Quickstart for dbt Cloud and Starburst Galaxy

dbt Cloud

Quickstart

Beginner

Introduction

In this quickstart guide, you'll learn how to use dbt Cloud with Starburst Galaxy. It will show you how to:

Load data into the Amazon S3 bucket. This guide uses AWS as the cloud service provider for demonstrative purposes. Starburst Galaxy also supports other data sources such as Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and more.
Connect Starburst Galaxy to the Amazon S3 bucket.
Create tables with Starburst Galaxy.
Connect dbt Cloud to Starburst Galaxy.
Take a sample query and turn it into a model in your dbt project. A model in dbt is a select statement.
Add tests to your models.
Document your models.
Schedule a job to run.
Connect to multiple data sources in addition to your S3 bucket.

Videos for you

You can check out dbt Fundamentals for free if you're interested in course learning with videos.

You can also watch the Build Better Data Pipelines with dbt and Starburst YouTube video produced by Starburst Data, Inc.

Prerequisites

You have a multi-tenant deployment in dbt Cloud. For more information, refer to Tenancy.
You have a Starburst Galaxy account. If you don't, you can start a free trial. Refer to the getting started guide in the Starburst Galaxy docs for further setup details.
You have an AWS account with permissions to upload data to an S3 bucket.
For Amazon S3 authentication, you will need either an AWS access key and AWS secret key with access to the bucket, or you will need a cross account IAM role with access to the bucket. For details, refer to these Starburst Galaxy docs:
- AWS access and secret key instructions
- Cross account IAM role

Load data to an Amazon S3 bucket

Using Starburst Galaxy, you can create tables and also transform them with dbt. Start by loading the Jaffle Shop data (provided by dbt Labs) to your Amazon S3 bucket. Jaffle Shop is a fictional cafe selling food and beverages in several US cities.

Download these CSV files to your local machine:

Upload these files to S3. For details, refer to Upload objects in the Amazon S3 docs.

When uploading these files, you must create the following folder structure and upload the appropriate file to each folder:

<bucket/blob>
    dbt-quickstart (folder)
        jaffle-shop-customers (folder)
            jaffle_shop_customers.csv (file)
        jaffle-shop-orders (folder)
            jaffle_shop_orders.csv (file)
        stripe-payments (folder)
            stripe-payments.csv (file)

Connect Starburst Galaxy to the Amazon S3 bucket

If your Starburst Galaxy instance is not already connected to your S3 bucket, you need to create a cluster, configure a catalog that allows Starburst Galaxy to connect to the S3 bucket, add the catalog to your new cluster, and configure privilege settings.

In addition to Amazon S3, Starburst Galaxy supports many other data sources. To learn more about them, you can refer to the Catalogs overview in the Starburst Galaxy docs.

Create a cluster. Click Clusters on the left sidebar of the Starburst Galaxy UI, then click Create cluster in the main body of the page.
In the Create a new cluster modal, you only need to set the following options. You can use the defaults for the other options.
- Cluster name — Type a name for your cluster.
- Cloud provider region — Select the AWS region.
When done, click Create cluster.
Create a catalog. Click Catalogs on the left sidebar of the Starburst Galaxy UI, then click Create catalog in the main body of the page.
On the Create a data source page, select the Amazon S3 tile.
In the Name and description section of the Amazon S3 page, fill out the fields.
In the Authentication to S3 section of the Amazon S3 page, select the AWS (S3) authentication mechanism you chose to connect with.
In the Metastore configuration section, set these options:
- Default S3 bucket name — Enter the name of your S3 bucket you want to access.
- Default directory name — Enter the folder name of where the Jaffle Shop data lives in the S3 bucket. This is the same folder name you used in Load data to an Amazon S3 bucket.
- Allow creating external tables — Enable this option.
- Allow writing to external tables — Enable this option.
The Amazon S3 page should look similar to this, except for the Authentication to S3 section which is dependant on your setup:

Amazon S3 connection settings in Starburst Galaxy
Click Test connection. This verifies that Starburst Galaxy can access your S3 bucket.
Click Connect catalog if the connection test passes.

Successful connection test
On the Set permissions page, click Skip. You can add permissions later if you want.
On the Add to cluster page, choose the cluster you want to add the catalog to from the dropdown and click Add to cluster.
Add the location privilege for your S3 bucket to your role in Starburst Galaxy. Click Access control > Roles and privileges on the left sidebar of the Starburst Galaxy UI. Then, in the Roles table, click the role name accountadmin.

If you're using an existing Starburst Galaxy cluster and don't have access to the accountadmin role, then select a role that you do have access to.

