docs: document the Exclude Flow Document (no_flow_document) materialization option - #3018
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jwhartley merged 2 commits intoJun 18, 2026
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…zation option Adds a guide section explaining what advanced/no_flow_document does: the root document becomes optional for standard updates, the connector reconstructs documents from materialized top-level columns during loads, and the option only takes effect on existing tables after a backfill re-creates the table without the flow_document column. Adds the /advanced/no_flow_document row to the endpoint config tables of all supporting connector pages (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Redshift, MotherDuck, Azure Fabric Warehouse, MySQL, PostgreSQL, and SQL Server families), and links the existing ClickHouse and Spanner rows to the new guide section.
…olumn Review against materialize-boilerplate apply logic showed the original claim was wrong: a routine backfill truncates and repopulates the table (the unselected flow_document column can't trigger the drop path), so the column survives as an empty nullable column. Only new bindings or drop-and-recreate backfills produce a table without the column.
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## What's Changed * runtime: periodically store primary FSMHints of V2 shards by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3027 * mise build:flowctl for a local flowctl binary by @mdibaiee in estuary/flow#3031 * go.mod: bump gazette to latest by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3033 * data-plane-controller: dns and s3 passthroughs by @qaoj in estuary/flow#3022 * Self-service private-link configuration by @jshearer in estuary/flow#2944 * supabase: scoped refresh tokens so CI writes via PostgREST instead of direct psql by @skord in estuary/flow#3013 * docs: Describe SQL Server replica suport by @willdonnelly in estuary/flow#3040 * proto-gazette: regenerate to pick up SUSPEND_KEEP by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3041 * docs: correct custom-column-types backfill behavior for DDL changes by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3036 * Refresh token GraphQL operations and token exchange endpoint by @GregorShear in estuary/flow#3020 * docs: shopify stream & resource config additions by @Alex-Bair in estuary/flow#3034 * validation/collection: exclude `flow://inferred-schema` from the managed-defs redact check by @jshearer in estuary/flow#3046 * docs: update Bigtable connector permissions example by @mwillman-estuary in estuary/flow#3045 * docs: disable auto-discover for multi-binding file source captures by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3037 * docs: add streams and API pinning details to stripe-native by @nicolaslazo in estuary/flow#3055 * data-plane-controller: restart setting by @qaoj in estuary/flow#3048 * deploy: route control-plane services through the VPC NAT for a stable egress IP by @skord in estuary/flow#3044 * docs: document the Exclude Flow Document (no_flow_document) materialization option by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3018 * oidc-discovery-server: survive direct VPC egress cold-start on deploy by @skord in estuary/flow#3062 * docs: clarify retain_existing_data_on_backfill requires allow_existing_tables_for_new_bindings by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3049 * data-plane-controller: restart on ansiblehost by @qaoj in estuary/flow#3066 * flow-web: Bump version to release by @jshearer in estuary/flow#3068 * ops-catalog: misc updates by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3067 * proto-flow: tolerate unknown JSON fields in connector protocols by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3059 * flowctl: add raw split-shards to scale out V2 tasks by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3021 * supabase: qualify replace_data_plane_releases DELETE for PostgREST by @skord in estuary/flow#3076 * docs: kcat recipes for testing a Dekaf topic by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3072 * Docs: document per-prefix alert scoping and configurable thresholds by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3039 * notifications: trial bucket retention is 20 days, not 30 by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3074 * runtime/container: use ops::decode::Decoder for log lines by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3091 * data-plane-controller: remove restart flag by @qaoj in estuary/flow#3087 * runtime-next: durably seed initial connector state as {} to match V1 by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3081 * runtime-next: don't abandon the final capture transaction on connector EOF by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3090 * Docs: Remove an IP address from GCP allowed list by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3080 * docs: remove static data plane IP list, reference dashboard by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3097 * dekaf: improve logging by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3078 * agent: make startup logging consistent by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3098 * shuffle: make the shuffle disk limit configurable per-task by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3096 * runtime-next: automatically split journals under sustained append-rate throttling by @dgreer-dev in estuary/flow#3029 * billing: add tenant billing contact fields and per-tenant controller by @jshearer in estuary/flow#2902 * flowctl-go(api test): raise test-shard readiness window from ~3s to ~30s by @jshearer in estuary/flow#3101 * runtime: strip the V2 committed-close marker for derivations