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Enforce best practices with dbt project evaluator

dbt Project Evaluator is a package designed to identify deviations from best practices common to many dbt projects, including modeling, testing, documentation, structure and performance problems. For an introduction to the package, read its launch blog post.

Step 1: Install the package​

As with all packages, add a reference to dbt-labs/dbt_project_evaluator to your packages.yml file. See the dbt Package Hub for full installation instructions.

Step 2: Define test severity with an environment variable​

As noted in the documentation, tests in the package are set to warn severity by default.

To have these tests fail in CI, create a new environment called DBT_PROJECT_EVALUATOR_SEVERITY. Set the project-wide default to warn, and set it to error in the CI environment.

In your dbt_project.yml file, override the severity configuration:

tests:
dbt_project_evaluator:
    +severity: "{{ env_var('DBT_PROJECT_EVALUATOR_SEVERITY', 'warn') }}"

Step 3: Update your CI commands​

Because these tests should only run after the rest of your project has been built, your existing CI command will need to be updated to exclude the dbtproject_evaluator package. You will then add a second step which builds _only the package's models and tests.

Update your steps to:

dbt build --select state:modified+ --exclude package:dbt_project_evaluator
dbt build --select package:dbt_project_evaluator

Step 4: Apply any customizations​

Depending on the state of your project when you roll out the evaluator, you may need to skip some tests or allow exceptions for some areas. To do this, refer to the documentation on:

If you create a seed to exclude groups of models from a specific test, remember to disable the default seed and include dbt_project_evaluator_exceptions in your second dbt build command above.

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