Building dbt Model Lineage in Python
Building DBT Lineage: A Technical Deep Dive Introduction In the world of data engineering, dbt has become the de facto standard for transforming data in the warehouse. As a project grows from a handful of models to hundreds or even thousands, understanding the web of dependencies—the lineage—becomes critically important. While dbt docs provides a powerful visual graph, there are many scenarios where you need programmatic access to this lineage for advanced automation and analysis. This article will guide you through building a Python script to parse a dbt project, extract model dependencies from ref() functions, and construct a complete lineage file that you can use for powerful, automated analysis. The "Why": The Power of Programmatic Lineage Why do we need to go beyond the visual graph? Automated Impact Analysis : When you modify a core model, you n...