as resources.

To keep apps portable and secure, avoid hardcoding resource IDs. For example, instead of embedding a fixed SQL warehouse ID in your app.yaml file, configure the SQL warehouse as a resource through the Databricks Apps UI or in databricks.yaml.

Apps run with least privilege and rely on existing resources within the Databricks platform. When deployed, the app’s service principal accesses these resources and must have the necessary permissions, such as table-level access for SQL queries or read access to secret. See Configure authorization in a Databricks app.

Configure resources for your app

Resources allow your app to securely connect to services that it depends on, without hardcoding sensitive or environment-specific values.

Databricks UI

Add most resources directly in the Apps UI when you create or edit your app.

In the App resources section, click + Add resource and select the resource type you want to use. You assign a key to each resource, which you reference in your app.yaml file.

Databricks.yml

Manually add resources in the resources section of your databricks.yml configuration file. This method gives you more flexibility for advanced configurations.

YAML

resources:
  sql_warehouses:
    sql_warehouse: # resource key
      name: my-warehouse

  secrets:
    secret: # resource key
      scope: my-scope
      key: my-key

You can then reference these resources in the app configuration using the valueFrom field.

Use environment variables to access resources

After you define your app resources, reference these resources in the env section of your app.yaml file using the valueFrom field. This connects environment variables in your app to the resource keys defined in resources.

Example app.yaml snippet:

YAML

env:
  - name: WAREHOUSE_ID
    valueFrom: sql_warehouse

  - name: SECRET_KEY
    valueFrom: secret

Then, in your app code, access them as environment variables:

Python

import os

warehouse_id = os.getenv["WAREHOUSE_ID"]
secret_value = os.getenv["SECRET_KEY"]

To learn more about managing Databricks secrets, see Manage secrets.