Understand dbt project objects¶

A DBT PROJECT is a schema-level object that contains versioned source files for your dbt project in Snowflake. You can connect a dbt project object to a workspace, or you can create and manage the object independently of a workspace.

A dbt project object is typically based on a dbt project directory that contains a dbt-project.yml file. This is the pattern that Snowflake uses when you deploy (create) a dbt project object from within a workspace.

dbt project objects support role-based access control (RBAC). You can CREATE, ALTER, and DROP dbt project objects like other schema-level objects in Snowflake. You can use the EXECUTE DBT PROJECT command from a Snowflake warehouse to run dbt commands like test and run. You can also use tasks to schedule execution of these commands.

How dbt project objects get updated¶

dbt project objects don’t automatically update as you edit the workspace; you must deploy (that is, add a new version) each time you want the object to pick up code changes.

To create a production pipeline, we recommend creating a dbt project object and scheduling its execution with a task. Because each dbt project object version is immutable, doing so ensures nothing changes between runs unless someone explicitly adds a new version.

To update the dbt Project’s files, you must add a new version in a workspace, for example:

ALTER DBT PROJECT testdbt.public.my_dbt_project_object
  ADD VERSION FROM 'snow://workspace/user$.public."all_my_dbt_projects"/versions/last';

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If your dbt Project is backed by Git and you want to automate your testing and deployment, run the Snow CLI snow dbt deploy command with the --force option, as shown in the following example:

snow dbt deploy --source 'snow://workspace/user$.public."all_my_dbt_projects"/versions/last'  --force my_dbt_project;

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--force enables you to add a version; without it, it would be the equivalent of running CREATE DBT PROJECT on an already created object, which would fail.

For more information about versioning, see Versions for dbt project objects and files.