Set up MotherDuck with Ascend

Overview

In this quickstart guide, you'll learn how to use MotherDuck as your Data Plane in Ascend.

This guide will take you through the following steps:

• Generate a MotherDuck API key
• Store your MotherDuck API key
• Configure your Ascend Workspace & Project
• Run the sales Flow and view the resulting tables in MotherDuck

Prerequisites

• Ascend Instance
• MotherDuck account
• Familiarity with the role of the Data Plane in Ascend

Generate a MotherDuck API key

1. Open the MotherDuck UI
2. Click on your organization's name in the top left
3. Navigate to Settings > Access Tokens
4. Click + Create Token
5. Give your token a descriptive name like ascend_default_data_plane
6. Ensure the token type is set to Read/Write Token
7. (Optional) Set an expiration date for your token if desired
8. Click Create token
9. Copy your token immediately to use in the next step

Store your MotherDuck API key

Store your MotherDuck API key as an Environment Vault secret to securely configure your MotherDuck Data Plane:

1. In your Ascend Instance, click on your profile picture in the top-right corner and select Settings
2. Navigate to the Secrets & Vaults section
3. Select the Default Environment Vault
4. Click Add secret
5. Name your secret MOTHERDUCK_API_KEY and paste the API key in the Value field
6. Click Create to store your secret

Configure your Workspace & Project

note

Alternatively, you can keep the out-of-the-box Project configuration and create a new MotherDuck Data Plane Connection instead. This allows you to use the existing setup and proceed directly to running the sales Flow.

Configure your Default Ascend Project to use the MotherDuck-specific template:

1. In the top-right corner of your Ascend Instance, click on your profile picture and select Settings
2. Go to Projects & Deployments and select the Default Project
3. Change the Project root to projects/default/motherduck
4. Click Save to apply your changes
5. Navigate back to your Ascend Workspace via the homepage or with Cmd+K search navigation

Run the sales Flow

1. In the Super Graph view of your Ascend Workspace, double-click the sales Flow to open the Flow Graph view, which shows all Components in the sales Flow
2. In the build info panel on the top left, click Run Flow and watch all Components in your Flow execute from left to right

View Ascend tables in MotherDuck

1. Open MotherDuck
2. In the left panel, expand the __ascend_workspace_template database under Attached databases
   note

   When no database parameter is specified in the MotherDuck Connection configuration, Ascend automatically creates a dedicated MotherDuck database for each Profile. Because the default Profile is workspace_template, your database name is __ascend_workspace_template.

3. Expand the sales schema
4. Click the three dots next to the read_sales_website table
5. Select Query in current notebook from the menu
6. View your data in the query output

This demonstrates Data Plane persistence in action!

🎉 Congratulations! You've successfully configured MotherDuck as your Data Plane and run your first Flow!

Next steps

👩🏻‍💻 Follow the developer quickstart to build your own Flow in Ascend