dbt (Data Build Tool) Explained (2026)

dbt (Data Build Tool) Explained — Quick Answer

dbt is an open-source SQL-first transformation framework for analytics engineering. You write SELECT statements (with Jinja templating), and dbt handles materialisation (table, view, incremental), testing, documentation, and lineage. dbt is the de facto standard for the "T" in ELT pipelines on Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and Databricks. The dbt Analytics Engineer Certification is the most common credential.

What dbt Does

Sample dbt Model

-- models/staging/stg_orders.sql
{{ config(materialized='incremental',', unique_key='order_id') }}

SELECT
  order_id,
  customer_id,
  order_date,
  total_amount,
  status
FROM {{ source('raw', 'orders') }}
{% if is_incremental() %}
  WHERE order_date > (SELECT MAX(order_date) FROM {{ this }})
{% endif %}

This model reads from a source, materialises incrementally, and only processes new rows on subsequent runs.