superset2/SCOPE.md

SCOPE: Remove the legacy viz pipeline (explore_json + viz.py)

This file is a working tracker for the remove-legacy-viz-pipeline feature branch. It accumulates everything done on this branch and will be distilled into the final PR body. It is deleted before the feature branch merges to master. Companion file: UPDATES.md staging entries destined for UPDATING.md.

Goal

Migrate every remaining useLegacyApi: true viz plugin to the v1 /api/v1/chart/data endpoint (adding buildQuery.ts + post_processing operations / transformProps reshaping as needed), then delete the deprecated explore_json endpoints and superset/viz.py entirely, and drop the legacy- prefix from the surviving plugin package names. Both endpoints have carried @deprecated(eol_version="5.0.0") gates; this branch is the EOL.

Inventory: the 15 remaining legacy viz types

#	viz_type	Plugin	Strategy	Status
1	para	legacy-plugin-chart-parallel-coordinates	Convert in place (pass-through)	✅ (merged)
2	country_map	legacy-plugin-chart-country-map	Convert in place (select/rename)	✅ (merged)
3	bullet	legacy-preset-chart-nvd3/Bullet	Convert in place (single metric)	✅ (merged)
4	chord	legacy-plugin-chart-chord	Convert in place (matrix in transformProps)	✅ (merged)
5	world_map	legacy-plugin-chart-world-map	Convert in place (country join in JS)	✅ (merged)
6	paired_ttest	legacy-plugin-chart-paired-t-test	Convert in place (pivot op)	✅ (merged)
7	time_table	src/visualizations/TimeTable	Convert in place (pivot op)	✅ (merged)
8	cal_heatmap	legacy-plugin-chart-calendar	Convert in place (pivot + epoch keys in JS)	✅ (merged)
9	horizon	legacy-plugin-chart-horizon	Convert in place (timeseries pipeline)	✅ (merged)
10	rose	legacy-plugin-chart-rose	Convert in place (timeseries pipeline)	✅ (merged)
11	time_pivot	legacy-preset-chart-nvd3/TimePivot	Convert in place (pivot + rank in JS)	✅ (merged)
12	bubble	legacy-preset-chart-nvd3/Bubble	Retarget → bubble_v2 (MigrateViz exists, needs Alembic revision)	✅ (merged)
13	compare	legacy-preset-chart-nvd3/Compare	Retarget → echarts_timeseries_line (new MigrateViz)	✅ (merged)
14	partition	legacy-plugin-chart-partition	Convert in place (hierarchy in transformProps)	✅ (merged)
15	deck_multi	preset-chart-deckgl/Multi	Client-side filter-metadata merge + stub buildQuery	✅ (merged)

"Convert in place" = keep the renderer and the viz_type key, add a modern buildQuery.ts, move the viz.py get_data() reshape into transformProps.ts, flip useLegacyApi off. No saved-chart DB migration needed since viz_type is unchanged. "Retarget" = migrate saved charts to an existing modern chart via a MigrateViz processor + Alembic revision, then delete the legacy plugin.

Phases / sub-PRs (each targets this feature branch)

Phase 0 — Dead code deletion

• superset-frontend/plugins/legacy-preset-chart-deckgl/ turned out to have zero tracked files — it was a stale local node_modules/ husk, removed locally, nothing to commit
• Delete legacy-preset-chart-nvd3/src/BoxPlot/ leftovers (unregistered; superseded by ECharts BoxPlot)
• Delete orphaned viz.py classes with no registered frontend: MapboxViz, MapLibreViz, EventFlowViz (no tests referenced them; mapbox saved charts were already migrated to point_cluster_map by revision ce6bd21901ab; the frontend point_cluster_map plugin has its own modern buildQuery, so removing MapLibreViz also fixes cache warm-up, which routed any viz_type in viz_types through the legacy path)

Phase 1 — Chart migrations (tiers 1→4, easiest first; order above)

Per-chart checklist:

• buildQuery.ts returning a buildQueryContext(...) with needed post_processing operators
• transformProps.ts ports the viz.py get_data() reshape (where not expressible as post_processing)
• useLegacyApi removed from plugin metadata
• Jest tests: buildQuery output + transformProps against fixtures captured from the legacy pipeline
• Verify legacy saved-chart form_data (granularity_sqla/time_range) flows through buildQueryContext — add a normalizing same-viz-type MigrateViz if not
• For retargets: MigrateViz processor + superset/cli/viz_migrations.py registration + Alembic revision (with MySQL MEDIUMTEXT widening) + migration tests
• UPDATES.md entry if user-facing behavior changes

