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About dbt seed command

The dbt seed command loads static CSV files from your project’s seed-paths into your data warehouse as tables. Use seeds for small, version-controlled reference datasets you want to keep alongside your project, such as country codes, region mappings, or a list of business-defined categories.

After you load seeds, you can reference the resulting tables in downstream models, and rerun dbt seed when the CSVs change.

Seeds are configured in the dbt_project.yml file, where you can define options like seed file directories and column interpretation. The dbt seed command then loads those CSVs into your warehouse so you can reference them in downstream models.

Overview​

This section covers common dbt seed results (artifacts and CLI output) and options you might use when running seeds.

Use artifacts when you want to inspect or troubleshoot what happened during execution:

  • Artifacts: Running dbt seed produces dbt execution artifacts, including run_results.json for executed seeds. For details on what’s included and how to interpret it, refer to Run results JSON file.

Use resource selection when you want to run only a subset of seeds:

  • Selecting resources: For advanced selection patterns (tags, paths, graph operators, and more), read Syntax overview.

Use global flags when you want to control command behavior, logging, and runtime settings:

Selecting seeds​

You can run specific seeds using the --select flag when executing the dbt seed command. For example:

dbt seed --select "country_codes"
Found 2 models, 3 tests, 0 archives, 0 analyses, 53 macros, 0 operations, 2 seed files

14:46:15 | Concurrency: 1 threads (target='dev')
14:46:15 |
14:46:15 | 1 of 1 START seed file analytics.country_codes........................... [RUN]
14:46:15 | 1 of 1 OK loaded seed file analytics.country_codes....................... [INSERT 3 in 0.01s]
14:46:16 |
14:46:16 | Finished running 1 seed in 0.14s.

Examples of common dbt seed invocations:

# Run all seeds
dbt seed

# Run one seed
dbt seed --select "country_codes"

# Rebuild selected seeds from scratch
dbt seed --select "country_codes state_codes" --full-refresh

The --full-refresh flag​

Use --full-refresh to force a full reload of seed data (rather than an incremental update) when you need to rebuild seed tables from scratch. This is useful when:

  • You want to force a clean reload of seed data:

    dbt seed --full-refresh

  • You have changed the seed structure (for example, column names or types):

    dbt seed --select "country_codes" --full-refresh

  • You need consistent behavior across environments after a seed change:

    dbt seed --select "country_codes state_codes" --full-refresh

For information about configuring seeds (for example, column types and quoting behavior), refer to Seed configurations.

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