# Build a dataset

Source: https://mostlyright.md/docs/build/

Follow the build from finding a source to publishing and refreshing the finished dataset.

Check the sources, write a recipe, inspect its capabilities with `recipe explain`, and forecast the work. Test on a scratch table when you need to inspect a bounded run. Then run the real table in full and verify its rows and coverage. The first successful run makes a new table live; a refresh schedule works only when its recipe supports it. [How a build works](/docs/start/how-it-works/)
explains the objects and states involved.

| Stage | Guide | What it covers |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | [Probe a source](/docs/build/probe-sources/) | The catalogue, saved connections, reading a source before you commit to it, when to stop. |
| 2 | [Write a recipe](/docs/build/write-a-recipe/) | The document top to bottom, the rules agents get wrong, registration and the identifiers it returns. |
| 3 | [Run and inspect](/docs/build/run-and-inspect/) | Safe testing, one full build, status and events, checks, preview, bounded queries, receipts and download. |
| 4 | [Publish and keep it fresh](/docs/build/publish-and-refresh/) | What going live means, cadence, reschedule, pin and unpin, demote, rename and retire. |
| | [Make builds efficient](/docs/build/efficient-builds/) | Forecast, reuse, source pacing and observed performance. |
| | [Source credentials](/docs/build/credentials/) | Storing a credential by name and naming it from a recipe. |
| | [Live streams](/docs/build/live-streams/) | Recording a `wss://` venue and building a table that grows from it. |
| | [Many-page sources](/docs/build/collections/) | Bounded collections of pages, and the crawler behaviour operators see. |
| | [Documents and files](/docs/build/documents/) | Document projection and the scientific formats. |
| | [Fix a failed run](/docs/build/troubleshooting/) | The failures an author sees, what each one means, what to change. |

The [CLI reference](/docs/reference/cli/) specifies every command these guides use, the [recipe document reference](/docs/reference/recipe/) every field, and the [recipe examples](/docs/recipes/) every shape.