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Manifest JSON file

dbt versionManifest version
dbt Fusion Engine v2.0v20 (Identical to v12)
Core v1.11v12
Core v1.10v12
Core v1.9v12
Core v1.8v12
Core v1.7v11
Core v1.6v10
Core v1.5v9
Core v1.4v8
Core v1.3v7
Loading table...

Produced by: Any dbt command that parses the project. This includes all commands, except deps, clean, debug, and init.

After executing a dbt command, the manifest.json file can be found in the project's target/ directory:

  • If developing locally: Open the target/ directory in your project folder
  • In the Studio IDE: Open the target/ directory in the file tree
  • In dbt platform jobs: Download the manifest.json from the artifacts tab for a given job run

This file contains a full representation of your dbt project's resources (models, tests, macros, and more), including all node configurations and resource properties. Even if you're only running some models or tests, all resources will appear in the manifest (unless they are disabled) with most of their properties. Some properties, such as compiled_sql, are included only for executed nodes.

Today, dbt uses this file to populate the docs site, and to perform state comparison. Members of the community also use it to analyze project health, such as checking for missing descriptions or tests.

Top-level keys​

  • metadata
  • nodes: Dictionary of all analyses, models, seeds, snapshots, and tests.
  • sources: Dictionary of sources
  • metrics: Dictionary of metrics
  • exposures: Dictionary of exposures
  • groups: Dictionary of groups (Note: Added in v1.5)
  • macros: Dictionary of macros
  • docs: Dictionary of docs blocks
  • parent_map: Dictionary that contains the first-order parents of each resource
  • child_map: Dictionary that contains the first-order children of each resource
  • group_map: Dictionary that maps group names to their resource nodes
  • selectors: Expanded dictionary representation of YAML selectors
  • disabled: Array of resources with enabled: false

Resource details​

All resources nested within nodes, sources, metrics, exposures, macros, and docs have the following base properties:

  • name: Resource name
  • unique_id: <resource_type>.<package>.<resource_name>, same as dictionary key
  • package_name: Name of package that defines this resource
  • root_path: Absolute file path of this resource's package. (Note: This was removed for most node types in dbt Core v1.4 / manifest v8 to reduce duplicative information across nodes, but it is still present for seeds.)
  • path: Relative file path of this resource's definition within its "resource path" (model-paths, seed-paths, and more).
  • original_file_path: Relative file path of this resource's definition, including its resource path.

Each has several additional properties related to its resource type.

dbt JSON schema​

You can refer to the dbt JSON schema for information on describing and consuming dbt-generated artifacts.

Note: The manifest.json version number is related to (but not equal to) your dbt version, so you must use the correct manifest.json version for your dbt version. To find the correct manifest.json version, select the dbt version on the top navigation (such as v1.5).

Refer to the table at the beginning of this page to understand how the manifest version matches the dbt version.

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