The LookML Handbook — Production Patterns for Looker Developers

The conventions, gotchas, and performance patterns the official docs don't teach you.Your model passes validation, renders the dashboard, and still returns the wrong number.LookML is easy to start and genuinely hard to do well. A missing primary key quietly breaks symmetric aggregates. An unset join relationship inflates revenue 3x with no error. An unpersisted derived table re-runs on every query. None of these throw a warning — they just cost you slow dashboards, wrong numbers, and a Slack message from a stakeholder asking why the totals don't match.This handbook is the distilled version of those lessons: 20 pages of the patterns, anti-patterns, and performance fixes that separate a model that works in a demo from one that holds up across hundreds of explores and a team of developers.WHAT'S INSIDE (16 chapters + appendix)• Project structure & naming conventions that survive a growing team• Joins, relationships & the fan-out problem — why your sums inflate, and how symmetric aggregates actually work• Primary keys, dimensions & measures done right (and the ratio mistake everyone makes)• Derived tables: SQL vs. native, plus persistent and incremental PDTs• Datagroups & a sane caching strategy you define once and reuse everywhere• Aggregate awareness — often the single biggest performance win available• Access control & data security with access_filter and access_grant (including how they fail open)• Liquid & dynamic SQL, plus DRY patterns (extends, refinements, constants)• A performance optimization checklist and a project-health workflow (data tests + Git)• An anti-pattern cheat sheet and a pre-launch review checklist for your PR templateWHO IT'S FORWorking Looker developers and analytics engineers who already know the basics and want to level up — or who just inherited a messy project and need to fix it.WHO IT'S NOT FORComplete beginners looking for a "what is a dimension" tutorial. This assumes you can already write one.Every chapter pairs the concept with real LookML and a clearly marked pitfall (the mistake that compiles cleanly but breaks your numbers) and pro tip (what experienced developers do without thinking). Written from real production experience — [add your one-line credibility here].Instant download. One print-ready PDF.

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