# \[Launched\] SQL Passthrough for AQL 🚀

**URL:** <https://community.holistics.io/t/launched-sql-passthrough-for-aql/2556>\
**Category:** Product Releases\
**Tags:** aql\
**Created:** [October 1, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://community.holistics.io/t/launched-sql-passthrough-for-aql/2556 "2025-10-01T09:49:14Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Khai\_To](https://community.holistics.io/user_avatar/community.holistics.io/khai_to/32/128_2.png) [@Khai\_To](https://community.holistics.io/u/Khai_To)\
**Post date:** [October 1, 2025, 9:49am UTC](https://community.holistics.io/t/launched-sql-passthrough-for-aql/2556/1 "2025-10-01T09:49:14Z")

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Hi everyone,

Have you ever received JSON data in your dataset and wished you could unnest it _right there_, without having to go back and modify your data model?

Previously, you’d need to:

- 🔙 Navigate back to the model
- 🛠 Create a SQL dimension
- ✍ Write custom SQL just to extract fields

Why? Because AQL doesn’t yet have built-in support for these database-specific functions (like JSON unnesting).

Now, with **SQL Passthrough for AQL** , you can do this directly in your dataset! 🎉  
No more back-and-forth — just write AQL and leverage native SQL functions to handle JSON (and much more).

[![](https://community.holistics.io/uploads/default/original/2X/6/6e11ebeeffb80547060c8b63dc95425466d60a0e.jpeg "Supercharge AQL with SQL Passthrough") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26KXoCWKtUQ)

This isn’t limited to JSON unnesting — **any database-specific functionality not available in AQL** can now be tapped into using passthrough.

👉 **How it works** :  
SQL Passthrough functions act as a bridge, letting you call native SQL functions from your underlying database while maintaining type safety inside AQL.

That means you can:

- Extract fields from JSON directly in your dataset
- Apply database-specific functions (Postgres, BigQuery, MySQL, etc.)
- Extend the power of AQL without breaking your workflow

For more details, you can visit our public doc here: [SQL Passthrough Functions | Holistics Docs (4.0)](https://docs.holistics.io/as-code/reference/sql-passthrough-functions)