Execution Context

Execution context is the combination of two settings—data plane and compute pool—that determines where and how your platform operations run. Every query you execute, every dataset you browse, and every audience you build runs within a specific execution context. Think of it as answering two questions at once: Where does my data live? (data plane) and What resources should process it? (compute pool).

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The two dimensions

The data plane narrows the scope of the compute pool: selecting a data plane determines which pools are available, and switching planes resets the pool to the new plane’s own default.

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How context affects the platform

Your execution context influences what you see and how operations behave across the platform: If you switch your data plane, you’ll see a different set of datasets, and any queries you run will execute against different infrastructure.

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Supported providers

Execution context options vary depending on your data plane’s underlying provider: See Compute Pools for details on what each compute pool type offers.

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Default behavior

When you first load the platform, context auto-selects based on what’s available to you:

• Single data plane — Auto-selected. No action needed.
• Multiple data planes — Defaults to the Narrative DCP (data collaboration platform).
• Compute pool — Defaults to the data plane’s default compute pool. For Snowflake, this is the warehouse you’ve designated as default. For Narrative and Customer AWS, this is Shared.

For most users with a single data plane, the execution context is set automatically and requires no interaction.

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Context persistence

Your execution context is saved to your browser’s local storage. When you return to the platform in a later session, your previous selections are restored automatically. This means you don’t need to re-select your context each time you log in.

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Database and schema

Execution context used to carry two further dimensions, database and schema. Neither was ever selectable: both offered only DEFAULT, and the data plane resolved the database and schema for every operation regardless of what the context said. They have been removed rather than left as placeholders, so the context now describes only the two settings that change behavior. Nothing about where your queries run has changed. Should multi-database or multi-schema data planes arrive, the context will grow to describe them again.

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