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Suitable for production read workloads.
Most PostgreSQL driver features are supported; some PostgreSQL features may not yet be tested and could behave differently or not work in some tools.
Looker Cloud Looker Cloud is a cloud-native business intelligence platform that enables teams to model, explore, and visualize their data. Using Looker’s PostgreSQL dialect, you can connect Looker Cloud directly to Firebolt. This integration allows analysts and business users to query Firebolt’s high-performance data warehouse from within Looker dashboards and Explores. This guide walks through prerequisites, permissions, and connection setup. By the end, Looker Cloud will be connected to Firebolt and ready to run queries.
ℹ️ Network access requirement
Looker cloud does not support mutual TLS (mTLS). In most cases, connections work without additional setup.
If you encounter connectivity issues, your Looker cloud IP address may need to be allowlisted by Firebolt. See Allowlisting Looker cloud IP Addresses.

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Prerequisites

Before starting, make sure you have:
  1. Looker Cloud Account – With admin access to configure database connections.
  2. Firebolt account – You need an active Firebolt account. If you do not have one, you can sign up for one.
  3. Firebolt database and table – You must have access to a Firebolt database that contains a table with data ready for visualization. If you don’t have access, you can create a database and then load data into it.
  4. Firebolt service account – You must have access to an active Firebolt service account, which facilitates programmatic access to Firebolt, its ID and secret.
  5. Firebolt user – You must have a user that is associated with your service account. The user should have USAGE permission to query your database, and OPERATE permission to start and stop an engine if it is not already started.

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Configure the Connection in Looker Cloud

  1. In Looker, go to Admin → Database → Connections.
  2. Click Add connection (top-right).
  3. Follow the connection wizard, which is split into four steps.

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Step 1: General settings

  • Name – A name for the connection (for example: firebolt_connection).
  • SQL Dialect – Select PostgreSQL 9.5+.
Click Next.

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Step 2: Database settings

Fill in the following fields:
FieldValue
Hostpg.<region>.app.firebolt.io
Port5432
Database name<database_name>
Username<account_name>:<engine_name>:<service_account_id>
Password<service_account_secret>
Click Next.
Host details
The host is based on your Firebolt region. Example: 
pg.us-east-1.app.firebolt.io
Confirm your region with: 
SELECT region
FROM information_schema.accounts
WHERE account_name = '<your_account>';
Database name
The Database name field must contain only the Firebolt database name.
Username format
The Username field must use the following format: 
<account_name>:<engine_name>:<service_account_id>
Where:
  • <account_name> is your Firebolt account name
  • <engine_name> is your Firebolt engine name
  • <service_account_id> is the ID of your Firebolt service account
Deprecated
Older connection setups encoded the account and engine in the database field using:
<account_name>@<database_name>@<engine_name>
This format is deprecated and should not be used for new connections. While SQL execution may still work, metadata-driven features may behave incorrectly.

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Step 3: Optional settings

No additional configuration is required. Click Next.

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Step 4: Review

  • Optionally click Test connection to validate the setup.
  • Click Save to create the connection.

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Allowlisting Looker Cloud IP Addresses

Looker Cloud does not support mutual TLS (mTLS). Looker Cloud runs on managed infrastructure and sends outbound database traffic from a fixed set of public IP addresses. If your Firebolt account restricts inbound network access, these IP addresses must be allowlisted. If you experience connectivity issues when connecting Looker Cloud to Firebolt, your Looker Cloud IP address may need to be allowlisted by Firebolt.

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Get your Looker Cloud IP address

  1. In Looker, go to Admin → Database → Connections.
  2. In the top-right corner, click Public IP Addresses.
  3. Copy the list of IP addresses displayed.

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Request allowlisting

Contact Firebolt Support and request to allowlist the Looker Cloud IP address for your account. See more about how to contact Firebolt Support and the severity guidelines. Include the following information in your request:
  • Your name and email address
  • Your organization name
  • Name of the tool you want to connect (Looker Cloud in this case)
  • The Looker Cloud IP address to allowlist
After allowlisting is completed, return to Looker Cloud and retry the connection.

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Performance and Limits

Firebolt enforces soft rate limits to ensure fair usage:
Limit typeThresholdScope
New connections600 per minutePer IP address
Queries600 per minutePer organization/account
These limits are not hard blocks. Contact Support if you need them raised (provide org name, workload, and requested threshold).

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Compatibility Notes

Some Looker SQL and LookML features are not fully supported through Firebolt’s PostgreSQL adapter.
  • Unsupported functions: diff_days(), diff_hours(), contains(), exp().
  • Partially supported functions: extract_minutes(), trunc_months() (only work with TIMESTAMP/TIMESTAMPTZ, not DATE).
  • Unsupported metrics: Median, list of unique values.
  • Unsupported dimension types: Any date_... or duration_... types. Use custom SQL dimensions in .view.lkml instead like:
dimension: diff_days_now {
  sql: CAST(DATE_DIFF('day', DATE_TRUNC('day', table."column"), CURRENT_TIMESTAMP) AS BIGINT);;
}