`fluid demo`

Scaffold a customer-360 example project with sample data, then try to run it locally. No API key and no cloud account.

Syntax

fluid demo [NAME] [--dry-run] [--no-run] [--quiet]

Examples

fluid demo
fluid demo my-customer-360
fluid demo --dry-run
fluid demo my-project --no-run

fluid demo creates fluid-demo/ in the current directory (or NAME/), from the same customer-360 template that fluid init --quickstart uses:

.
├── .fluid/run-id.txt
└── fluid-demo/
    ├── contract.fluid.yaml
    ├── README.md
    ├── data/
    │   ├── customers.csv
    │   ├── interactions.csv
    │   └── orders.csv
    └── .fluid/
        ├── db.duckdb
        └── init-receipt.json

What happens on 0.18.1

The scaffold step works. The step that runs the pipeline does not: as of 0.18.1 it fails, and the command still reports success and exits 0.

✅ Copied template files from customer-360
✅ Sample data loaded: 3 CSV files
✅ Local database initialized (DuckDB)

🚀 Running pipeline locally...

Loading FLUID contract: .../fluid-demo/contract.fluid.yaml
Using simple execution mode (local provider)
💥 Unexpected error during execution: 'ApplyArgs' object has no attribute 'config_override'
⚠️  Could not auto-run pipeline: 'ApplyArgs' object has no attribute 'debug'
You can run it manually:
  $ cd fluid-demo
  $ fluid apply contract.fluid.yaml --provider local

╭─ 🎉 Success ─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────╮
│                                                                              │
│  Your data product is ready!                                                 │
...

Nothing ran at that point. Treat Success as "the project was scaffolded". The manual command it prints does run:

cd fluid-demo
fluid validate contract.fluid.yaml
fluid apply contract.fluid.yaml --provider local --yes

validate passes. apply exits 0 and writes output/customer_360.parquet and output/high_value_customers.parquet, but each is a 24-byte placeholder: the contract declares its SQL per stage under builds[].properties.stages[], and the local provider reports Build customer_360_pipeline has no SQL, skipping. The demo contract is a good project to read and to run validate, plan and verify against. It does not produce data on 0.18.1.

For a scaffold whose local apply writes rows, use fluid init orders --blueprint fluid.starter (it writes runtime/out/orders.csv) or the csv-basics template. See Run what you scaffolded.

Key options

Option	Description
`NAME`	Directory name for the demo project (positional, optional, default: `fluid-demo`).
`--dry-run`	Preview what would be created without writing anything.
`--no-run`	Scaffold the project but skip the pipeline run.
`--quiet`, `-q`	Suppress the next-steps panel and other post-success hints.

Notes

The demo runs against the local provider. It has no option to deploy to a cloud account.
It refuses to write into a symlinked target or a non-empty existing directory. Pick a different name or remove the directory first.
--no-run skips the step that fails on 0.18.1, so it is the option to use when you want a clean exit status.
After it finishes you have a normal project: try fluid validate, fluid plan and fluid apply inside it.
To start your own project, use fluid init; for AI-guided creation, fluid forge.