Making a dbt project accessible to Dagster+ Hybrid

If you have a Hybrid deployment, you must make the dbt project accessible to the Dagster code executed by your agent.

For the dbt project to be used by Dagster, it must contain an up-to-date manifest file and project dependencies .

In this guide, we'll demonstrate how to prepare your dbt project for use in your Hybrid deployment in Dagster+.

Prerequisites ​

To follow the steps in this guide, you'll need an existing dbt project that contains the following files in the repository root:

Using an Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Kubernetes, or Docker agent ​

If you are using an Amazon Elastic Container Service (ECS), Kubernetes, or Docker agent for your Hybrid deployments in Dagster+, your Dagster code must be packaged in a Docker image and pushed to a registry your agent can access. In this scenario, to use a dbt project with Dagster, you'll need to include it with your code in the Docker image.

Before including the dbt project in the Docker image, you'll need to make sure it contains an up-to-date manifest file and project dependencies .

This can be done by running the dagster-dbt project prepare-and-package command. In the workflow building and pushing your Docker image, make sure this command runs before building your Docker image to ensure all required dbt files are included. Note that this command runs dbt deps and dbt parse to create your manifest file.

Using CI/CD files ​

If you are using CI/CD files in a Git repository to build and push your Docker image, you'll need to add a few steps to allow the dbt project to deploy successfully.

Our example updates the CI/CD files of a project from a GitHub repository, but this could be achieved in other platform like GitLab.

In your Dagster project, locate the .github/workflows directory.

Open the deploy.yml file.

Locate the step in which which you build and push your docker image.

Before this step, add the following:

- name: Prepare DBT project for deployment
  run: |
    python -m pip install pip --upgrade
    pip install . --upgrade --upgrade-strategy eager                                            ## Install the Python dependencies from the setup.py file, ex: dbt-core and dbt-duckdb
    dagster-dbt project prepare-and-package --file <DAGSTER_PROJECT_FOLDER>/project.py          ## Replace with the project.py location in the Dagster project folder
  shell: bash

When you add this step, you'll need to:

Save the changes.

Open the branch_deployments.yml file and repeat steps 3 - 5.

Commit the changes to the repository.

Once the new step is pushed to the remote, your workflow will be updated to prepare your dbt project before building and pushing your docker image.

Using a local agent ​

When using a local agent for your Hybrid deployments in Dagster+, your Dagster code and dbt project must be in a Python environment that can be accessed on the same machine as your agent.

When updating the dbt project, it is important to refresh the manifest file and project dependencies to ensure that they are up-to-date when used with your Dagster code. This can be done by running the dagster-dbt project prepare-and-package command. Note that this command runs dbt deps and dbt parse to refresh your manifest file.