Install from source
dbt Core and almost all of its adapter plugins are open source software. As such, the codebases are freely available to download and build from source. You might install from source if you want the latest code or want to install dbt from a specific commit. This might be helpful when you are contributing changes, or if you want to debug a past change.
To download from source, you would clone the repositories from GitHub, making a local copy, and then install the local version using pip.
Downloading and building dbt Core will enable you to contribute to the project by fixing a bug or implementing a sought-after feature. For more details, read the contributing guidelines.
Installing dbt Core
To install dbt-core from the GitHub code source:
git clone https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core.git
cd dbt-core
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt
This will install dbt-core and dbt-postgres. To install in editable mode (includes your local changes as you make them), use python -m pip install -e editable-requirements.txt instead.
Installing adapter plugins
To install an adapter plugin from source, you will need to first locate its source repository. For instance, the dbt-redshift adapter is located at https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-redshift.git, so I can clone it and install from there:
git clone https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-redshift.git
cd dbt-redshift
python -m pip install .
You do not need to install dbt-core before installing an adapter plugin -- the plugin includes dbt-core among its dependencies, and it will install the latest compatible version automatically.
To install in editable mode, such as while contributing, use python -m pip install -e . instead.