Data Contracts block _dlt tables creation

[DrRaider]

dlt version

0.4.8

Describe the problem

I tried to use table: freeze on an existing database, to write to an existing table, but since the _dlt tables were missing, I got the following error: Contract on tables with mode freeze is violated. Trying to add table xxxxxx but new tables are frozen..

Expected behavior

_dlt tables should be create even with freeze enabled, or it should be documented that we need to create them first.
And maybe differentiate the error so that the user knows that it's the _dlt tables that are missing.

Steps to reproduce

On a clean project (first run) if I run my pipeline with table: freeze and I have created the table I want to write to, then I get an error Contract on tables with mode freeze is violated. Trying to add table xxxxxx but new tables are frozen..
If I then remove the table: freeze run it once, and finally add it back, it will run without issue.

The main differences between the two runs is that on the second one I have the _dlt tables already created.

Operating system

macOS

Runtime environment

Local

Python version

3.11

dlt data source

Cloud Pub/Sub -> JSON

dlt destination

Postgres

Other deployment details

No response

Additional information

No response

[DrRaider]

I'm adding the slack thread link: https://dlthub-community.slack.com/archives/C04DQA7JJN6/p1712848047582969?thread_ts=1712847020.454509&cid=C04DQA7JJN6

[rudolfix]

@sh-rp let's investigate! this was one of our test cases and I'm pretty sure we have exception for it...

[sh-rp]

@DrRaider this is not a problem with the dlt tables, these will always be created, it is a problem that our internal schema does not know about the table that dlt has never seen but exists on the destination. To make this work allowing table evolution once is the way to go as you suggest. I will add a small note in the docs.