Feature Request: Support Source-Side Data Filtering (e.g., WHERE conditions)

[ramanathanv]

Summary

Enable connectors to optionally apply filtering conditions (date range, updated-after, specific fields) before retrieving data.

Motivation / Use Case

Many users want to sync:

• Only recently created/updated records
• Only a subset of tables or fields
• Reduced datasets for cost reasons
• Data scoped to business logic (e.g., “orders after 2023-01-01”)

Without filtering, Airbyte must ingest the entire dataset—even when only a targeted slice is needed.

Proposed Behavior

• Add optional filter expressions in connector configuration
• Allow connector-specific implementations (e.g., SQL WHERE, API query parameters)
• Ensure incremental sync compatibility

Community Benefit

• Reduces load on source systems
• Speeds up initial syncs
• Saves compute/storage
• Makes Airbyte suitable for selective, real-time use cases

Willingness to Contribute

We are ready to contribute the implementation for this feature and can start development once maintainers confirm the direction and any design constraints.