How do I run DBT models from python command line?

Question

I have a DBT project, and a python script will be grabbing data from the postgresql to produce output.

However, part of the python script will need to make the DBT run. I haven't found the library that will let me cause a DBT run from an external script, but I'm pretty sure it exists. How do I do this?

ETA: The correct answer may be to download the DBT CLI and then use python system calls to use that.... I was hoping for a library, but I'll take what I can get.

Answer 1

(As of Jan 2023) There is not a public Python API for dbt, yet. It is expected in v1.5, which should be out in a couple months.

Right now, your safest option is to use the CLI. If you don't want to use subprocess , the CLI uses Click now, and Click provides a runner that you can use to invoke Click commands. It's usually used for testing, but I think it would work for your use case, too. The CLI command is here . That would look something like:

from click.testing import CliRunner
from dbt.cli.main import run

dbt_runner = CliRunner()
dbt_runner.invoke(run, args="-s my_model")

You could also invoke dbt the way they do in the test suite, using run_dbt .