Develop dbt in Mage

Read the setup guide to initialize a new project and start the Mage tool locally.

For the rest of this tutorial, we’ll use the project name demo_project.

• Open Mage and go to the terminal page: http://localhost:6789/terminal
• Initiate your dbt project using the init command (for this tutorial, we’ll use the dbt project name demo):

cd demo_project/dbt
dbt init -s demo
touch demo/profiles.yml

For more information on creating a dbt project, read their documentation.

• Go to the Mage dashboard and click the button + New pipeline and select the option labeled Standard (batch).
• Click the Pipeline settings icon in the left pane, and change its name to dbt demo pipeline, then click the Save pipeline settings button.

• On the left side of the page in the file browser, expand the folder demo_project/dbt/demo/.
• Click the file named profiles.yml.
• Paste the following credentials in that file:

demo:
  target: dev
  outputs:
    dev:
      dbname: xyleviup
      host: queenie.db.elephantsql.com
      password: edSrMWH7Mww-lTKpp-jPHX9sYSNLy7LG
      port: 5432
      schema: dbt_demo
      type: postgres
      user: xyleviup

• Save the profiles.yml file by pressing Command (⌘) + S.
• Close the file by pressing the X button on the right side of the file name dbt/demo/profiles.yml.

• Click the + Data loader button, select Python, then click API.

• In the popup dialog Data loader block name, change its name to load data, then click the Save and add block button.

• Paste the following code in that block:

  import io
  import pandas as pd
  import requests
  from pandas import DataFrame
  
  
  @data_loader
  def load_data_from_api(**kwargs) -> DataFrame:
      url = 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mage-ai/datasets/master/restaurant_user_transactions.csv'
  
      response = requests.get(url)
      df = pd.read_csv(io.StringIO(response.text), sep=',')
      df.columns = ['_'.join(col.split(' ')) for col in df.columns]
      return df
  

• Under the data loader block you just added, click the button dbt model, then click the option Single model.

• In the file browser that pops up, click the file named my_second_dbt_model.sql under the folders demo/models/example/.

• This will add 2 dbt blocks to your pipeline: 1 for the dbt model named my_first_dbt_model and the 2nd for the dbt model named my_second_dbt_model.

• The model named my_first_dbt_model was added to the pipeline because my_second_dbt_model references it.

• In the dbt block named my_first_dbt_model, next to the label Target at the top, choose dev in the dropdown list. You can also check Manually enter target, and enter dev in the input field.
• Paste the following SQL into the dbt model named my_first_dbt_model:

WITH source_data AS (
    SELECT 1 AS id
    UNION ALL
    SELECT 2 AS id
)

SELECT *
FROM source_data

• Run the dbt model block by pressing the play button on the top right of the block or by pressing Command + Enter.
• You should see a preview of the query execution logs. To see the query results, click the Expand table link at the bottom right corner.

• After previewing the results, in the top right corner of the block, click on the triple dots to reveal a dropdown menu.
• Under the dropdown menu, click the option Run model. This command will execute the dbt run command and create the table in your data source.

• In the dbt block named my_second_dbt_model, next to the label Target at the top, choose dev in the dropdown list. You can also check Manually enter target, and enter dev in the input field.

• Paste the following SQL into the dbt model named my_second_dbt_model:

  SELECT
      a.*
      , b.*
  FROM {{ ref('my_first_dbt_model') }} AS a
  
  LEFT JOIN {{ source('mage_demo', 'dbt_demo_pipeline_load_data') }} AS b
  ON 1 = 1
  
  WHERE a.id = 1
  

  dbt sources

  When a dbt model depends on an upstream block that isn’t a dbt model, a source for that block is automatically added to the demo_project/dbt/demo/models/mage_sources.yml file.

  Read more about dbt sources in their documentation.

• Run the dbt model block by pressing the play button on the top right of the block or by pressing Command + Enter.

• You should see a preview of the query execution logs. To see the query results, click the Expand table link at the bottom right corner.

• On the right side of the screen, click the tab labeled Terminal.
• Create a new dbt test file by running the following command:

  touch demo_project/dbt/demo/tests/test_my_second_dbt_model.sql
  

• On the left side of the page in the file browser, expand the folder demo_project/dbt/demo/tests/ and click the file named test_my_second_dbt_model.sql. If you don’t see it, refresh the page.
• Paste the following SQL in the file:

  SELECT id
  FROM {{ ref('my_second_dbt_model') }}
  GROUP BY id
  HAVING (id = 0)
  

• Read more about dbt tests in their documentation.

• Click the name of the pipeline in the header breadcrumbs to go back to the detail page.

• Create a new trigger with a type Schedule and a Frequency once. For more details, follow these steps.

• After your trigger is created, click the Start trigger button at the top of the page.

• The pipeline will eventually fail because a dbt test failed. This means everything is working as expected.

• Open the file demo_project/dbt/demo/models/example/schema.yml and remove the tests named unique under both models. Your file should look like this:

  
  version: 2
  
  models:
    - name: my_first_dbt_model
      description: "A starter dbt model"
      columns:
        - name: id
          description: "The primary key for this table"
          tests:
            - not_null
  
    - name: my_second_dbt_model
      description: "A starter dbt model"
      columns:
        - name: id
          description: "The primary key for this table"
          tests:
            - not_null
  
  

• Click on the Failed button next to the pipeline run and click Retry run. It should complete running successfully after a few minutes.