Lineage coverage
How much of your important data can be traced from the report it appears in back to the system it came from.
01 What it is
Why anyone looks at this number
How much of your important data can be traced from the report it appears in back to the system it came from.
Without lineage you cannot answer "where did this number come from?" — which is the question that decides whether a figure survives an audit or a board challenge.
02 The formula
How it is worked out
Lineage coverage = critical_data_elements_with_end_to_end_lineage ÷ total_critical_data_elements grain : quarter × domain unit : percentage source : The platform's metadata and lineage capture
Lineage has to cross tools to be worth anything. Coverage inside one warehouse while the data arrives through undocumented extracts is the illusion of traceability.
03 Worked example
The same number, with real inputs
| Critical data elements | 640 |
| With end-to-end lineage | 470 |
| Calculation | 470 ÷ 640 |
| Result | 73.4% |
170 critical fields cannot be traced to source. In a regulated reporting cycle those are exactly the fields an auditor will pick.
04 What moves it
Four things that actually change this number
Automated capture
Manually drawn lineage is out of date the week it is finished.
Tool coverage
Every pipeline, notebook and spreadsheet stage that is not captured is a break.
Critical element definition
Which fields actually matter, agreed with the business.
Change management
Whether upstream changes are reflected automatically.
05 Where the number lives
The system, the record and the fields
| System of record | Key record | Fields you need |
|---|---|---|
| The platform's metadata and lineage capture | Data element, Transformation and Report | element_id, upstream_system, transformation_id, downstream_report, criticality |
Lineage has to cross tools to be worth anything. Coverage inside one warehouse while the data arrives through undocumented extracts is the illusion of traceability.
06 How it goes wrong
Three ways this metric misleads people
Documenting lineage by hand
It is accurate on the day it is drawn and wrong within a month.
Fix: Capture it automatically from the pipelines themselves.Stopping at the warehouse
The riskiest transformations often happen in spreadsheets after it.
Fix: Extend coverage to the last mile, including manual steps.Treating every field as critical
The programme never finishes and nothing gets prioritised.
Fix: Agree a critical data element list with the business and start there.08 Questions
Frequently asked
What is a critical data element?
A field that, if wrong, causes a bad decision, a regulatory breach or a misstated figure. Most organisations have a few hundred, not a few thousand.
Why does lineage matter for AI?
Because an agent answering from your data inherits every unverified hop. Lineage is what lets you show where an answer came from rather than asking people to trust it.
One definition, everywhere it is used
SCIKIQ stores this metric once and serves it to every dashboard, board pack and agent that asks.