Jobs in dbt Cloud

These are the available job types in dbt Cloud:

• Deploy jobs — Build production data assets. Runs on a schedule, by API, or after another job completes.
• Continuous integration (CI) jobs — Test and validate code changes before merging. Triggered by commit to a PR or by API.
• Merge jobs — Deploy merged changes into production. Runs after a successful PR merge or by API.

The following comparison table describes the behaviors of the different job types:

	Deploy jobs	CI jobs	Merge jobs
Purpose	Builds production data assets.	Builds and tests new code before merging changes into production.	Build merged changes into production or update state for deferral.
Trigger types	Triggered by a schedule, API, or the successful completion of another job.	Triggered by a commit to a PR or by API.	Triggered by a successful merge into the environment's branch or by API.
Destination	Builds into a production database and schema.	Builds into a staging database and ephemeral schema, lived for the lifetime of the PR.	Builds into a production database and schema.
Execution mode	Runs execute sequentially, so as to not have collisions on the underlying DAG.	Runs execute in parallel to promote team velocity.	Runs execute sequentially, so as to not have collisions on the underlying DAG.
Efficiency run savings	Detects over-scheduled jobs and cancels unnecessary runs to avoid queue clog.	Cancels existing runs when a newer commit is pushed to avoid redundant work.	N/A
State comparison	Only sometimes needs to detect state.	Almost always needs to compare state against the production environment to build on modified code and its dependents.	Almost always needs to compare state against the production environment to build on modified code and its dependents.
Job run duration	Limit is 24 hours.	Limit is 24 hours.	Limit is 24 hours.