With dbt Explorer, you can view your project's resources (such as models, tests, and metrics) and their lineage to gain a better understanding of its latest production state. Navigate and manage your projects within dbt Cloud to help you and other data developers, analysts, and consumers discover and leverage your dbt resources.
dbt Explorer uses the metadata provided by the Discovery API to display the details about the state of your project. The metadata that's available depends on the deployment environment you've designated as production in your dbt Cloud project. dbt Explorer automatically retrieves the metadata updates after each job run in the production deployment environment so it always has the latest results for your project.
To view a resource and its metadata, you must define the resource in your project and run a job in the production environment. The resulting metadata depends on the commands executed by the jobs.
To view in Explorer
You must successfully run
Model lineage, details, or results
dbt run or dbt build on a given model within a job in the environment
Columns and statistics for models, sources, and snapshots
dbt Explorer provides a visualization of your project’s DAG that you can interact with. To access the project's full lineage graph, select Overview in the left sidebar and click the Explore Lineage button on the main (center) section of the page.
If you don't see the project lineage graph immediately, click Render Lineage. It can take some time for the graph to render depending on the size of your project and your computer’s available memory. The graph of very large projects might not render so you can select a subset of nodes by using selectors, instead.
The nodes in the lineage graph represent the project’s resources and the edges represent the relationships between the nodes. Nodes are color-coded and include iconography according to their resource type.
By default, dbt Explorer shows the project's applied state lineage. That is, it shows models that have been successfully built and are available to query, not just the models defined in the project.
To explore the lineage graphs of tests and macros, view their resource details pages. By default, dbt Explorer excludes these resources from the full lineage graph unless a search query returns them as results.
Select a resource to highlight its relationship with other resources in your project. A panel opens on the graph’s right-hand side that displays a high-level summary of the resource’s details. The side panel includes a General tab for information like description, materialized type, and other details.
Click the Share icon in the side panel to copy the graph’s link to your clipboard.
Use selectors (in the search bar) to select specific resources or a subset of the DAG. This can help narrow the focus on the resources that interest you. All selectors are available for use, except those requiring a state comparison (result, source status, and state). You can also use the --exclude and the --select flag (which is optional). Examples:
resource_type:model [RESOURCE_NAME] — Returns all models matching the name search
resource_type:metric,tag:nightly — Returns metrics with the tag nightly
Use graph operators (in the search bar) to select specific resources or a subset of the DAG. This can help narrow the focus on the resources that interest you. Examples:
+orders — Returns all the upstream nodes of orders
+dim_customers,resource_type:source — Returns all sources that are upstream of dim_customers
Use set operators (in the search bar) to select specific resources or a subset of the DAG. This can help narrow the focus on the resources that interest you. For example:
+snowplow_sessions +fct_orders — Use space-delineated arguments for a union operation. Returns resources that are upstream nodes of either snowplow_sessions or fct_orders.
The Lenses feature is available from your project's lineage graph (lower right corner). Lenses are like map layers for your DAG. Lenses make it easier to understand your project’s contextual metadata at scale, especially to distinguish a particular model or a subset of models.
When you apply a lens, tags become visible on the nodes in the lineage graph, indicating the layer value along with coloration based on that value. If you're significantly zoomed out, only the tags and their colors are visible in the graph.
You can locate resources in your project by performing a keyword search in the search bar. All resource names, column names, resource descriptions, warehouse relations, and code matching your search criteria will be displayed as a list on the main (center) section of the page. When searching for an exact column name, the results show all relational nodes containing that column in their schemas. If there's a match, a notice in the search result indicates the resource contains the specified column. Also, you can apply filters to further refine your search results.
Partial keyword search — This is also referred to as fuzzy search.
Exclude keywords — Prepend a minus sign (-) to the keyword you want to exclude from search results. For example, -user will exclude all matches of that keyword from search results.
Boolean operators — Use Boolean operators to enhance your keyword search. For example, the search results for users OR github will include matches for either keyword.
