airbyte/docs/cloud/managing-airbyte-cloud/manage-schema-changes.md

Manage schema changes

Once every 24 hours, Airbyte checks for changes in your source schema and allows you to review the changes and fix breaking changes. This process helps ensure accurate and efficient data syncs, minimizing errors and saving you time and effort in managing your data pipelines.

:::note

Schema changes are flagged in your connection but are not propagated to your destination.

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Review non-breaking schema changes

To review non-breaking schema changes:

1. On the Airbyte Cloud dashboard, click Connections and select the connection with non-breaking changes (indicated by a yellow exclamation mark icon).

2. Click Review changes.

3. The Refreshed source schema dialog displays the changes.

4. Review the changes and click OK to close the dialog.

5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.

:::note

By default, Airbyte ignores non-breaking changes and continues syncing. You can configure how Airbyte handles syncs when it detects non-breaking changes by editing the stream configuration.

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Fix breaking schema changes

:::note

Breaking changes can only occur in the Cursor or Primary key fields.

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To review and fix breaking schema changes:

1. On the Airbyte Cloud dashboard, click Connections and select the connection with breaking changes (indicated by a red exclamation mark icon).

2. Click Review changes.

3. The Refreshed source schema dialog displays the changes.

4. Review the changes and click OK to close the dialog.

5. In the streams table, the stream with a breaking change is highlighted.

6. Fix the breaking change by selecting a new Cursor or Primary key.

7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.

:::note

If a connection’s source schema has breaking changes, it will stop syncing. You must review and fix the changes before editing the connection or resuming syncs.

:::

Manually refresh the source schema

In addition to Airbyte Cloud’s automatic schema change detection, you can manually refresh the source schema to stay up to date with changes in your schema.

To manually refresh the source schema:

1. On the Airbyte Cloud dashboard, click Connections and then click the connection you want to refresh.

2. Click the Replication tab.

3. In the Activate the streams you want to sync table, click Refresh source schema to fetch the schema of your data source.

4. If there are changes to the schema, you can review them in the Refreshed source schema dialog.