Table Properties

Snowpack reads snowpack.* table properties from the Iceberg catalog to control per-table behavior. These properties override global defaults set by environment variables or Helm values.

Property reference

Property	Type	Default	Description
`snowpack.maintenance_enabled`	bool	unset	Three-state maintenance enrollment. In opt-out mode (the default) a table is maintained unless this is set to `false`; in opt-in mode only tables set to `true` are maintained. Unset means “use the orchestrator’s mode default”.
`snowpack.maintenance_cadence_hours`	int	`6` (global)	Per-table override for the minimum hours between maintenance runs. Takes precedence over `SNOWPACK_MAINTENANCE_CADENCE_HOURS`.
`snowpack.target_file_size_bytes`	int	`536870912` (512 MB)	Target file size for compaction. Files smaller than this are candidates for rewriting.
`snowpack.max_snapshot_age_days`	int	`5`	Maximum snapshot retention in days. Snapshots older than this are expired during maintenance.
`snowpack.min_input_files`	int	`5`	Minimum number of small files required to trigger compaction. Prevents rewriting when there are only a few small files.
`snowpack.delete_file_threshold`	int	`5`	Trigger delete-file maintenance and data-file rewrite recommendations when total delete files exceed this count.
`snowpack.partial_progress_max_commits`	int	`10`	Maximum partial-progress commits Iceberg can create during one rewrite action.
`snowpack.rewrite_data_delete_file_threshold`	int	`2`	Rewrite data files with at least this many associated delete files. Lower this for tables with broad position-delete pressure.
`snowpack.rewrite_data_delete_ratio_threshold`	float	`0.10`	Rewrite data files when deleted rows exceed this fraction of a data file.
`snowpack.rewrite_data_rewrite_all`	bool	`false`	Force `rewrite_data_files` to rewrite all selected data files. Use only for one-off remediation, not steady-state automation.
`compaction_skip`	bool	`false`	Exclude this table from all Snowpack maintenance. Overrides `snowpack.maintenance_enabled`. Useful for tables undergoing migration or manual intervention.

Setting properties

Set properties using Spark SQL ALTER TABLE ... SET TBLPROPERTIES:

-- Opt a table in to automated maintenance
ALTER TABLE lakehouse_dev.my_database.my_table
  SET TBLPROPERTIES ('snowpack.maintenance_enabled' = 'true');

-- Override cadence and file size for a high-throughput table
ALTER TABLE lakehouse_dev.my_database.my_table
  SET TBLPROPERTIES (
    'snowpack.maintenance_cadence_hours' = '3',
    'snowpack.target_file_size_bytes' = '268435456'
  );

-- Increase data-file rewrites for a table with heavy position-delete pressure
ALTER TABLE lakehouse_dev.my_database.my_table
  SET TBLPROPERTIES (
    'snowpack.rewrite_data_delete_file_threshold' = '1',
    'snowpack.rewrite_data_delete_ratio_threshold' = '0.05',
    'snowpack.min_input_files' = '2',
    'snowpack.partial_progress_max_commits' = '3'
  );

-- Temporarily exclude a table from maintenance
ALTER TABLE lakehouse_dev.my_database.my_table
  SET TBLPROPERTIES ('compaction_skip' = 'true');

To remove a property and revert to the global default:

ALTER TABLE lakehouse_dev.my_database.my_table
  UNSET TBLPROPERTIES ('snowpack.maintenance_cadence_hours');

Visibility

Table properties are surfaced in two places:

Health API — The GET /tables/{database}/{table}/health response includes a snowpack_config field containing all resolved snowpack.* properties for the table. This shows the effective configuration after merging table-level overrides with global defaults.
Web UI — The table detail page displays the current snowpack.* properties alongside health metrics, making it easy to verify configuration without running SQL.