dbt project structure - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Understanding dbt Project Structure

📖 Scenario: You are working as a data analyst who wants to organize your data transformation work using dbt (data build tool). You want to create a simple dbt project structure to manage your SQL models and configurations.

🎯 Goal: Build a basic dbt project structure by creating the main folders and files needed to start transforming data with dbt.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a models folder with a SQL file inside

Create a dbt_project.yml configuration file

Create a profiles.yml file placeholder for connection settings

Understand the purpose of each file and folder in the dbt project

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

dbt is widely used in data teams to organize and automate data transformations in a clear, maintainable way.

💼 Career

Understanding dbt project structure is essential for data analysts and engineers working with modern data pipelines and analytics workflows.

1

Create the models folder and a SQL model file

Create a folder named models and inside it create a file named my_first_model.sql with the exact content: select 1 as id.

dbt

# Create the models folder and add my_first_model.sql with 'select 1 as id' inside
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The models folder holds your SQL files that define data transformations. Start with a simple SQL file that selects a constant.

2

Create the dbt_project.yml configuration file

Create a file named dbt_project.yml in the root folder with the exact content:
name: 'my_dbt_project' version: '1.0' config-version: 2 profile: 'default' model-paths: ['models']

dbt

# models/my_first_model.sql
select 1 as id

# Create dbt_project.yml with the specified content
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The dbt_project.yml file tells dbt about your project name, version, and where to find your models.

3

Create a placeholder profiles.yml file for connection settings

Create a file named profiles.yml with the exact content:
default: target: dev outputs: dev: type: 'postgres' host: 'localhost' user: 'user' password: 'password' dbname: 'my_database' schema: 'public'

dbt

# models/my_first_model.sql
select 1 as id

# dbt_project.yml
name: 'my_dbt_project'
version: '1.0'
config-version: 2
profile: 'default'
model-paths: ['models']

# Create profiles.yml with the specified content
# Your code here

Need a hint?

The profiles.yml file stores your database connection details. This example uses a local Postgres database.

4

Display the dbt project structure summary

Print the exact text:
Project structure includes models folder with SQL files, dbt_project.yml config file, and profiles.yml connection file.

dbt

# models/my_first_model.sql
select 1 as id

# dbt_project.yml
name: 'my_dbt_project'
version: '1.0'
config-version: 2
profile: 'default'
model-paths: ['models']

# profiles.yml
default:
  target: dev
  outputs:
    dev:
      type: 'postgres'
      host: 'localhost'
      user: 'user'
      password: 'password'
      dbname: 'my_database'
      schema: 'public'

# Print the project structure summary below
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use a print statement to show the summary text exactly as given.