To learn more about access control, refer to Access control in the Starburst Galaxy docs.
On the Roles page, click the Privileges tab and click Add privilege.
On the Add privilege page, set these options:
- What would you like to modify privileges for? — Choose Location.
- Enter a storage location provide — Enter the storage location of your S3 bucket and the folder of where the Jaffle Shop data lives. Make sure to include the /* at the end of the location.
- Create SQL — Enable the option.
When done, click Add privileges.

Add privilege to accountadmin role

Create tables with Starburst Galaxy

To query the Jaffle Shop data with Starburst Galaxy, you need to create tables using the Jaffle Shop data that you loaded to your S3 bucket. You can do this (and run any SQL statement) from the query editor.

Click Query > Query editor on the left sidebar of the Starburst Galaxy UI. The main body of the page is now the query editor.
Configure the query editor so it queries your S3 bucket. In the upper right corner of the query editor, select your cluster in the first gray box and select your catalog in the second gray box:

Set the cluster and catalog in query editor

Copy and paste these queries into the query editor. Then Run each query individually.

Replace YOUR_S3_BUCKET_NAME with the name of your S3 bucket. These queries create a schema named jaffle_shop and also create the jaffle_shop_customers, jaffle_shop_orders, and stripe_payments tables:

CREATE SCHEMA jaffle_shop WITH (location='s3://YOUR_S3_BUCKET_NAME/dbt-quickstart/');

CREATE TABLE jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_customers (
    id VARCHAR,
    first_name VARCHAR,
    last_name VARCHAR
)

WITH (
    external_location = 's3://YOUR_S3_BUCKET_NAME/dbt-quickstart/jaffle-shop-customers/',
    format = 'csv',
    type = 'hive',
    skip_header_line_count=1

);

CREATE TABLE jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_orders (

    id VARCHAR,
    user_id VARCHAR,
    order_date VARCHAR,
    status VARCHAR

)

WITH (
    external_location = 's3://YOUR_S3_BUCKET_NAME/dbt-quickstart/jaffle-shop-orders/',
    format = 'csv',
    type = 'hive',
    skip_header_line_count=1
);

CREATE TABLE jaffle_shop.stripe_payments (

    id VARCHAR,
    order_id VARCHAR,
    paymentmethod VARCHAR,
    status VARCHAR,
    amount VARCHAR,
    created VARCHAR
)

WITH (

    external_location = 's3://YOUR_S3_BUCKET_NAME/dbt-quickstart/stripe-payments/',
    format = 'csv',
    type = 'hive',
    skip_header_line_count=1

);

When the queries are done, you can see the following hierarchy on the query editor's left sidebar:

Hierarchy of data in query editor

Verify that the tables were created successfully. In the query editor, run the following queries:

select * from jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_customers;
select * from jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_orders;
select * from jaffle_shop.stripe_payments;

Connect dbt Cloud to Starburst Galaxy

Make sure you are still logged in to Starburst Galaxy.
If you haven’t already, set your account’s role to accountadmin. Click your email address in the upper right corner, choose Switch role and select accountadmin.

If this role is not listed for you, choose the role you selected in Connect Starburst Galaxy to the Amazon S3 bucket when you added location privilege for your S3 bucket.
Click Clusters on the left sidebar.
Find your cluster in the View clusters table and click Connection info. Choose dbt from the Select client dropdown. Keep the Connection information modal open. You will use details from that modal in dbt Cloud.
In another browser tab, log in to dbt Cloud.
Create a new project in dbt Cloud. Click on your account name in the left side menu, select Account settings, and click + New Project.
Enter a project name and click Continue.
Choose Starburst as your connection and click Next.
Enter the Settings for your new project:
- Host – The Host value from the Connection information modal in your Starburst Galaxy tab.
- Port – 443 (which is the default)
Enter the Development Credentials for your new project:
- User – The User value from the Connection information modal in your Starburst Galaxy tab. Make sure to use the entire string, including the account's role which is the / and all the characters that follow. If you don’t include it, your default role is used and that might not have the correct permissions for project development.
- Password – The password you use to log in to your Starburst Galaxy account.
- Database – The Starburst catalog you want to save your data to (for example, when writing new tables). For future reference, database is synonymous to catalog between dbt Cloud and Starburst Galaxy.
- Leave the remaining options as is. You can use their default values.
Click Test Connection. This verifies that dbt Cloud can access your Starburst Galaxy cluster.
Click Next if the test succeeded. If it failed, you might need to check your Starburst Galaxy settings and credentials.

Set up a dbt Cloud managed repository

When you develop in dbt Cloud, you can leverage Git to version control your code.

