Explore features

The SHOW FEATURES command lets you search, filter, and analyze features in the registry. Use it to discover what's available, understand dependencies, and audit how features relate to each other.

Syntax

SHOW [MY] [RECENT] FEATURES
  [(INCLUDE <fields> | EXCLUDE <fields> | COLUMNS <fields>)]
  [<feature_name>, ...]
  [IN <namespace> [UP TO LEVEL <n>]]
  [LIKE <pattern>]
  [WHERE <condition>]
  [ORDER BY <expression>]
  [LIMIT <n>]

SHOW [MY] [RECENT] FEATURES
  [(INCLUDE <fields> | EXCLUDE <fields> | COLUMNS <fields>)]
  [<feature_name>, ...]
  [IN <namespace> [UP TO LEVEL <n>]]
  [LIKE <pattern>]
  [WHERE <condition>]
  [ORDER BY <expression>]
  [LIMIT <n>]

Available metadata fields

These fields can be used in INCLUDE, EXCLUDE, COLUMNS, WHERE, and ORDER BY clauses:

Basic usage

Let's create a few features and then explore them:

CREATE OR REPLACE FEATURES AS
SELECT
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE1 := 1,
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE2 := 2
;

List the features we just created:

SHOW FEATURES (COLUMNS (NAME)) IN FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE;

After replacing and adding features, SHOW FEATURES reflects the current state:

CREATE OR REPLACE FEATURES AS
SELECT
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE1 := 11,
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE11 := FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE1 + 1,
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE12 := FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE1 + FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.FEATURE2
        COMMENT 'Adds FEATURE1 and FEATURE2',
;

Shorthand queries

SHOW FEATURES supports several shortcuts that map to common filter patterns:

These shortcuts combine freely. For example, pattern matching within a namespace with depth and a result limit:

SHOW FEATURES LIKE '%EXPLORE%1' IN FM.TUTORIALS UP TO LEVEL 2 ORDER BY NAME LIMIT 10;

Dependency analysis

FeatureQL tracks how features depend on each other. Three operators let you query these relationships:

Let's create a chain of features to explore: RFEATURE0 and RFEATURE1 are inputs, RFEATURE2 depends on RFEATURE0, RFEATURE3 depends on both RFEATURE1 and RFEATURE2, and RFEATURE4 depends on RFEATURE3.

CREATE OR REPLACE FEATURES IN FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE AS
SELECT
    RFEATURE0 := INPUT(BIGINT),
    RFEATURE1 := INPUT(BIGINT),
    RFEATURE2 := RFEATURE0 + 1,
    RFEATURE3 := RFEATURE1 + RFEATURE2,
    RFEATURE4 := RFEATURE3 + 2;

Finding upstream dependencies

What does RFEATURE3 depend on?

SHOW FEATURES (COLUMNS (NAME, FORMULA)) WHERE IS_UPSTREAM_OF('FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE3')

Finding downstream dependents

What depends on RFEATURE3?

SHOW FEATURES (COLUMNS (NAME, FORMULA)) WHERE IS_DOWNSTREAM_OF('FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE3')

Visualizing depth in the dependency graph

DEPTH_RELATIVE_TO returns negative values for upstream features and positive values for downstream ones, giving you a sense of the dependency distance:

SHOW FEATURES (
    COLUMNS (NAME, FORMULA),
    INCLUDE (DEPTH_RELATIVE_TO('FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE3') as DEPTH_IN_DAG)
)
WHERE DEPTH_IN_DAG IS NOT NULL::BIGINT
ORDER BY DEPTH_IN_DAG ASC

Tracing feature dependencies with SELECT TRACE

SELECT TRACE is a shorthand that automatically expands a feature into its full dependency chain. Instead of returning only the features you name, TRACE includes all named upstream dependencies in topological order — inputs first, the requested feature last.

This is useful when you want to see every intermediate step that leads to a result, without manually listing each dependency.

A simple inline example — TRACE reorders features by their dependency depth regardless of how you wrote them:

SELECT TRACE
    F4 := F2 + F3,
    F1 := 1,
    F2 := F1 + 1,
    F3 := F1 * 2;

With persisted features, TRACE goes further: it expands a single feature into its entire upstream tree. Here, selecting only RFEATURE4 with TRACE returns all five features in the chain:

SELECT TRACE
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE4
FROM FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE
FOR CROSS
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE0 := BIND_VALUE(2),
    FM.TUTORIALS.EXPLORE.RFEATURE1 := BIND_VALUE(3);