setting-up-looker-project

name	setting-up-looker-project
description	Looker Developer Onboarding: Step 5. Creates a new Looker project and configures Git. Only execute this after Step 4 (BigQuery Connection using `connecting-looker-to-bigquery`).
license	Apache-2.0
metadata	{"publisher":"google","version":"v1"}

Setting Up Looker Project

Creates a new Looker project and configures it with a local bare Git repository.

Prerequisites

• Looker CLI must be installed and authenticated (see installing-looker-cli and authenticating-looker-cli skills).

Instructions

1. Switch to the Development Workspace

Switch to the 'dev' workspace (required for creating or modifying project configurations). It is recommended to chain this with project operations to guarantee dev workspace persistence:

looker-cli session update dev

2. Create the Project

Write the project name payload to /tmp/project_create.json:

{
  "name": "{project_id}"
}

Create the Looker project using the project import command (chained with session update dev):

looker-cli session update dev && looker-cli project import /tmp/project_create.json

[!NOTE] Use a unique, URL-safe name for {project_id} (e.g., my_new_project).

3. Configure Local Bare Git Repository

Write the Git configuration payload to /tmp/project_git.json:

{
  "git_service_name": "bare"
}

Configure the project to use a local bare Git repository:

looker-cli session update dev && looker-cli project update {project_id} /tmp/project_git.json

[!NOTE] This sets up a local Git repository on the Looker server, which is ideal for quick onboarding without needing external Git hosting.

4. Verify Project Setup

Retrieve the project details to verify that Git was correctly configured:

looker-cli project cat {project_id}

Ensure the output indicates that uses_git is true and git_remote_url is not null (it will look like ../../bare_models/{project_id}.git).

[!NOTE] There might be a slight propagation delay on the Looker server after updating Git. If the project cat command fails (e.g., with a 400 error), wait a few seconds and retry.