To connect to a repository, you can either set up a dbt Cloud-hosted managed repository or directly connect to a supported git provider. Managed repositories are a great way to trial dbt without needing to create a new repository. In the long run, it's better to connect to a supported git provider to use features like automation and continuous integration.

To set up a managed repository:

Under "Setup a repository", select Managed.
Type a name for your repo such as bbaggins-dbt-quickstart
Click Create. It will take a few seconds for your repository to be created and imported.
Once you see the "Successfully imported repository," click Continue.

Initialize your dbt project and start developing

Now that you have a repository configured, you can initialize your project and start development in dbt Cloud:

Click Start developing in the IDE. It might take a few minutes for your project to spin up for the first time as it establishes your git connection, clones your repo, and tests the connection to the warehouse.
Above the file tree to the left, click Initialize dbt project. This builds out your folder structure with example models.
Make your initial commit by clicking Commit and sync. Use the commit message initial commit and click Commit. This creates the first commit to your managed repo and allows you to open a branch where you can add new dbt code.
You can now directly query data from your warehouse and execute dbt run. You can try this out now:
- Click + Create new file, add this query to the new file, and click Save as to save the new file:
```
    select * from dbt_quickstart.jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_customers
```
- In the command line bar at the bottom, enter dbt run and click Enter. You should see a dbt run succeeded message.

Build your first model

You have two options for working with files in the dbt Cloud IDE:

Create a new branch (recommended) — Create a new branch to edit and commit your changes. Navigate to Version Control on the left sidebar and click Create branch.
Edit in the protected primary branch — If you prefer to edit, format, or lint files and execute dbt commands directly in your primary git branch. The dbt Cloud IDE prevents commits to the protected branch, so you will be prompted to commit your changes to a new branch.

Name the new branch add-customers-model.

Click the ... next to the models directory, then select Create file.
Name the file customers.sql, then click Create.
Copy the following query into the file and click Save.

with customers as (

    select
        id as customer_id,
        first_name,
        last_name

    from dbt_quickstart.jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_customers
),

orders as (

    select
        id as order_id,
        user_id as customer_id,
        order_date,
        status

    from dbt_quickstart.jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_orders
),


customer_orders as (

    select
        customer_id,
        min(order_date) as first_order_date,
        max(order_date) as most_recent_order_date,
        count(order_id) as number_of_orders

    from orders
    group by 1
),

final as (

    select
        customers.customer_id,
        customers.first_name,
        customers.last_name,
        customer_orders.first_order_date,
        customer_orders.most_recent_order_date,
        coalesce(customer_orders.number_of_orders, 0) as number_of_orders

    from customers
    left join customer_orders on customers.customer_id = customer_orders.customer_id
)
select * from final

Enter dbt run in the command prompt at the bottom of the screen. You should get a successful run and see the three models.

Later, you can connect your business intelligence (BI) tools to these views and tables so they only read cleaned up data rather than raw data in your BI tool.

FAQs

How can I see the SQL that dbt is running?

How did dbt choose which schema to build my models in?

Do I need to create my target schema before running dbt?

If I rerun dbt, will there be any downtime as models are rebuilt?

What happens if the SQL in my query is bad or I get a database error?

Change the way your model is materialized

One of the most powerful features of dbt is that you can change the way a model is materialized in your warehouse, simply by changing a configuration value. You can change things between tables and views by changing a keyword rather than writing the data definition language (DDL) to do this behind the scenes.

By default, everything gets created as a view. You can override that at the directory level so everything in that directory will materialize to a different materialization.

Edit your dbt_project.yml file.
- Update your project name to:
  dbt_project.yml
  name: 'jaffle_shop'
- Configure jaffle_shop so everything in it will be materialized as a table; and configure example so everything in it will be materialized as a view. Update your models config block to:
  dbt_project.yml
  models: jaffle_shop: +materialized: table example: +materialized: view
- Click Save.
Enter the dbt run command. Your customers model should now be built as a table!

info
To do this, dbt had to first run a drop view statement (or API call on BigQuery), then a create table as statement.
Edit models/customers.sql to override the dbt_project.yml for the customers model only by adding the following snippet to the top, and click Save:
models/customers.sql
```
{{
  config(
    materialized='view'
  )
}}

with customers as (

    select
        id as customer_id
        ...

)
```
Enter the dbt run command. Your model, customers, should now build as a view.
- BigQuery users need to run dbt run --full-refresh instead of dbt run to full apply materialization changes.
Enter the dbt run --full-refresh command for this to take effect in your warehouse.

FAQs

What materializations are available in dbt?

