Oct 09, 2025: dbt Projects on Snowflake: Recent improvements (Preview)¶

dbt Project failures show up as failed queries¶

Any dbt Project errors — like compile or test failures — now appear as query failures. This makes it easier to handle them with tasks or other orchestration tools. You can view detailed logs using SELECT SYSTEM$get_dbt_log('<query_id>').

Compile on create¶

Whenever you deploy or update a dbt Project object, it’s automatically compiled so build artifacts are up to date and Snowsight works smoothly.

This could cause a breaking change if you’re deploying projects that fail during compilation.

Compilation currently uses the profile in your profiles.yml by default. As a workaround, you can update your profiles.yml prior to deployment to point to the production target before deploying. In a future release, you’ll be able to override this with DEFAULT_TARGET on the Project object.

Install deps on compile¶

You can optionally run dbt deps during deployment to install project dependencies by setting EXTERNAL_ACCESS_INTEGRATIONS=[...ext] on your deploy or update commands. This means you no longer need to include /dbt_packages when deploying projects with external dependencies.

In a future release, compile on create will support the local: syntax.

MONITOR privilege¶

dbt Projects now support the MONITOR privilege. This allows you to see the execution history, download the build artifacts of a dbt Project object and download build artifacts of each dbt Project execution. This privilege can be granted at the DATABASE or SCHEMA level.

Accessing execution results is easier¶

You can download build artifacts directly from the Query History page or use the following new system functions:

• SELECT SYSTEM$LOCATE_DBT_ARTIFACTS($latest_query_id): Returns the file path for dbt Project artifacts from a run (for example, snow://dbt/DB_TEST.PUBLIC.DBT_PROJECT_TEST/results/query_id_01bf3f5a-010b-4d87-0000-53493abb7cce/).

• SELECT SYSTEM$LOCATE_DBT_ARCHIVE($latest_query_id): Returns the location of the dbt Project output archive zip.

• SELECT SYSTEM$GET_DBT_LOG($latest_query_id): Returns the last 1000 lines of the dbt.log file. For full logs, download the archive zip.

Use the Snowflake CLI to download these artifacts from the results stage, for example:

snowsql -q “GET 'snow://dbt_project/DB_TEST.PUBLIC.DBT_PROJECT_TEST/results/query_id_01bf3f89-0300-0001-0000-0000000c1229/dbt_artifacts.zip' file:///Users/user_name/Code/temp"

This new approach replaces OUTPUT_ARCHIVE_URL and improves interoperability with Snowflake CLI and other services.

For more information, see dbt Projects on Snowflake.