About builtins Jinja variable
The builtins variable exists to provide references to builtin dbt context methods. This allows macros to be created with names that mask dbt builtin context methods, while still making those methods accessible in the dbt compilation context.
The builtins variable is a dictionary containing the following keys:
Usage
Using the builtins variable in this way is an advanced development workflow. Users should be ready to maintain and update these overrides when upgrading in the future.
The ref macro can also be used to control which elements of the model path are rendered when run, for example the following macro overrides the ref method to render only the schema and object identifier, but not the database reference i.e. my_schema.my_model rather than my_database.my_schema.my_model. This is especially useful when using snowflake as a warehouse, if you intend to change the name of the database post-build and wish the references to remain accurate.
-- Macro to override ref and to render identifiers without a database.
{% macro ref(model_name) %}
{% do return(builtins.ref(model_name).include(database=false)) %}
{% endmacro %}