Remote fields

A remote { } block turns a field into a read-only, per-row value fetched live from an http source, {column}-templated from the current row — nothing is stored, nothing is selected in the row query, every read hits the source when the value is shown:

source "carrier_api" {
  type      = "http"
  url       = "https://api.carrier.example.com"
  token_env = "CARRIER_TOKEN"
}

field "shipping_status" {
  label  = "Shipping status"
  widget = "badge"                          # any widget — not just plain text
  remote {
    source = "carrier_api"                  # an already-declared http source
    path   = "/track/{tracking_number}"     # {column} from the current row
    at     = "data.results[0].status"       # a small path DSL, not jq — see below
  }
}

Key	Description
source	Name of a declared source "…" { type = "http" } — same role gate, size cap and env:/${} token resolution as reading that source any other way.
path	Appended to the source's url. {column} placeholders are filled from the row; a masked column is refused, not silently redacted.
at	A path into the JSON response: dotted keys plus [N] array indices ("data.results[0].status"). Omit to use the whole response body.
lazy	Wait for a click in a list instead of fetching every visible row on its own. Default false — see below.

at is deliberately not jq — no filters, pipes or functions, just keys and indices. It answers "which value", not "compute something from the document"; if you need real transformation, do it on the source side.

widget picks how the fetched value renders — badge, money, date, anything a normal field can use — the remote { } block only marks that the value has to be fetched first, it isn't a rendering choice of its own. No widget set → plain text, same default as any other field.

Lists: lazy

Every remote field fetches on its own by default, in the detail view (one row) and in a list alike — a list with 50 rows on screen fires 50 requests. Set lazy = true on a field backed by a slow or expensive endpoint to opt out of that in lists: it then shows a "Load" affordance and waits for a click instead (the detail view still fetches on mount either way, since that's a single row):

field "shipping_status" {
  widget = "badge"
  remote {
    source = "carrier_api"
    path   = "/track/{tracking_number}"
    at     = "data.results[0].status"
    lazy   = true
  }
}

There's no write path: a remote field is always readonly, the same as a computed (sql) column.

Arrays: the table widget

If at resolves to an array — say at = "data.results" with no index — pair it with widget = "table" to render it as a small inline table instead of a single value:

field "recent_shipments" {
  widget = "table"
  params = {
    columns = [
      "carrier",                                                        # bare name → header = the name
      { field = "status", label = "Status", labels = { es = "Estado" } },
      { field = "eta_days", label = "ETA (days)" },
    ]
  }
  remote {
    source = "carrier_api"
    path   = "/history/{customer_id}"
    at     = "data.shipments"
  }
}

params.columns picks which keys become columns, in order; omit it and the first row's own keys are used. Each entry is either a bare field name (the header is the name itself) or { field, label, labels } — the same label/labels shape a field { } block uses, resolved against the viewer's locale client-side. table isn't remote-specific — it renders any array-of-objects value, including a plain json/jsonb column.

remote { } is hand-authored HCL only

The visual builder's Fields tab doesn't have a remote { } editor yet — add it (and the table widget's params.columns) directly in screen.hcl. The field works exactly the same once written; there's just no click-through UI for it today.