Which materialization should I use for my model?

What model configurations exist?

Delete the example models

You can now delete the files that dbt created when you initialized the project:

Delete the models/example/ directory.

Delete the example: key from your dbt_project.yml file, and any configurations that are listed under it.

dbt_project.yml

# before
models:
  jaffle_shop:
    +materialized: table
    example:
      +materialized: view

dbt_project.yml

# after
models:
  jaffle_shop:
    +materialized: table

Save your changes.

FAQs

How do I remove deleted models from my data warehouse?

I got an "unused model configurations" error message, what does this mean?

Build models on top of other models

As a best practice in SQL, you should separate logic that cleans up your data from logic that transforms your data. You have already started doing this in the existing query by using common table expressions (CTEs).

Now you can experiment by separating the logic out into separate models and using the ref function to build models on top of other models:

The DAG we want for our dbt project

Create a new SQL file, models/stg_customers.sql, with the SQL from the customers CTE in our original query.

Create a second new SQL file, models/stg_orders.sql, with the SQL from the orders CTE in our original query.

models/stg_customers.sql

select
    id as customer_id,
    first_name,
    last_name

from dbt_quickstart.jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_customers

models/stg_orders.sql

select
    id as order_id,
    user_id as customer_id,
    order_date,
    status

from dbt_quickstart.jaffle_shop.jaffle_shop_orders

Edit the SQL in your models/customers.sql file as follows:

models/customers.sql

with customers as (

    select * from {{ ref('stg_customers') }}

),

orders as (

    select * from {{ ref('stg_orders') }}

),

customer_orders as (

    select
        customer_id,

        min(order_date) as first_order_date,
        max(order_date) as most_recent_order_date,
        count(order_id) as number_of_orders

    from orders

    group by 1

),

final as (

    select
        customers.customer_id,
        customers.first_name,
        customers.last_name,
        customer_orders.first_order_date,
        customer_orders.most_recent_order_date,
        coalesce(customer_orders.number_of_orders, 0) as number_of_orders

    from customers

    left join customer_orders on customers.customer_id = customer_orders.customer_id

)

select * from final

Execute dbt run.

This time, when you performed a dbt run, separate views/tables were created for stg_customers, stg_orders and customers. dbt inferred the order to run these models. Because customers depends on stg_customers and stg_orders, dbt builds customers last. You do not need to explicitly define these dependencies.

FAQs

How do I run one model at a time?

Do ref-able resource names need to be unique?

As I create more models, how should I keep my project organized? What should I name my models?

Add tests to your models

Adding tests to a project helps validate that your models are working correctly.

To add tests to your project:

Create a new YAML file in the models directory, named models/schema.yml

Add the following contents to the file:

models/schema.yml

version: 2

models:
  - name: customers
    columns:
      - name: customer_id
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null

  - name: stg_customers
    columns:
      - name: customer_id
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null

  - name: stg_orders
    columns:
      - name: order_id
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null
      - name: status
        tests:
          - accepted_values:
              values: ['placed', 'shipped', 'completed', 'return_pending', 'returned']
      - name: customer_id
        tests:
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              to: ref('stg_customers')
              field: customer_id

Run dbt test, and confirm that all your tests passed.

When you run dbt test, dbt iterates through your YAML files, and constructs a query for each test. Each query will return the number of records that fail the test. If this number is 0, then the test is successful.

FAQs

What tests are available for me to use in dbt? Can I add my own custom tests?

How do I test one model at a time?

One of my tests failed, how can I debug it?

Does my test file need to be named `schema.yml`?

Why do model and source yml files always start with `version: 2`?

What tests should I add to my project?

When should I run my tests?

Document your models

Adding documentation to your project allows you to describe your models in rich detail, and share that information with your team. Here, we're going to add some basic documentation to our project.

Update your models/schema.yml file to include some descriptions, such as those below.

models/schema.yml

version: 2

models:
  - name: customers
    description: One record per customer
    columns:
      - name: customer_id
        description: Primary key
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null
      - name: first_order_date
        description: NULL when a customer has not yet placed an order.

  - name: stg_customers
    description: This model cleans up customer data
    columns:
      - name: customer_id
        description: Primary key
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null

  - name: stg_orders
    description: This model cleans up order data
    columns:
      - name: order_id
        description: Primary key
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null
      - name: status
        tests:
          - accepted_values:
              values: ['placed', 'shipped', 'completed', 'return_pending', 'returned']
      - name: customer_id
        tests:
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              to: ref('stg_customers')
              field: customer_id

Run dbt docs generate to generate the documentation for your project. dbt introspects your project and your warehouse to generate a JSON file with rich documentation about your project.

