Data Pipeline

A data pipeline is the chain of stages that carries data from its source to its final destination: receiving, validating, transforming, storing and finally displaying it in a report.

A data pipeline is a concept that reminds you the number in your report is the product of a multi-stage journey, not a direct photograph of reality. Each stage can both improve the data (removing bots, fixing shape) and be a place where it is lost or skewed. For the tool's user the value of this lens is practical: when you see a strange number, instead of only doubting the report you can ask at which pipeline stage the problem might be — incomplete receipt, processing delay, or a differing definition at the transform stage. The key difference from an engineering pipeline is that for a customer this pipeline is usually a black box; what they see is the output, and their trust in the pipeline's quality must rest on the tool's transparency, not on direct access.