User Guide
Overview
This guide provides patterns and steps for data scientists so that they can:
- Access their data, wherever it lives, securely and with low friction
- Transition code easily from development to production without it breaking
It includes step-by-step connection examples for common data sources and platforms, code snippets in R and Python, and best practices for development and production environments.
How this guide is organized
The guide has two parts: a Getting started section that explains the concepts, and source guides that apply those concepts to choose and implement a connection. The source guides include R and Python code examples for both Posit Workbench and Posit Connect.
Getting started
These pages explain the concepts and decisions you need to make before writing connection code:
- Connection methods: the ways to connect to each type of data source
- Credential types: credential scope and lifetime at a glance
- Development to deployment: how to write code that uses the right credential in each environment
Source guides
Each guide helps you choose a connection type and credential, then links to Python and R code examples for Workbench and Connect. Start with the general recipe, or jump to a specific source:
- Any data source: a repeatable recipe that applies the Getting started concepts to any source, including ones without a dedicated guide below
- Databricks
- Snowflake
Intended audience
This guide is designed for data scientists and analysts using Workbench and Connect.
Throughout this guide, there are notes like this one indicating that your administrator must configure certain settings before you can successfully complete the steps on the page. The notes contain links to the relevant documentation for administrators in the Data sources admin guide or Posit product admin guides.