OpenLineage: An open framework for data lineage collection and analysis (openlineage.io)

OpenLineage is an open framework and specification for collecting and analyzing data lineage metadata, aiming to make lineage a first-class building block for modern, context-aware data tooling. It standardizes how pipeline components (schedulers, warehouses, SQL engines, ETL tools, etc.) emit events about runs, jobs, and datasets so downstream systems can reconstruct how data was produced, transformed, and consumed. That visibility accelerates root-cause analysis, impact assessment for schema or pipeline changes, reproducibility, governance, and automated data-quality workflows—making it easier for teams to reason about complex data ecosystems. Technically, OpenLineage defines a standard API for lineage events and ships with a reference metadata repository implementation (Marquez), client libraries for common languages, and integrations with popular pipeline tools. It supports both simple single-consumer deployments and more complex multi-consumer architectures, and provides javadoc and OpenAPI docs to ease integration. As an open spec with an active Slack community and monthly Technical Steering Committee meetings, it encourages vendor and user contributions—promoting interoperability across tools and lowering friction for observability, auditing, and automated tooling that rely on consistent lineage metadata.