What is the difference between a directed acyclic graph and a lineage graph?

A directed acyclic graph (DAG) is a graph with directed edges and no cycles, meaning you cannot start at a node and follow edges to return to the same node. DAGs are used in many computing contexts, such as task scheduling, build systems, and data processing pipelines. A lineage graph, on the other hand, is a specialized DAG that records the provenance of data: each node represents a data artifact or transformation, and edges indicate that one artifact was produced from another. In data processing frameworks like Spark or Flink, the lineage graph tracks how input data is transformed through stages, enabling fault tolerance and incremental recomputation. Thus, while all lineage graphs are DAGs, not all DAGs are lineage graphs; the latter carries semantic meaning about data provenance.