Phrase search — Surround a string of keywords with double quotation marks to search for that exact phrase (for example, "stg users"). To learn more, refer to Phrase search on Wikipedia.
SQL keyword search — Use SQL keywords in your search. For example, the search results int github users joined will include matches that contain that specific string of keywords (similar to phrase searching).
The Filters side panel becomes available after you perform a keyword search. Use this panel to further refine the results from your keyword search. By default, Explorer searches across all resources in the project. You can filter on:
Under the the Models option, you can filter on model properties (access or materialization type). Also available are Advanced options, where you can limit the search results to column name, model code, and more.
From the sidebar, you can browse your project's resources, its file tree, and the database.
Resources tab — All resources in the project organized by type. Select any resource type in the list and all those resources in the project will display as a table in the main section of the page. For a description on the different resource types (like models, metrics, and so on), refer to About dbt projects.
File Tree tab — All resources in the project organized by the file in which they are defined. This mirrors the file tree in your dbt project repository.
Database tab — All resources in the project organized by the database and schema in which they are built. This mirrors your data platform's structure that represents the applied state of your project.
If models in the project are versioned, you can see which version of the model is being applied — prerelease, latest, and old — in the title of the model’s details page and in the model list from the sidebar.
You can view the definition and latest run results of any resource in your project. To find a resource and view its details, you can interact with the lineage graph, use search, or browse the catalog.
The details (metadata) available to you depends on the resource’s type, its definition, and the commands that run within jobs in the production environment.
Status bar (below the page title) — Information on the last time the model ran, whether the run was successful, how the data is materialized, number of rows, and the size of the model.
General tab includes:
Lineage graph — The model’s lineage graph that you can interact with. The graph includes one upstream node and one downstream node from the model. Click the Expand icon in the graph's upper right corner to view the model in full lineage graph mode.
Recent section — Information on the last time the model ran, how long it ran for, whether the run was successful, the job ID, and the run ID.
Tests section — Tests for the model, including a status indicator for the latest test status. A ✅ denotes a passing test.
Details section — Key properties like the model’s relation name (for example, how it’s represented and how you can query it in the data platform: database.schema.identifier); model governance attributes like access, group, and if contracted; and more.
Relationships section — The nodes the model Depends On, is Referenced by, and (if applicable) is Used by for projects that have declared the models' project as a dependency.
Code tab — The source code and compiled code for the model.
Columns tab — The available columns in the model. This tab also shows tests results (if any) that you can select to view the test's details page. A ✅ denotes a passing test. To filter the columns in the resource, you can use the search bar that's located at the top of the columns view.
Status bar (below the page title) — Information on the last time the test ran, whether the test passed, test name, test target, and column name.
General tab includes:
Lineage graph — The test’s lineage graph that you can interact with. The graph includes one upstream node and one downstream node from the test resource. Click the Expand icon in the graph's upper right corner to view the test in full lineage graph mode.
Description section — A description of the test.
Recent section — Information on the last time the test ran, how long it ran for, whether the test passed, the job ID, and the run ID.
Details section — Details like schema, severity, package, and more.
Relationships section — The nodes the test Depends On.
Code tab — The source code and compiled code for the test.
Status bar (below the page title) — Information on the last time the source was updated and the number of tables the source uses.
General tab includes:
Lineage graph — The source’s lineage graph that you can interact with. The graph includes one upstream node and one downstream node from the source. Click the Expand icon in the graph's upper right corner to view the source in full lineage graph mode.
Description section — A description of the source.
Source freshness section — Information on whether refreshing the data was successful, the last time the source was loaded, the timestamp of when a run generated data, and the run ID.
Details section — Details like database, schema, and more.
Relationships section — A table that lists all the sources used with their freshness status, the timestamp of when freshness was last checked, and the timestamp of when the source was last loaded.
Columns tab — The available columns in the source. This tab also shows tests results (if any) that you can select to view the test's details page. A ✅ denotes a passing test.