I have an issue trying to document a model

Help
1

I have a dbt.project.yml file. The file looks like this :

'# Name your project! Project names should contain only lowercase characters
'# and underscores. A good package name should reflect your organization’s
'# name or the intended use of these models
name: ‘edw’
version: ‘1.0.0’
config-version: 2

'# This setting configures which “profile” dbt uses for this project.
profile: ‘edw’

'# These configurations specify where dbt should look for different types of files.
'# The model-paths config, for example, states that models in this project can be
'# found in the “models/” directory. You probably won’t need to change these!
model-paths: [“models”]
analysis-paths: [“analyses”]
test-paths: [“tests”]
seed-paths: [“seeds”]
macro-paths: [“macros”]
snapshot-paths: [“snapshots”]

clean-targets: # directories to be removed by dbt clean

  • “target”
  • “dbt_packages”

'# Configuring models
'# Full documentation: Model configurations | dbt Developer Hub

'# In this example config, we tell dbt to build all models in the example/
'# directory as views. These settings can be overridden in the individual model
'# files using the {{ config(...) }} macro.
models:
edw:
name: ReRead_Source_File
description: This is just a random description.
'# Config indicated by + and applies to all files under models/example/
example:
+materialized: view

I can run dbt debug, dbt build, dbt run, dbt docs generate and dbt docs serve, but for the model ReRead_Source_File the description states : “The model is not currently documented”.

I have tried creating a .YML file for the model in the same folder as the model. Still no joy.
Basically, I am clueless as to how to add something as basic as a description.

Clearly debug thinks my file is OK, but I am not putting the description in the right place. Hopefully an easy one for those that have more than a couple of days experience. I am only learning - so ignore the naming etc - just trying to see how things hang together.

Note I put a ’ in front of each # has then it displayed better in this post than without - but it is not in the file on the system

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2

I have also tried putting this in the model :

{{ config(description=‘Does this work’) }}

select * from {{ ref(‘Projects_Type1_and_2’) }}

3

Just an update. I have found if I create a file in the models folder which looks like this it works :

version: 2

models:

  • name: ReRead_Source_File
    description: Hello World

Should that work if I put it in the project.yml file at the root level of the project - or does it have to be in the models folder. I suppose I have this working - but am unsure as to whether I have in the correct place, or the only place.

Thanks

Andrew

4

I added another model and now after removing it get the following error :

The schema file at models\Descriptions.yml is invalid because the value of ‘models’ is not a list

What does this mean?

5

Model documentation is handled in the model’s yml file (like in your third message), not the dbt_project.yml file.

The jaffle_shop repo may be helpful to you - the folder I linked has two models (customers, orders) that are both documented in schema.yml. The error you’re getting sounds like a misconfiguration of the values under models:. Would expect something like:

version: 2

models:
   - name: ReRead_Source_file
     description: model description

   - name: second_model
     description: model description

The schema.yml file in that repo should also show you how to document the columns in those models. Hope this helps!

6

Thanks Lisa. May have had some strange characters in my schema.yml file - so started again and working as expected. Thanks