About target variable

target contains information about your connection to the warehouse.

• dbt Core: These values are based on the target defined in your profiles.yml file
• dbt Cloud Scheduler:
  • target.name is defined per job as described here.
  • For all other attributes, the values are defined by the deployment connection. To check these values, click Deploy from the upper left and select Environments. Then, select the relevant deployment environment, and click Settings.
• dbt Cloud IDE: The values are defined by your connection and credentials. To check any of these values, head to your account (via your profile image in the top right hand corner), and select the project under "Credentials".

Some configs are shared between all adapters, while others are adapter-specific.

Common

Variable	Example	Description
target.profile_name	jaffle_shop	The name of the active profile
target.name	dev	Name of the active target
target.schema	dbt_alice	Name of the dbt schema (or, dataset on BigQuery)
target.type	postgres	The active adapter being used. One of "postgres", "snowflake", "bigquery", "redshift", "databricks"
target.threads	4	The number of threads in use by dbt

Adapter-specific

Snowflake

Variable	Example	Description
target.database	RAW	Database name specified in active target.
target.warehouse	TRANSFORM	Name of the Snowflake virtual warehouse
target.user	TRANSFORM_USER	The user specified in the active target
target.role	TRANSFORM_ROLE	The role specified in the active target
target.account	abc123	The account specified in the active target

Postgres/Redshift

Variable	Example	Description
target.dbname	analytics	Database name specified in active target.
target.host	abc123.us-west-2.redshift.amazonaws.com	The host specified in active target
target.user	dbt_user	The user specified in the active target
target.port	5439	The port specified in the active profile

BigQuery

Variable	Example	Description
target.project	abc-123	The project specified in the active profile
target.dataset	dbt_alice	The dataset the active profile

Examples

Use target.name to limit data in dev

As long as you use sensible target names, you can perform conditional logic to limit data when working in dev.

select
  *
from source('web_events', 'page_views')
{% if target.name == 'dev' %}
where created_at >= dateadd('day', -3, current_date)
{% endif %}

Use target.name to change your source database

If you have specific Snowflake databases configured for your dev/qa/prod environments, you can set up your sources to compile to different databases depending on your environment.

version: 2
 
sources:
  - name: source_name 
    database: |
      {%- if  target.name == "dev" -%} raw_dev
      {%- elif target.name == "qa"  -%} raw_qa
      {%- elif target.name == "prod"  -%} raw_prod
      {%- else -%} invalid_database
      {%- endif -%}
    schema: source_schema