Build a dashboard

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~3 minutes · ends with an HTML file you can host anywhere

ZLens dashboards are compiled static HTML. No SaaS DB, no login, no runtime server — just a file. Host on S3, GitHub Pages, Vercel, a USB stick.

1. Mark a notebook as a dashboard

Add a dashboard: header to any .dql file:

// dql-format: 1

dashboard: {
  title: "Revenue Overview"
  description: "Daily revenue + segment breakdown"
  layout: "grid"   // grid | single-column
}

// … your cells …

Or scaffold one:

zlens new dashboard overview

2. Compile

zlens build dashboards/overview.dql --out-dir build/
# ✓ compiled 4 cells
# ✓ emitted build/overview.html (312 KB, self-contained)

The output is a single HTML file with inlined CSS, JS, and data. No external fetches at runtime.

3. Host it

# Any static host works. Examples:
aws s3 cp build/overview.html s3://my-dashboards/
# or
vercel deploy build/

Parameters

Params in the notebook become URL query params in the dashboard:

param region: select(options: ["us", "eu", "apac"], default: "us")

Results in overview.html?region=eu.

Verify it worked

• Opening build/overview.html in a browser renders charts without network
• curl -s build/overview.html | grep -c '<script' is small — everything's inlined
• View-source shows your chart data (SSR-style)