Phase 2 — Backend removal (#41750)

• Remove explore_json / explore_json_data / generate_json from superset/views/core.py (incl. CSV/XLSX/async branches)
• Remove CSRF exemption (superset/config.py), the load_explore_json_into_cache celery task and async manager plumbing
• Delete superset/viz.py; unwind importers: views/utils.py (get_viz + explore-cache perm checkers), models/slice.py (Slice.viz, explore_json_url), commands/chart/warm_up_cache.py, common/query_context_processor.py (annotation path), security/manager.py (BaseViz overload + public-role can_explore_json grant)
• Delete tests/unit_tests/test_viz_*.py, tests/integration_tests/viz_tests.py; retarget/remove other explore_json test coverage
• Frontend plumbing: remove useLegacyApi from ChartMetadata, shouldUseLegacyApi, /explore_json/ branches in exploreUtils, chartAction.ts, ChartClient.ts, StatefulChart.tsx, DrillByModal.tsx

Phase 3 — Renames (#41751)

• legacy-plugin-chart-* → plugin-chart-* (dirs, npm names, file: deps, MainPreset imports, Storybook/docs)
• legacy-preset-chart-nvd3 → preset-chart-nvd3 (bullet, time_pivot survive there)
• "(legacy)" chart names and Legacy gallery tags removed with each chart migration

Log of work completed

(append entries as sub-PRs merge: date, sub-PR #, summary)

• 2026-07-02 — #41715 Phase 0 merged: removed orphaned viz.py classes (MapboxViz, MapLibreViz, EventFlowViz) and nvd3 BoxPlot leftovers.

• 2026-07-02 — #41716 para merged: buildQuery (series→columns, secondary metric alias, sort-metric append, explicit orderby ownership), 8 Jest tests.

• 2026-07-02 — #41717 country_map merged: buildQuery (entity+metric), country_id/metric rename in transformProps with both-labels guard, 15 tests.

• 2026-07-02 — #41718 bullet merged: buildQuery (single ungrouped metric), records→{measures} reshape in nvd3 transformProps Bullet branch, 5 tests.

• 2026-07-02 — #41719 chord, #41720 world_map, #41721 paired_ttest, #41723 time_table, #41724 cal_heatmap merged. Notable bot-caught fixes along the way: ChartProps camelization bug in world_map's country join, numeric group ordering in paired_ttest, comma escaping + sub-second keys + grouped single-metric guard in time_table.

• 2026-07-03 — #41725 horizon, #41726 rose (server-side post_processing pipeline; bot caught the legacy 'absolute'→'difference' comparison-type mismatch), #41727 time_pivot (pandas offset rollback ported to JS, incl. quarters) merged. All 11 convert-in-place charts are migrated.

• 2026-07-03 — #41728 bubble, #41729 partition, #41730 deck_multi, #41732 ordering parity, #41738 compare merged. All 15 legacy charts are migrated. Notable: bubble's revision initially chained off the wrong alembic head (filename timestamps lie — walk the down_revision graph); the world bank example now ships bubble_v2.

• Open PRs: #41750 Phase 2 (explore_json + viz.py + frontend useLegacyApi plumbing removal), #41751 Phase 3 (legacy- prefix renames: plugin-chart-*, preset-chart-nvd3).

• 2026-07-02 — Phase 0: removed orphaned viz.py classes (MapboxViz, MapLibreViz, EventFlowViz, −204 lines) and the unregistered nvd3 BoxPlot story leftovers. Verified: ruff clean, tests/unit_tests/test_viz_* pass.

Decisions

• compare → migrating to echarts_timeseries_line; nvd3's interactive % rebasing is not preserved (flagged in UPDATES.md).
• partition → attempting convert-in-place; if the transformProps port proves unmaintainable, fall back to proposing deprecation on dev@.
• Feature branch lives on apache/superset so phase PRs can target it. Tracking files (SCOPE.md, UPDATES.md) are stripped before final merge.
• Tracking files are updated ONLY via direct commits to the feature branch (sub-PRs editing SCOPE.md all conflicted after the first squash-merge).

Open questions

(record anything needing Evan's / community input)