Documentation & Version Control Flashcards

Which artifact produced by `dbt docs generate` holds column data types and table statistics gathered from the warehouse?

Answer: catalog.json

catalog.json is built by introspecting the warehouse, while manifest.json describes the project's parsed resources.

What is the default port used by `dbt docs serve`?

Answer: 8080

dbt docs serve hosts the documentation site on port 8080 unless --port is specified.

Which syntax correctly defines a reusable doc block in a .md file?

Answer: {% docs order_status %} ... {% enddocs %}

Doc blocks are wrapped in {% docs name %} and {% enddocs %} and later referenced with the doc() function.

How do you reference a doc block named order_status inside a YAML description?

Answer: description: '{{ doc("order_status") }}'

The doc() Jinja function pulls in the content of a named doc block.

Which config pushes model and column descriptions into the warehouse as comments?

Answer: persist_docs

persist_docs with relation and/or columns set to true writes descriptions to the database objects.

What is the purpose of an exposure in dbt?

Answer: Documenting a downstream use of models such as a dashboard

Exposures declare downstream consumers like dashboards or ML apps so they show up in the DAG and docs.

What does the `--no-compile` flag do with `dbt docs generate`?

Answer: Skips compiling the project before generating docs

--no-compile reuses the existing manifest rather than recompiling the project before building the catalog.