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Connect Databricks to Athena so each member can browse catalogs and run SQL against your warehouses as their own Databricks identity. Unity Catalog ACLs apply unchanged, and no personal access tokens are shared.
Setup is two steps, done by two different people: your Databricks account administrator registers an OAuth app connection, then an Athena workspace admin saves that app once for the whole workspace. Members can only connect after both are done.

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Step 1 — Register an OAuth app in Databricks (account admin)

  1. Open the Databricks Account Console:
  2. Settings → App connections → Add connection. Name it e.g. Athena.
  3. Redirect URLs — add:
    You can add multiple redirect URLs if you use more than one Athena environment.
  4. Scopes — all-apis and offline_access. The second one is required so Athena can refresh tokens without re-prompting members.
  5. Create. Databricks shows the Client ID and Client Secret exactly once — copy both immediately.
  6. Copy your Account ID as well (top-right user menu in the Account Console). This is the account UUID, not the workspace org-id.

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Step 2 — Enable Databricks in Athena (workspace admin, once)

An Athena workspace admin or owner must add this on the Athena side for the entire workspace before individual members can connect. Members cannot configure it themselves, and the connect option stays hidden until it’s saved. Open Workspace Settings → Treasury → Integrations, expand Databricks, click Add app, and fill in: Toggle the app on and Save app. You can add more than one app — for example one per Databricks workspace — and members pick which one to authorize against. Secrets are encrypted at rest and never returned to the browser.

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Step 3 — Members connect (each user)

  1. Go to Integrations and click Databricks → Connect.
  2. Sign in to Databricks in the popup and grant the requested scopes.
  3. Athena creates a private catalog for you with a warehouse picker and SQL editor. Queries run as your Databricks identity.

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Troubleshooting

Tokens are per-user, encrypted at rest, and refreshed automatically. Unity Catalog governs what each member can query — Athena adds no access of its own.