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About dbt Model Context Protocol (MCP) beta

As AI becomes more deeply integrated into data workflows, dbt users need a seamless way to access and integrate dbt's structured metadata and execution context effectively. This page provides an overview of dbt's MCP Server, which exposes this context, supporting use cases such as conversational access to data, agent-driven automation of dbt workflows, and AI-assisted development.

The dbt Model Context Protocol (MCP) server provides a standardized framework that enables users to seamlessly integrate AI applications with dbt-managed data assets regardless of the underlying data platforms. This ensures consistent, governed access to models, metrics, lineage, and freshness across various AI tools.

The MCP server provides access to the dbt CLI, API, the Discovery API, and Semantic Layer. It provides access to private APIs, text-to-SQL, and SQL execution.

For more information on MCP, have a look at Get started with the Model Context Protocol (MCP).

Available Tools​

Supported​

ToolsLocalRemote
dbt CLI✅❌
Semantic Layer✅✅
SQL✅❌
Disable tools✅❌

Note that access to the Discovery API and the Semantic Layer API is limited depending on your plan type.

dbt CLI commands​

  • build: Executes models, tests, snapshots, and seeds in dependency order
  • compile: Generates executable SQL from models, tests, and analyses without running them
  • docs: Generates documentation for the dbt project
  • ls (list): Lists resources in the dbt project, such as models and tests
  • parse: Parses and validates the project’s files for syntax correctness
  • run: Executes models to materialize them in the database
  • test: Runs tests to validate data and model integrity
  • show: Runs a query against the data warehouse

Allowing your client to utilize dbt commands through the MCP tooling could modify your data models, sources, and warehouse objects. Proceed only if you trust the client and understand the potential impact.

Semantic Layer​

To learn more about the dbt Semantic layer, click here

  • list_metrics: Retrieves all defined metrics
  • get_dimensions: Gets dimensions associated with specified metrics
  • get_entities: Gets entities associated with specified metrics
  • query_metrics: Query metrics with optional grouping, ordering, filtering, and limiting
  • get_metrics_compiled_sql: Returns the compiled SQL generated for specified metrics and groupings without executing the query

Metadata Discovery​

To learn more about the dbt Discovery API, click here

  • get_mart_models: Gets all mart models
  • get_all_models: Gets all models
  • get_model_details: Gets details for a specific model
  • get_model_parents: Gets the parent nodes of a specific model
  • get_model_children: Gets the children models of a specific model

SQL​

⚠️ The SQL tools access the dbt platform endpoints. While MCP usage of the tools doesn't consume dbt Copilot credits, access to the tools is impacted by dbt Copilot credit overages from direct usage of Copilot in dbt.

  • text_to_sql: Generate SQL from natural language requests
  • execute_sql: Execute SQL on dbt Cloud's backend infrastructure with support for Semantic Layer SQL syntax. Note: using a PAT instead of a service token for DBT_TOKEN is required for this tool.

Server setup​

There are two ways to install dbt MCP: local and remote.

MCP integrations​

The dbt MCP server integrates with any MCP client that supports token authentication and tool use capabilities.

We have also created integration guides for the following clients:

Troubleshooting​

  • Some MCP clients may be unable to find uvx from the JSON config. This will result in error messages like Could not connect to MCP server dbt-mcp. If this happens, try finding the full path to uvx with which uvx on Unix systems and placing this full path in the JSON. For instance: "command": "/the/full/path/to/uvx".

Resources​

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