# Does dbt have a back-end database which can be read?

**URL:** <https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/does-dbt-have-a-back-end-database-which-can-be-read/19931>\
**Category:** In-Depth Discussions\
**Tags:** best-practice, snowflake\
**Created:** [July 24, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/does-dbt-have-a-back-end-database-which-can-be-read/19931 "2025-07-24T14:10:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![pozzyal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/6de8d8/32.png) [@pozzyal](https://discourse.getdbt.com/u/pozzyal)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2025, 2:10pm UTC](https://discourse.getdbt.com/t/does-dbt-have-a-back-end-database-which-can-be-read/19931/1 "2025-07-24T14:10:11Z")

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I’m new to dbt and am in the process of manually creating .sql files from Snowflake. I’m using notepad and ctrl-H to change references from snowflake syntax to dbt, and it occurred to me that I can probably build something in Alteryx to automate this process. I’m wondering if dbt has a readable database which might make things smoother? For instance, I want to read in a sources.yml file so I can compare to my snowflake objects to see what needs to be added. While I can copy the .yml and read it into Alteryx or whatever tool, it would be slick if I can just hit the back-end of dbt for this and other things I think of as I learn the ropes. We have a massive amount of views to transform and I want to automate as much as possible, this should be pretty straightforward. Any thoughts or advice? Thanks!