Quickstart & Authentication

Prerequisites

uv (Python package manager)
nvm with Node 20 (for frontend)
Databricks CLI v0.283.0+

Check CLI version:

databricks -v  # Must be v0.283.0 or above
brew upgrade databricks  # If version is too old

Run Quickstart

uv run quickstart

Options:

--profile NAME: Use specified profile (non-interactive)
--host URL: Workspace URL for initial setup {{LAKEBASE_OPTIONS}}- --skip-lakebase: Skip Lakebase setup (non-interactive / CI use)
--app-name NAME: Existing Databricks app name to bind this bundle to
-h, --help: Show help

Examples:

# Interactive (prompts for profile selection)
uv run quickstart

# Non-interactive with existing profile
uv run quickstart --profile DEFAULT

# New workspace setup
uv run quickstart --host https://your-workspace.cloud.databricks.com

# Bind to an existing app created via the Databricks UI
uv run quickstart --app-name my-existing-app

# Skip Lakebase setup (CI / non-interactive)
uv run quickstart --profile DEFAULT --skip-lakebase
{{LAKEBASE_EXAMPLES}}```

## What Quickstart Configures

Creates/updates `.env` with:
- `DATABRICKS_CONFIG_PROFILE` - Selected CLI profile
- `MLFLOW_TRACKING_URI` - Set to `databricks://<profile-name>` for local auth
- `MLFLOW_EXPERIMENT_ID` - Auto-created experiment ID
{{LAKEBASE_CONFIGURES_ENV}}
Updates `databricks.yml`:
- Sets `experiment_id` in the app's experiment resource
- Updates app `name` field if `--app-name` is provided
{{LAKEBASE_CONFIGURES_YML}}

## Existing App

If you created an app via the Databricks UI before cloning a template, use `--app-name` to bind the bundle to it:

```bash
uv run quickstart --app-name my-existing-app

Quickstart will update databricks.yml with the app name and print the binding command:

databricks bundle deployment bind <KEY> my-existing-app --auto-approve
databricks bundle deploy

This avoids the "An app with the same name already exists" error on first deploy.

Idempotency

Re-running quickstart is safe:

Experiment: If MLFLOW_EXPERIMENT_ID is already in .env and the experiment still exists, it is reused (no duplicate created).
Lakebase: If Lakebase config is already in .env, the interactive prompt is skipped and the existing config is reused.

Manual Authentication (Fallback)

If quickstart fails:

# Create new profile
databricks auth login --host https://your-workspace.cloud.databricks.com

# Verify
databricks auth profiles

Then manually create .env (copy from .env.example):

# Authentication (choose one method)
DATABRICKS_CONFIG_PROFILE=DEFAULT
# DATABRICKS_HOST=https://<your-workspace-here>.databricks.com
# DATABRICKS_TOKEN=dapi....

# MLflow configuration
MLFLOW_EXPERIMENT_ID=<your-experiment-id>
MLFLOW_TRACKING_URI="databricks://DEFAULT"
MLFLOW_REGISTRY_URI="databricks-uc"

# Frontend proxy settings
CHAT_APP_PORT=3000
CHAT_PROXY_TIMEOUT_SECONDS=300

Next Steps

After quickstart completes:

Run uv run discover-tools to find available workspace resources (see discover-tools skill)
Run uv run start-app to test locally (see run-locally skill)