Experimenting with SQL in dbt Cloud

Now that you have dbt Cloud set up and connected to your Snowflake data platform, you can use the dbt IDE to issue SQL commands and see the results. The Preview feature allows you to easily test models while you are developing them, but it can also be used to just run any SQL on your DB.

In this section, we are going to run some of the examples we saw in the previous chapter so that you can get used to the dbt interface and experiment with SQL if you are not familiar with it.

Exploring the dbt Cloud IDE

Let’s start by looking at the dbt Cloud IDE. The default layout of the IDE is vertically divided in two; on the left, you have the VC area and below it a folder structure that is used to organize the files of your dbt project, while on the right, there are the main editing and result areas.

The main area of the screen is again divided in two; at the top, there is the editor, where you edit the source code of your models, while in...