# Catalog JSON file

**Current schema**: [`v1`](https://schemas.getdbt.com/dbt/catalog/v1.json)

**Produced by:** (Applies to dbt v2.0 and later) [`--write-catalog`](../commands/cmd-docs.md) flag

This file contains information from your data warehouse about the tables and views produced and defined by the resources in your project. Today, dbt uses this file to populate metadata, such as column types and table statistics, in the [docs site](../../docs/explore/build-and-view-your-docs.md).

### Top-level keys

* [`metadata`](./dbt-artifacts.md#common-metadata)
* `nodes`: Dictionary containing information about database objects corresponding to dbt models, seeds, and snapshots.
* `sources`: Dictionary containing information about database objects corresponding to dbt sources.
* `errors`: Errors received while running metadata queries during (Applies to dbt v2.0 and later) catalog generation (via `--write-catalog` flag).

### Resource details

Within `sources` and `nodes`, each dictionary key is a resource `unique_id`. Each nested resource contains:

* `unique_id`: `<resource_type>.<package>.<resource_name>`, same as dictionary key, maps to `nodes` and `sources` in the [manifest](./manifest-json.md)

* `metadata`

  * `type`: table, view, etc.
  * `database`
  * `schema`
  * `name`
  * `comment`
  * `owner`

* `columns` (array)

  * `name`
  * `type`: data type
  * `comment`
  * `index`: ordinal

* `stats`: differs by database and relation type

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