CLI cheatsheet

Curated commands for daily use. Full flags and examples: packages/cli/README.md.

Set DBT_TOOLS_DBT_TARGET=./target or pass --dbt-target ./target on every command. Remote targets: Local and remote artifacts.

Remote targets

dbt-tools status --dbt-target ./target
dbt-tools status --dbt-target s3://my-bucket/dbt/prod
dbt-tools status --dbt-target gs://my-bucket/dbt/prod

Readiness and manifest

Command	Purpose
status	Artifact presence and readiness
summary	Manifest statistics
freshness	Alias for status

dbt-tools status --dbt-target ./target --json
dbt-tools summary --dbt-target ./target --fields "total_nodes" --json

Discovery and inventory

Command	Purpose
discover	Ranked search with reasons (preferred)
search	Resource search (shared parsing; different output shape)
inventory	List/filter resources

dbt-tools discover --dbt-target ./target "orders" --json
dbt-tools inventory --dbt-target ./target --type model --json

Graph and dependencies

Command	Purpose
deps	Upstream/downstream dependencies
graph	Export graph (JSON, DOT, GEXF)
explain	Intent-shaped resource summary

dbt-tools deps model.pkg.node --dbt-target ./target --direction downstream --json
dbt-tools explain model.pkg.node --dbt-target ./target --json

Execution

Command	Purpose
query-executions	Filter/sort run executions
timeline	Per-node execution timeline
run-summary	Run-level aggregates
run-report	Execution report + critical path

dbt-tools query-executions --dbt-target ./target --sort duration --limit 20 --json
dbt-tools run-report --dbt-target ./target --json

Introspection

Command	Purpose
schema	Runtime command/field schemas

dbt-tools schema --json

Common flags

Flag	Purpose
--json	Machine-readable stdout
--fields "a,b"	Shrink JSON payloads
--trace	Investigation transcript on intent/discover output

Workflows

• Check run health
• Find a model
• Open in web