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Looker is Google Cloud’s business intelligence platform. The Looker connector lets your Lovable app query metrics defined in LookML, the modeling language your analytics team uses to describe data and calculations. You can build dashboards and reporting tools using those existing definitions. Looker is available as an app + chat connector: one shared connection that works in the project chat while you build and in your published apps. With Looker, your app can:
  • Discover models and Explores, the starting points for queries in Looker
  • Choose dimensions, such as region or month, and measures, such as revenue or order count
  • Filter, sort, and limit query results to show in your app
  • Inspect the SQL Looker generates to help debug a query
Use Looker when your app needs the metric definitions your analytics team already maintains. Looker generates the database queries from those definitions, so you do not need to recreate the calculations in your app.

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Common use cases and example apps

You can use Looker to build internal reporting tools such as these.

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How Looker connections work

Lovable calls Looker through its connector gateway, which stores your credentials securely and refreshes access tokens automatically. Your app does not need Looker credentials in its code. Queries run as the Looker account that owns the API key. Its model permissions and any row-level or field-level restrictions apply to everyone using the connection, including through a published app. The connector does not sign each app user in to Looker separately. Use a dedicated Looker service account, a Looker account made for API access that no person signs in with. Give it access only to the data your app needs. For example, a sales dashboard should use an account restricted to sales models. Create separate accounts and connections for teams that need different data.
The connector does not enforce read-only access. A connection can modify or delete Looker content if its account has those permissions. Use a restricted role as described in Step 1, and avoid an admin account.

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How to connect Looker

Who can create Looker connections depends on your plan and workspace settings. App + chat connectors are available by default on Free, Pro, and Business plans. On Enterprise plans, they are effectively disabled at first: Who can create connections and clients defaults to No one until an admin changes it in Connectors → Admin settings → App + chat connectors. You can create multiple Looker connections using different API keys, which is useful for separating access levels or instances. When the connection is created, you can link it to the projects where you want to use it. Anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in the project chat to link their project to it.

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Prerequisites

Before connecting Looker, make sure you have:
  • A Looker instance hosted by Google, either Looker (Google Cloud core) at a *.looker.app host or Looker (original) at a *.cloud.looker.com host. The connector does not accept other hosts, such as yourcompany.looker.com or a customer-owned domain
  • A Looker admin to create a service account, its role, and its API key
  • Permission to create connections in your Lovable workspace (see Who can create connections and clients)
Your Looker licensing and warehouse compute costs are separate from Lovable billing. Looker service accounts consume licenses according to their assigned roles. Ask your Looker admin to confirm the licensing requirements for your app.Queries can return Looker’s cached results. Queries that need fresh results run on your warehouse and use its compute, so add filters and row limits to keep costs down.

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Step 1: Create a Looker service account and API key

Ask your Looker admin to complete these steps. The account’s role controls what your app can access.
1

Create a role scoped to your app's models

In Looker, open Admin → Roles. Create a model set containing only the models your app needs and a permission set for querying them. For Explore access, include explore and its required permissions, see_looks and access_data. Create a role combining these sets. See Looker’s role and permission reference.To restrict the account to reading data, leave out permissions for saving content, development, and administration. Check all assigned roles, including roles inherited from groups, because additional roles can grant broader access.
2

Create a service account

Open Admin → Users. In Looker (Google Cloud core), click Add Service Accounts. In Looker (original), click Add → Service Account. Enter a Service Account Name, leave Create default set of API credentials turned on, assign the restricted role, and click Save. See Looker’s service account setup.If your models use access filters, set the service account’s user attributes to restrict the rows it can query.
3

Get the API key

Under Admin → Users → Service Accounts, open the account. In API Keys, click Manage. Use the credentials created with the account, or click Create New API Key. Copy the client ID and client secret. See Looker’s API key management and API authentication guide.
The client secret functions like a password. Store it securely, and paste it only into the connection form in Lovable. Do not put it in a prompt, a chat message, or your app’s code.
4

Find your Looker host

Your Looker host is the hostname you see in the browser address bar when you are signed in to Looker, without https:// and without a path. For example, yourcompany.cloud.looker.com or 41c03249-8fba-4acd-ae98-05a449d1bab3.looker.app.

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Step 2: Connect Looker to Lovable

Open the connection form and enter the values from Step 1.
1

Open Looker in Connectors

Open Connectors and select Looker. For the other places to open the catalog from, see Where to find connectors.
2

Add a connection

Click Add connection and select App + chat connector. The form is split into collapsible sections, Details, Configure connection, and Sharing.
3

Name the connection

Under Details, Lovable fills in a name for the connection, which you can change (for example, to Looker Sales). The name is only used inside Lovable to identify the connection. Use a name that reflects the access level of the Looker user.
4

Enter your credentials

Under Configure connection:
  • Looker host: the bare hostname from Step 1, for example yourcompany.cloud.looker.com. The form rejects a value that includes https:// or a path
  • Client ID: the client ID of the API key from Step 1
  • Client secret: the client secret issued alongside the client ID
5

Choose who can use this connection

Under Sharing, the connection is private to you by default and shows a Private label. To share it, click Share with others. Then add workspace members by email, or click Invite entire workspace to make the connection available to everyone in your Lovable workspace.Everyone with access queries Looker as the same Looker user. See Who can use connections and clients for more information.
6

Connect

Click Connect. Lovable verifies the credentials by authenticating with Looker and reading the connected account’s details.
A successful connection test does not confirm model access. After linking the connection to a project, ask Lovable to list the available models and run a query against one your app needs. If no models appear, ask your Looker admin to check the account’s role and model set.
When connected, anyone building in a project can ask Lovable in the project chat to link their project to Looker (based on configured connection-level access). Your Lovable apps can then discover your models and Explores and run queries that use your team’s metric definitions while you build and after you publish. If the client secret changes, open the connection in Lovable and click Update under Configure connection to replace it.

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Limitations

Keep these limits in mind when building with Looker.
  • Supported hosts. The host must end in .looker.app or .cloud.looker.com. The connector rejects other hosts, including yourcompany.looker.com and customer-owned domains, with the error “Must be a bare Looker hostname”.
  • Shared identity. The connector does not support per-user Looker sign-in or automatically restrict data for each app user.
  • Dashboard embedding. This setup returns query results for your app’s own charts. It does not set up embedded Looker dashboards or Looks, Looker’s saved reports.

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Manage your Looker connection

Connections are managed from Connectors: select Looker, then open the connection.
  • Unlink projects to remove Looker access from specific projects while keeping the connection available for others. See Unlink projects from a connection for the steps.
  • Delete the connection to remove it from the workspace entirely. Deleting is permanent. It removes the credentials from all linked projects, and app features that use Looker stop working until a new connection is added. See Delete a connection for the steps and who can delete.