what nodes are dbt docs generate targets for?

[wcchang]

Hello dbt Community and Experts,

I have a question about the behavior of dbt docs generate
When I generated doc on state:modified model, I found the catalog.json contains more than the modified model.
Could anyone share how it works like that? Thank you!

• Question and Reproducing steps
  I used the example project dbt-labs/jaffle-shop.
  I built a base environment by running the following commands:

  dbt seed -t prod --target-path base
  dbt run -t prod --target-path base
  dbt docs generate -t prod --target-path base
  

  Then I did a small change on the model customers (models/marts/customers.sql) and ran the following commands:

  dbt run --select state:modified --defer --state base
  dbt docs generate
  

  It only ran the customers model, and the target schema of the database only contained the customers table.
  I thought that the catalog.json contained only the modified model customers as well.
  However, it contained not only the model customers, but also all the seeds.

  

• Environment

  • OS: macOS 13.6
  • Python: 3.12
  • dbt:
    • dbt-core 1.8.9
    • dbt-bigquery 1.8.3

Thank you!