schema

Heads up!

This is a work in progress document. While this configuration applies to multiple resource types, the documentation has only been written for seeds.

Definition

Optionally specify a custom schema for a model or seed. (To specify a schema for a snapshot, use the target_schema config).

When dbt creates a relation (table/view) in a database, it creates it as: {{ database }}.{{ schema }}.{{ identifier }}, e.g. analytics.finance.payments

The standard behavior of dbt is:

• If a custom schema is not specified, the schema of the relation is the target schema ({{ target.schema }}).
• If a custom schema is specified, by default, the schema of the relation is {{ target.schema }}_{{ schema }}.

To learn more about changing the way that dbt generates a relation's schema, read Using Custom Schemas

Usage

Models

Configure groups of models from the dbt_project.yml file.

dbt_project.yml

models:
  jaffle_shop: # the name of a project
    marketing:
      +schema: marketing

Configure individual models using a config block:

models/my_model.sql

{{ config(
    schema='marketing'
) }}

Seeds

dbt_project.yml

seeds:
  +schema: mappings

Tests

Customize the name of the schema in which tests configured to store failures will save their results:

dbt_project.yml

tests:
  +store_failures: true
  +schema: the_island_of_misfit_tests

Warehouse specific information

• BigQuery: dataset and schema are interchangeable