Key concepts
The Celiq mental model — how nodes, Discovers, Prisms, Mosaics, and Vaults fit together.
Celiq has a small number of core ideas. Once you understand how they fit together, everything else in the product makes sense. This page explains each concept and how it relates to the others.
The Celiq mental model
Everything in Celiq flows in one direction:
Data warehouse → Forge (Node / Domain) → Discover (Reveal) → Prism / Mosaic → VaultYour raw database tables live in the warehouse. Forge is where you define what those tables mean — giving fields human-readable names and writing business metrics in CML. Discover is where anyone on your team queries that semantic layer without writing SQL. The results of a query can be saved as a Prism or pinned to a Mosaic. Both live inside a Vault that controls who can see them.
Nodes and Domains
A node is the fundamental unit of the semantic layer. Each node maps to one table in your warehouse and defines:
- Which columns are exposed as dimensions (categorical or time-based fields you filter and group by)
- Which calculations are exposed as measures (aggregations like sums, counts, and averages)
- Row-level security rules (Data Keys)
- Field-level security rules (Data Gates)
Nodes are written in CML (Celiq Modelling Language) — a YAML-based syntax that lives in files inside Forge.
A domain is a collection of nodes joined together. It defines the relationships between tables and controls which field combinations are valid. When you open Discover and pick a starting node, Celiq uses the domain to know which other nodes you can join into your Reveal.
Note: Think of a domain as equivalent to an Explore in Looker — it is the join graph that determines what a user can query from a single starting point.
Reveals
A Reveal is a live query session in Discover. You pick a node (or domain), select dimensions and measures, apply filters, choose a date granularity, and Celiq generates and runs SQL against your warehouse. The results appear as a table or chart in real time.
A Reveal is always live — it re-runs the query against your warehouse every time you make a change. It is not a snapshot. When you save a Reveal, it becomes a Scene.
Prisms and Mosaics
A Prism is a saved Reveal. It captures the exact question you asked — the fields, filters, visualisation, and row limit. When you or a colleague opens a Prism later, it re-runs the query against current data. The question is fixed; the answer updates.
A Mosaic is a collection of tiles — each tile backed by a Prism or Reveal. Mosaics are the equivalent of dashboards: a curated view of multiple metrics that refreshes automatically. You can have tiles with different nodes, different visualisation types, and different date ranges all on the same Mosaic.
Prisms and Mosaics complement each other:
- Use a Prism to share a single focused analysis.
- Use a Mosaic to build a team home page or operational overview.
Vaults
A Vault is a folder that holds Mosaics and Scenes. Every piece of saved work lives in a Vault. Vaults also control access — who can view and who can edit what is inside.
There are three vault types:
| Vault type | Visible to | Created by |
|---|---|---|
| My Vault | Only you | Auto-created on signup |
| Team Vault | Invited members | Luminary or Weaver |
| Workspace Vault | Everyone in the workspace | Luminary only |
Roles
Celiq has four roles that determine what a user can do:
- Luminary — administrator. Manages the workspace, approves model changes, configures security.
- Weaver — builder. Edits the semantic model in Forge, creates vaults and content.
- Tracer — analyst. Runs Reveals in Discover, saves Scenes, views shared Mosaics.
- Lens — viewer. Can only view Mosaics and Scenes they have been explicitly given access to.
The semantic layer
The semantic layer is the collection of all your nodes and domains defined in Forge. It is the single source of truth for what every metric means in your organisation. When a Weaver defines total_revenue as SUM(revenue) in a node, every analyst who queries that node gets the same number — there is no room for divergence.
The semantic layer is version-controlled (via Git integration in Forge) and has a Draft → Live deployment flow. This means changes to metric definitions go through review before affecting production queries.
Celiq vs. Looker — mapping the concepts
If you are coming from Looker, this table maps every Celiq concept to its Looker equivalent:
| Celiq term | What it does | Looker equivalent |
|---|---|---|
| Node | Maps a table, defines dimensions and measures | LookML View |
| Domain | Joins multiple nodes, defines query starting points | LookML Explore |
| CML | The YAML modelling language for nodes and domains | LookML |
| Forge | The semantic IDE for editing CML | LookML IDE |
| Discover | No-code query builder | Explore |
| Reveal | A live, unsaved query session | Explore (unsaved) |
| Prism | A saved query with visualisation | Look / Saved Explore |
| Mosaic | A collection of tiles (dashboard) | Dashboard |
| Vault | Folder that controls access | Space / Folder |
| Data Key | Row-level security (field + value per user/role) | user_attribute + access_filter |
| Data Gate | Field-level security (hide or restrict fields by role) | Column-level security |
| Draft mode | Personal branch for model changes | Dev mode |
| Live mode | Production semantic model | Production mode |
| Luminary | Workspace administrator | Admin |
| Weaver | Model developer / content creator | Developer |
| Tracer | Standard analyst | Standard user with Explore access |
| Lens | Read-only viewer | Viewer |
| Orion | AI analyst assistant | (no equivalent) |
| Signals | Metric alerts and notifications | Alerts |
Tip: The biggest conceptual shift from Looker is that Celiq separates Reveals (live sessions) from Prisms (saved results) explicitly. In Looker, an Explore is both. In Celiq, the two concepts are distinct — which makes sharing and scheduling much cleaner.