Click the book icon in the Develop interface to launch documentation in a new tab.

FAQs

How do I write long-form explanations in my descriptions?

How do I access documentation in dbt Explorer?

Commit your changes

Now that you've built your customer model, you need to commit the changes you made to the project so that the repository has your latest code.

If you edited directly in the protected primary branch:

Click the Commit and sync git button. This action prepares your changes for commit.
A modal titled Commit to a new branch will appear.
In the modal window, name your new branch add-customers-model. This branches off from your primary branch with your new changes.
Add a commit message, such as "Add customers model, tests, docs" and and commit your changes.
Click Merge this branch to main to add these changes to the main branch on your repo.

If you created a new branch before editing:

Since you already branched out of the primary protected branch, go to Version Control on the left.
Click Commit and sync to add a message.
Add a commit message, such as "Add customers model, tests, docs."
Click Merge this branch to main to add these changes to the main branch on your repo.

Deploy dbt

Use dbt Cloud's Scheduler to deploy your production jobs confidently and build observability into your processes. You'll learn to create a deployment environment and run a job in the following steps.

Create a deployment environment

In the upper left, select Deploy, then click Environments.
Click Create Environment.
In the Name field, write the name of your deployment environment. For example, "Production."
In the dbt Version field, select the latest version from the dropdown.
Under Deployment connection, enter the name of the dataset you want to use as the target, such as "Analytics". This will allow dbt to build and work with that dataset. For some data warehouses, the target dataset may be referred to as a "schema".
Click Save.

Create and run a job

Jobs are a set of dbt commands that you want to run on a schedule. For example, dbt build.

As the jaffle_shop business gains more customers, and those customers create more orders, you will see more records added to your source data. Because you materialized the customers model as a table, you'll need to periodically rebuild your table to ensure that the data stays up-to-date. This update will happen when you run a job.

After creating your deployment environment, you should be directed to the page for a new environment. If not, select Deploy in the upper left, then click Jobs.
Click Create one and provide a name, for example, "Production run", and link to the Environment you just created.
Scroll down to the Execution Settings section.
Under Commands, add this command as part of your job if you don't see it:
- dbt build
Select the Generate docs on run checkbox to automatically generate updated project docs each time your job runs.
For this exercise, do not set a schedule for your project to run — while your organization's project should run regularly, there's no need to run this example project on a schedule. Scheduling a job is sometimes referred to as deploying a project.
Select Save, then click Run now to run your job.
Click the run and watch its progress under "Run history."
Once the run is complete, click View Documentation to see the docs for your project.

Congratulations 🎉! You've just deployed your first dbt project!

FAQs

What happens if one of my runs fails?

Connect to multiple data sources

This quickstart focuses on using dbt Cloud to run models against a data lake (S3) by using Starburst Galaxy as the query engine. In most real world scenarios, the data that is needed for running models is actually spread across multiple data sources and is stored in a variety of formats. With Starburst Galaxy, Starburst Enterprise, and Trino, you can run your models on any of the data you need, no matter where it is stored.

If you want to try this out, you can refer to the Starburst Galaxy docs to add more data sources and load the Jaffle Shop data into the source you select. Then, extend your models to query the new data source and the data source you created in this quickstart.

Introduction​

Prerequisites​

Related content​

Load data to an Amazon S3 bucket​

Connect Starburst Galaxy to the Amazon S3 bucket​

Create tables with Starburst Galaxy​

Connect dbt Cloud to Starburst Galaxy​

Set up a dbt Cloud managed repository​

Initialize your dbt project​ and start developing​

Build your first model​

FAQs​

Change the way your model is materialized​

FAQs​

Delete the example models​

FAQs​

Build models on top of other models​

FAQs​

Add tests to your models​

FAQs​

Document your models​

FAQs​

Commit your changes​

Deploy dbt​

Create a deployment environment​

Create and run a job​

FAQs​

Connect to multiple data sources​

Introduction

Prerequisites

Related content

Load data to an Amazon S3 bucket

Connect Starburst Galaxy to the Amazon S3 bucket

Create tables with Starburst Galaxy

Connect dbt Cloud to Starburst Galaxy

Set up a dbt Cloud managed repository

Initialize your dbt project and start developing

Build your first model

FAQs

Change the way your model is materialized

FAQs

Delete the example models

FAQs

Build models on top of other models

FAQs

Add tests to your models

FAQs

Document your models

FAQs

Commit your changes

Deploy dbt

Create a deployment environment

Create and run a job

FAQs

Connect to multiple data sources