Why do I see empty files in my blob storage export?
The blob storage integration exports one time window of data per run, writing a file per table (for example observations_v2/ and scores/). If you find empty files in your bucket, this is expected behavior — here's why, and how to handle it.
Empty files are expected and normal — they are not an error or a sign of data loss. A given time window may contain data for some tables but not others (for example, observations but no scores in that window). When a table has no data for a window, the exporter may still write a file for it, and that file will be empty.
What an empty file looks like depends on the configured file format:
| Format | Empty file looks like |
|---|---|
| JSON | A file containing [] |
| JSONL | An empty file |
| CSV | A header row only (or empty) |
Build downstream pipelines to tolerate empty files:
- Treat an empty file as "no data in this window for this table," not as a failure, and don't alert on its presence.
- Don't assume a file is always present for every window and table. List the objects in each directory and ingest what's there rather than relying on a fixed file-per-window pattern.
- Point pipelines at the directory (for example
observations_v2/orscores/) rather than parsing filenames. The directory prefixes are stable, but the exact filename format within them is not a stable contract.
For the full file layout and field reference, see the Export Field Reference.
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