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Overview

The global semantics system in Oxy enables you to define semantic objects once and reuse them throughout your project. This reduces duplication, ensures consistency, and makes maintenance significantly easier.

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Key Concepts

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Global Definitions

Define reusable semantic objects in globals/semantics.yml:
globals/semantics.yml
entities:
  customer:
    name: customer
    type: primary
    description: Primary customer entity
    key: customer_id

dimensions:
  customer_id:
    name: customer_id
    type: number
    description: Unique customer identifier
    expr: customer_id
  
  email:
    name: email
    type: string
    description: Email address
    expr: email
  
  timestamp:
    name: timestamp
    type: datetime
    description: Timestamp of the event or record
    expr: timestamp

measures:
  total_orders:
    name: total_orders
    type: count
    description: Total number of orders

descriptions:
  shipping_address: "Shipping address for the order"
  order_status: "Current status of the order"

tables:
  orders: "orders"
  customers: "customers"

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Inheritance

Use inherits_from to extend global definitions:
semantics/views/orders.view.yml
name: orders
datasource: local
table: "{{globals.semantics.tables.orders}}.csv"

entities:
  - name: customer
    inherits_from: globals.semantics.entities.customer
    # Inherits: type=primary, description, key

dimensions:
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.customer_id
    # Inherits all properties
  
  - name: order_status
    type: string
    description: "{{globals.semantics.descriptions.order_status}}"
    expr: status

measures:
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.measures.total_orders

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Property Merging

Child properties override parent properties: 
# Global definition
dimensions:
  customer_id:
    name: customer_id
    type: number
    description: Unique customer identifier
    expr: customer_id

# View-specific override
dimensions:
  - name: customer_id
    inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.customer_id
    description: Customer who placed this order  # Overrides
    # type and expr are inherited

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Usage Patterns

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In Semantic Views

Inherit entities, dimensions, and measures:
semantics/views/orders.view.yml
entities:
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.entities.customer

dimensions:
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.customer_id
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.timestamp

measures:
  - inherits_from: globals.semantics.measures.total_orders

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In semantics.yml

Inherit dimension properties while specifying unique target mappings:
semantics.yml
dimensions:
  - name: id_user
    inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.user_id
    targets:
      - primary_database.dbt_prod_core.dim_users.id_user
      - primary_database.dbt_prod_core.fct_user_events.id_user
    # Inherits: type, description from global definition
  
  - name: email
    inherits_from: globals.semantics.dimensions.email
    targets:
      - primary_database.dbt_prod_core.dim_users.email
      - primary_database.dbt_prod_core.fct_typeform_leads.email
    # Inherits: type, description from global definition
This pattern avoids repeating the same dimension definition for each target mapping.

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Template Variables

Reference global values using template syntax: 
table: "{{globals.tables.orders}}.csv"
description: "{{globals.semantics.descriptions.shipping_address}}"

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See Also