Athena Block

The Athena block integrates Amazon Athena into your workflows. Use it to execute SQL queries directly against data in Amazon S3, retrieve query results, and manage query executions without provisioning any infrastructure.

Overview

When to Use

• Run ad-hoc SQL analytics over data stored in Amazon S3 without spinning up a database server
• Kick off a long-running query and collect its execution ID for later polling
• Fetch the result set of a completed query for downstream processing in your workflow
• Check the state and timing details of a query execution before reading its output
• Cancel an in-flight query that is no longer needed to avoid unnecessary data-scan charges
• Audit recent query executions in an Athena workgroup

Configuration

Operation

Dropdown that selects the Athena action to perform. Required. The selection drives which additional fields are shown.

AWS Region

The AWS region where your Athena service runs (e.g. us-east-1). Required for all operations.

Access Key ID

AWS IAM access key ID used to authenticate requests. Required. Stored as a secret (masked input).

Secret Access Key

AWS IAM secret access key paired with the access key ID. Required. Stored as a secret (masked input).

SQL Query

The SQL statement to execute against S3 data. Shown only when Operation is athena_start_query.

Database

The Athena/Glue database to run the query against. Shown only when Operation is athena_start_query.

Output S3 Location

The S3 path where Athena writes query results (e.g. s3://my-bucket/query-results/). Shown only when Operation is athena_start_query.

Query Execution ID

The identifier of an existing query execution. Shown (and required) when Operation is athena_get_query_results, athena_get_query_execution, or athena_stop_query.

Inputs & Outputs

• Inputs:

  • operation (string) — Operation to perform
  • awsRegion (string) — AWS region
  • awsAccessKeyId (string) — AWS access key ID
  • awsSecretAccessKey (string) — AWS secret access key
  • queryString (string) — SQL query
  • database (string) — Database name
  • outputLocation (string) — S3 output location
  • queryExecutionId (string) — Query execution ID

• Outputs:

  • queryExecutionId (string) — Query execution ID
  • results (json) — Query results
  • status (string) — Query status

Tools

Athena Start Query (athena_start_query) — Submits an SQL query for asynchronous execution in Athena and returns the queryExecutionId. Accepts queryString, database, outputLocation, catalog (default: AwsDataCatalog), and workGroup (default: primary) in addition to the AWS credentials.

Athena Get Query Results (athena_get_query_results) — Retrieves the result rows of a completed query execution. Returns columns (metadata array), rows (key-value objects), an optional nextToken for pagination, and an optional updateCount for INSERT/UPDATE statements.

Athena Get Query Execution (athena_get_query_execution) — Returns the full status and performance details of a query execution: state (QUEUED, RUNNING, SUCCEEDED, FAILED, CANCELLED), stateChangeReason, statementType, database, catalog, workGroup, submissionDateTime, completionDateTime, dataScannedInBytes, and timing metrics in milliseconds.

Athena Stop Query (athena_stop_query) — Cancels a running query execution. Returns a success boolean confirming the cancellation.

Athena List Query Executions (athena_list_query_executions) — Lists recent query execution IDs for a workgroup. Accepts optional workGroup, maxResults (0–50), and nextToken for pagination. Returns queryExecutionIds (array) and an optional nextToken.

YAML Example

athena_1:
  type: athena
  name: "Athena"
  inputs:
    operation: "athena_start_query"
    awsRegion: "us-east-1"
    awsAccessKeyId: "{{AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID}}"
    awsSecretAccessKey: "{{AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY}}"
    queryString: "SELECT * FROM my_table LIMIT 10"
    database: "my_database"
    outputLocation: "s3://my-bucket/query-results/"
  connections:
    outgoing:
      - target: next-block-id