Manifest JSON file

This single file contains a full representation of your dbt project's resources (models, tests, macros, etc), 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. (A few node properties, such as `compiled_sql`, only appear for executed nodes.)

Today, dbt uses this file to populate the docs site, and to perform state comparison. Members of the community have used this file to run checks on how many models have descriptions and 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 is 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, etc.).
• 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 dbt JSON Schema for info 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).

Use the following table to understand how the versioning pattern works and match the Manifest version with the dbt version:

dbt version	Manifest version
v1.5	Manifest v9
v1.4	Manifest v8
v1.3	Manifest v7
v1.2	Manifest v6
v1.1	Manifest v5