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Amazon Redshift adapter behavior changes

The following are the current behavior change flags that are specific to dbt-redshift:

Flagdbt-redshift: Introdbt-redshift: MaturityStatus
restrict_direct_pg_catalog_access1.9.0TBDActive
redshift_skip_autocommit_transaction_statements1.12.0TBDActive
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restrict_direct_pg_catalog_access flag​

Originally, the dbt-redshift adapter was built on top of the dbt-postgres adapter and used Postgres tables for metadata access. When this flag is enabled, the adapter uses the Redshift API (through the Python client) if available, or queries Redshift's information_schema tables instead of using the pg_ tables for some metadata queries.

Note that this flag does not apply to all metadata queries emitted by the adapter. For example, a list relations query may continue to query information_schema even when the flag is disabled.

While you shouldn't notice any behavior changes due to this change, however, to be cautious dbt Labs is gating it behind a behavior-change flag and encouraging you to test it before it becoming the default.

redshift_skip_autocommit_transaction_statements flag​

The redshift_skip_autocommit_transaction_statements flag is True by default.

When autocommit=True (the default since dbt-redshift 1.5), each statement is automatically committed by the driver. Previously, dbt still sent explicit BEGIN / COMMIT / ROLLBACK statements, which were unnecessary and added extra round trips to Redshift.

With the redshift_skip_autocommit_transaction_statements flag enabled, dbt skips sending transaction management statements when you enable autocommit, reducing unnecessary round trips and improving performance.

Key behaviors​

When both the flag and autocommit are True:

  • begin() skips sending BEGIN
  • commit() skips sending COMMIT
  • rollback_if_open() skips sending ROLLBACK

dbt still maintains its internal transaction_open state to preserve compatibility with dbt’s transaction tracking, even when actual statements are skipped.

Preserving legacy behavior​

To preserve the legacy behavior of sending BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK statements even when autocommit is enabled, set the flag to False in your dbt_project.yml:

dbt_project.yml
flags:
  redshift_skip_autocommit_transaction_statements: false

Backward compatibility​

  • autocommit=False: Unchanged. Explicit transactions still work as before regardless of this flag.
  • autocommit=True with flag (default): Skips unnecessary transaction statements for better performance.
  • autocommit=True without flag: Sends BEGIN/COMMIT/ROLLBACK (legacy behavior).

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