# Welcome to Prism!

{% hint style="success" %}
These docs current for version **`v0.1.9`**.
{% endhint %}

Prism is the easiest way to create data pipelines in Python. With it, users can break down their data flows into modular tasks, manage dependencies, and execute complex computations in sequence.

## Why use Prism?

Prism was built to streamline the development and deployment of complex data pipelines. Here are some of its main features:

* **Real-time dependency declaration**: With Prism, users can declare dependencies using a simple function call. No need to explicitly keep track of the pipeline order — at runtime, Prism automatically parses the function calls and builds the dependency graph.
* **Intuitive logging**: Prism automatically logs events for parsing the configuration files, compiling the tasks and creating the DAG, and executing the tasks. No configuration is required.
* **Flexible CLI**: Users can instantiate, compile, and run projects using a simple, but powerful command-line interface.
* **“Batteries included”**: Prism comes with all the essentials needed to get up and running quickly. Users can create and run their first DAG in *less than 2 minutes*.
* **Integrations**: Prism integrates with several tools that are popular in the data community, including Snowflake, Google BigQuery, Redshift, PySpark, and dbt. We're adding more integrations every day, so let us know what you'd like to see!

## What is a Prism project?

At minimum, a Prism project must contain two things:

1. A directory of Python modules (called `modules)`, and
2. A `prism_project.py` file for managing your Python environment

Here's how a typical Prism project is structured.

```
prism_project/
  ├── data/
  ├── dev/
  │   └── dev.ipynb
  ├── output/
  ├── modules/
  │   ├── extract.py
  │   ├── transform.py
  │   └── load.py
  ├── prism_project.py
  ├── profile.yml
  └── triggers.yml
```

As you can see, projects can contain other folders, like a `data` folder, an `output` folder, and a `profile.yml` file for connecting your project to external sources (more on this later).

## Guides: Jump right in

Follow our handy guides to get started on the basics as quickly as possible:

{% content-ref url="getting-started" %}
[getting-started](https://docs.runprism.com/v0.1.9/getting-started)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="fundamentals" %}
[fundamentals](https://docs.runprism.com/v0.1.9/fundamentals)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="cli" %}
[cli](https://docs.runprism.com/v0.1.9/cli)
{% endcontent-ref %}

{% content-ref url="api-reference" %}
[api-reference](https://docs.runprism.com/v0.1.9/api-reference)
{% endcontent-ref %}

If you have any feedback about the product or the docs, please let us know!


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