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Install dbt Cloud CLI

dbt Cloud natively supports developing using a command line (CLI), empowering team members to contribute with enhanced flexibility and collaboration. The dbt Cloud CLI allows you to run dbt commands against your dbt Cloud development environment from your local command line.

dbt commands are run against dbt Cloud's infrastructure and benefit from:

  • Secure credential storage in the dbt Cloud platform
  • Automatic deferral of build artifacts to your Cloud project's production environment
  • Speedier, lower-cost builds
  • Support for dbt Mesh (cross-project ref)
  • Significant platform improvements, to be released over the coming months
Diagram of how the dbt Cloud CLI works with dbt Cloud's infrastructure to run dbt commands from your local command line.Diagram of how the dbt Cloud CLI works with dbt Cloud's infrastructure to run dbt commands from your local command line.

Prerequisites

The dbt Cloud CLI is available in all deployment regions and for both multi-tenant and single-tenant accounts.

Install dbt Cloud CLI

You can install the dbt Cloud CLI on the command line by using one of these methods.

View a video tutorial for a step-by-step guide to installation.

Refer to the FAQs if your operating system runs into path conflicts.

  1. Download the latest Linux release for your platform from GitHub. (Pick the file based on your CPU architecture)

  2. Extract the dbt-cloud-cli binary to the same folder as your dbt project.

tar -xf dbt_0.29.9_linux_amd64.tar.gz
./dbt --version
info

Advanced users can configure multiple projects to use the same Cloud CLI executable by adding it to their PATH environment variable in their shell profile.

  1. Verify your installation by running ./dbt --help in the command line. If you see the following output, your installation is correct:

    The dbt Cloud CLI - an ELT tool for running SQL transformations and data models in dbt Cloud...

    If you don't see this output, check that you've deactivated pyenv or venv and don't have a global dbt version installed.

    • Note that you no longer need to run the dbt deps command when your environment starts. This step was previously required during initialization. However, you should still run dbt deps if you make any changes to your packages.yml file.
  2. Clone your repository to your local computer using git clone. For example, to clone a GitHub repo using HTTPS format, run git clone https://github.com/YOUR-USERNAME/YOUR-REPOSITORY.

  3. After cloning your repo, configure the dbt Cloud CLI for your dbt Cloud project. This lets you run dbt commands like dbt environment show to view your dbt Cloud configuration or dbt compile to compile your project and validate models and tests. You can also add, edit, and synchronize files with your repo.

Update dbt Cloud CLI

The following instructions explain how to update the dbt Cloud CLI to the latest version depending on your operating system.

To update the dbt Cloud CLI, run brew update and then brew upgrade dbt.

VS Code extension beta

Visual Studio (VS) Code extensions enhance command line tools by adding extra functionalities. Power user for dbt Core and dbt Cloud is a common extension used to enhance your dbt development with VS Code.

You can use the dbt Cloud CLI with Power User for dbt Core and dbt Cloud by following the instructions here.

The Power User extension will handle installing the Cloud CLI on your behalf.

FAQs

 What's the difference between the dbt Cloud CLI and dbt Core?
 How do I run both the dbt Cloud CLI and dbt Core?
 How to create an alias?
 Why am I receiving a `Session occupied` error?
 Why am I receiving a `Stuck session` error when trying to run a new command?
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