2026-01 Monthly Summary — Focused on delivering a flexible, maintainable Impala provider and aligning dependency management with Airflow requirements. Delivered a feature to make SQLAlchemy an optional dependency for the Impala provider, reducing deployment friction and improving compatibility across environments. Refactored ImpalaHook to inline SQLAlchemy import logic and updated development dependencies to reflect optional usage. Aligned minimum SQLAlchemy version with Airflow requirements to ensure compatibility. Updated dev workflow to use optional dependencies in the development group to avoid version duplication. These changes reduce dependency conflicts, simplify upgrade paths for users, and improve overall maintainability of the Impala provider. Technologies/skills demonstrated include Python, dependency management, Airflow provider architecture, SQLAlchemy integration, and modernized dev workflows. Business value: easier deployments, broader compatibility, and a cleaner, more maintainable codebase.