Define services

Services group attribute groups together for serving to your applications. They provide a stable interface for retrieving attributes: we strongly recommend using services in production applications.

Console

To create a service, go to Signals > Services in Snowplow Console and follow the instructions.

To configure a service, you'll need to specify:

• A unique name
• An optional description
• The email address of the primary owner or maintainer
• Which attribute groups to include

Python SDK

Use the Service class to define a service. You can refer to attribute groups either by passing the objects directly, or by name and version using a dictionary:

python

from snowplow_signals import Service

# Refer to attribute groups by name and version
my_service = Service(
    name='my_service',
    description='A collection of attribute groups',
    owner="user@company.com",
    attribute_groups=[
        {"name": "user_attributes", "version": 2},
        {"name": "session_attributes", "version": 1},
    ],
)

# Or pass the objects directly
my_service = Service(
    name='my_service',
    description='A collection of attribute groups',
    owner="user@company.com",
    attribute_groups=[
        my_attribute_group,
        another_attribute_group,
    ],
)

The table below lists all available arguments for a Service:

Argument	Description	Type	Required?
name	The name of the service	string	✅
description	A description of the service	string	❌
owner	The owner of the service	string	✅
attribute_groups	List of attribute groups with optional version specification	list of AttributeGroup or dict	❌

Versioning

When choosing which attribute groups to include, you'll select a specific version of each attribute group.

Services themselves are not versioned. You can update them to use different attribute groups, or different attribute group versions, at any time.

Console

Python SDK

Specify the version of each attribute group in the attribute_groups list using a dictionary with name and version keys, or by using a versioned AttributeGroup object directly.

Manage services

Console

Services are automatically published as soon as they're created. They're a wrapper for consuming calculated attributes, and don't cause any additional processing themselves.

To edit a service definition, go to the service details page and click the Edit button.

To delete a service, go to the service details page and click the ⋮ button, then choose Delete.

Python SDK

Use publish() to register services with Signals.

python

from snowplow_signals import Signals

sp_signals = Signals({{ config }})

sp_signals.publish([
    my_service,
    my_other_service,
])

Try Signals

You don't need a Snowplow pipeline to start. The Signals free tier includes event collection, so you add a tracker to your application and Signals computes attributes from its events. It needs no credit card.