dbt-loom and calling models from a dbt package

[kuljisd]

Hello! My name is Dominick. I am trying to use dbt loom to make a collection of dbt project models accessible. The problem is the dbt package follows the default of making all of their models access: private. I have tried to overwrite this by declaring they are public in the my dbt_project.yml. Though when i go to check the manifest file in this project the models still have an access: private and not public. I successfully reran the specific model i care about to make public but still no dice. Any suggestions?

[nicholasyager]

Hey, @kuljisd! Quick clarifying question:

I am trying to use dbt loom to make a collection of dbt project models accessible. The problem is the dbt package follows the default of making all of their models access: private.

For this, do you mean that you're attempting to use an existing package, and that this package has private models? Or is this indicating something else? If it's the first (attempting to load private models from a package), then this is expected behavior. Private models are not accessable cross-project regardless of configurations ¹.

Footnotes

1. https://docs.getdbt.com/docs/collaborate/govern/model-access#how-do-i-restrict-access-to-models-defined-in-a-package ↩

[kuljisd]

Hello @nicholasyager!

Thank you for responding. Yes it is the former as you listed above. It is a existing dbt-package. I read the link you referenced so there is no current solution for utilizing dbt-loom as a way to ref models in a dbt-package?

[nicholasyager]

To be clear, dbt-loom exists to enable cross-project references! I believe the issue is with the specific access levels being used within the package. If I'm understanding correctly and these models are private, then it makes sense that these private models specifically would not be referencable in a downstream project. Please let me know if any part of my understanding is incorrect!

[kuljisd]

No i probably did a poor job of explaining, here is some more context.

I am utilizing an open source dbt-package which creates finalized tables which would ultimately be utilized to build more business specific logic. I am trying to create a clean break between the dbt-package tables and those business specific logic tables. I think dbt-mesh or cross-project references would help with my organization of this data environment. I would have one project which would contain the dbt-package, this would upload to a unique database in Snowflake. I would have one project for my specific bussiness logic which would ref any models that it needs in the dbt-package project then upload these tables to a unique database in Snowflake.

I currently have the dbt-package and my unique business logic in the same project but when i go to create these tables it can become confusing to an analyst down the road to understand which schemas are built by the dbt-package vs by custom business logic (I am currently using a prefix for this, but it makes my database look very messy....)

let me know if you have more questions!

Dom

[nicholasyager]

Thanks for the detailed clarification, @kuljisd !

Would this be a realistic diagram of your desired outcome?

flowchart LR


  subgraph project_a

    subgraph package
     open_source_finalized_table[Open-source Finalized Model]
    end

  end

  subgraph project_b
      business_logic_table[Business Logic Table]
  end

  project_a -- "dbt-loom" --> project_b

  open_source_finalized_table -- ref --> business_logic_table

Loading

Also, do you mind sharing a link to the specific open-source dbt package? It might make it easier to figure out where/how the private aspect of this is coming into play.