dbt_project.yml

Every dbt project needs a dbt_project.yml file — this is how dbt knows a directory is a dbt project. It also contains important information that tells dbt how to operate your project.

• dbt uses YAML in a few different places. If you're new to YAML, it would be worth learning how arrays, dictionaries, and strings are represented.

• By default, dbt looks for the dbt_project.yml in your current working directory and its parents, but you can set a different directory using the --project-dir flag or the DBT_PROJECT_DIR environment variable.

• Specify your dbt Cloud project ID in the dbt_project.yml file using project-id under the dbt-cloud config. Find your project ID in your dbt Cloud project URL: For example, in https://YOUR_ACCESS_URL/11/projects/123456, the project ID is 123456.

• Note, you can't set up a "property" in the dbt_project.yml file if it's not a config (an example is macros). This applies to all types of resources. Refer to Configs and properties for more detail.

Example

The following example is a list of all available configurations in the dbt_project.yml file:

Naming convention

It's important to follow the correct YAML naming conventions for the configs in your dbt_project.yml file to ensure dbt can process them properly. This is especially true for resource types with more than one word.

• Use dashes (-) when configuring resource types with multiple words in your dbt_project.yml file. Here's an example for saved queries:

  dbt_project.yml

  saved-queries:  # Use dashes for resource types in the dbt_project.yml file.
    my_saved_query:
      config:
        +cache:
          enabled: true

• Use underscore (_) when configuring resource types with multiple words for YAML files other than the dbt_project.yml file. For example, here's the same saved queries resource in the semantic_models.yml file:

  models/semantic_models.yml

  saved_queries:  # Use underscores everywhere outside the dbt_project.yml file.
    - name: saved_query_name
      ... # Rest of the saved queries configuration.
      config:
        cache:
          enabled: true