by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3100 * deps: bump aws-lc-sys and lz4_flex for security advisories by @skord in estuary/flow#2875 * data-plane-controller: fix db timeout by @qaoj in estuary/flow#3105 * agent-api: survive direct VPC egress cold-start on instance startup by @skord in estuary/flow#3109 * docs: avoiding backfills during a database failover or host change by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3086 * docs: clarify column-level SELECT grants unsupported for MySQL/MariaDB CDC by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3085 * json: require RFC3339 'T' separator in date-time format validator by @jacobmarble in estuary/flow#3116 * control-plane: reserve privileged tenant names by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3083 * agent-api: harden startup and shutdown on Cloud Run by @skord in estuary/flow#3114 * Incidental fixes: gazette Append retry, connector-init image, materialize tear-down by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3121 * agent: flag to create new captures as runtime-v2 by @williamhbaker in estuary/flow#3107 * runtime-next: add minimum interval for post-txn triggers by @dgreer-dev in estuary/flow#3110 * flowctl: chunk API requests by url size rather than fixed count by @mdibaiee in estuary/flow#3123 * dekaf: use projection_constraints only, no constraints by @mdibaiee in estuary/flow#3124 * flowctl: normalize --prefix trailing slash to avoid misleading PermissionDenied by @GregorShear in estuary/flow#3075 * docs: retain_existing_data_on_backfill no longer requires allow_existing_tables_for_new_bindings by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3125 * Restart Materializations sessions before IAM token expiry by @dgreer-dev in estuary/flow#3130 * docs: add "bring your own app" instructions for source-quickbooks by @nicolaslazo in estuary/flow#3135 * flowctl: re-tool `preview` on the runtime-next stack by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3117 * Adding support for updating the quotas when payment info changes by @bbartman in estuary/flow#3127 * control-plane-api: add unauthenticated publicDataPlanes GraphQL query by @GregorShear in estuary/flow#3129 * go/bindings: update snapshots for materialize-sqlite ser_policy by @dgreer-dev in estuary/flow#3142 * Revert "flowctl: replace `preview` with the runtime-next implementation" by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3141 * local: per-checkout stacks — every checkout runs its own isolated stack by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3137 * dekaf: log tls handshake eof instead of returning as error by @danielnelson in estuary/flow#3143 * Updating migrations to better support testing. by @bbartman in estuary/flow#3146 * shuffle: raise causal-hint stall timeout to 15m; lower prune horizon to 2GB by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3148 * ci: fix Platform Build by packaging Go binaries from per-checkout $GOBIN by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3149 * capture+materialize: Support Nonsensitive Field Overlays by @willdonnelly in estuary/flow#3119 * Docs: The Great Description-ing by @aeluce in estuary/flow#3057 * runtime: fix recursive read-lock deadlock in capture-v2 buildJoin by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3156 * validation: surface write-schema redact annotations on projections of split-schema collections by @GregorShear in estuary/flow#3147 * control-plane-api: retry Stripe customer search on index-lag misses by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3157 * flowctl: multi-shard --fixture for raw preview-next by @mdibaiee in estuary/flow#3154 * dekaf: prevent cached `TimeoutNoData` fetch responses from incorrectly signaling EOF by @jshearer in estuary/flow#3153 * mise: remove Lima VM host share and other VM tweaks by @jgraettinger in estuary/flow#3163 * docs: document connecting Azure Private Link to native Azure resources by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3138 * docs: explain why exclusiveCollectionFilter needs few enabled bindings by @jwhartley in estuary/flow#3126 ## New Contributors * @bbartman made their first contribution in estuary/flow#3127 **Full Changelog**: estuary/flow@v0.6.10...v0.6.11 Co-authored-by: mdibaiee <mdibaiee@users.noreply.github.com>
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Description
The
advanced/no_flow_document("Exclude Flow Document") endpoint option is implemented across 11 SQL/warehouse materialization connectors, but was only documented for ClickHouse and Spanner — as a bare config-table row with no explanation of behavior.This PR:
flow_documentsection, explaining:flow_documentcolumn is not dropped and its values are not removed, and the option only takes effect for existing bindings after a backfill. A routine backfill truncates and repopulates the table, clearing the stored document values but leaving an empty, nullableflow_documentcolumn behind; only new bindings (or backfills that take the drop-and-recreate path) produce a table without the column./advanced/no_flow_documentrow to the endpoint config tables of all supporting connector pages: Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, Amazon Redshift, MotherDuck, Azure Fabric Warehouse, MySQL (+ RDS, Cloud SQL, SingleStore, HeatWave), PostgreSQL (+ RDS, Cloud SQL, Supabase), and SQL Server (+ RDS, Cloud SQL), each linking to the new guide sectionBehavior verified against the connector source in estuary/connectors:
materialize-boilerplatevalidation logic (root document pinnedFIELD_REQUIREDfor existing bindings until backfill), the backfill truncate-vs-recreate logic inmaterializer.go, theloadQueryNoFlowDocumentreconstruction templates, and theVARIANTSfiles confirming all listed connector variants share the implementing drivers.