Compatibility with dbt Power User extension for VS Code

[bitadmiral]

I've created a pair of dbt projects with cross-project references using dbt-loom. The references are resolved as expected, and I was glad to see that the referenced models show up in the dbt-generated dependency graph (from dbt docs generate && dbt docs serve).

My team is fond of the VS Code extension dbt Power User, but it doesn't seem to handle dbt-loom's cross-project references. The plugin reports problems, and it renders the extension pretty useless. The main error is shown on the dbt_project.yml file:

dbt configuration is invalid : Compilation Error
  Model '<model_resource_path>' (<model_file_path>) depends on a node named '<dependency_model_name>' in package or project '<dependency_project_name>' which was not found
No quick fixes available

This first thing I should ask is if there is a setting I am missing that would make the problems go away. Barring that, I was thinking of requesting an enhancement to the dbt Power User extension project. On second thought, I thought it might be more effective if you reach out to them directly to collaborate on the integration. The more tools that work together, the more chance they both have at proliferation. The developers of the dbt-loom project would have the best ideas of how to integrate the two tools to make the cross-project references resolvable within VS Code.

[nicholasyager]

Hey @verticauser810! Thanks for creating this discussion.

It is my understanding that dbt Power User does have some level of support for dbt-loom. An early investigation a few weeks ago suggested that the out-of-the-box experience should work for local multi-project deployments: https://docs.myaltimate.com/govern/multiproject/.

Having that been said, I understand that this functionality is in the early days for AltimateAI, and there may be some brittleness in their initial integration. I'd strongly recommend reaching out to AltimateAI as a first approach, since they will have the most context for how their client leverages dbt-loom. As a dbt Power User myself, I'd be delighted to assist the AltimateAI folks from the dbt-loom side of the equation if there's anything they need for this integration to work well. I will, however, be explicitly expecting them to lead the charge in maintaining their extension's compatibility with dbt-loom.

[bitadmiral]

Oh my gosh -- thank you! I hadn't seen the documentation on dbt-loom that was created by the dbt Power User team! The integration is wonderful! Imagine my pleasant surprise when I fixed my project's configuration and it worked immediately!

My issue was the placement of the dbt_loom.config.yml file. I have two dbt projects in a monorepo, and I was trying to use the DBT_LOOM_CONFIG environment variable to specify the location of my dbt-loom config file. However, I couldn't set that variable in a way that both projects would see the dbt-loom config because it would cause a different error where the referenced project couldn't find a manifest (because it was looking for its own manifest in the wrong location). Therefore, I put the loom config file in some higher-level folder (above both dbt projects) and then set the environment variable only after opening a terminal specifically for the referencing project. However, that method prevented the dbt Power User extension from knowing anything about my dbt-loom config file, so it complained about broken references.

Once I saw in the example project at the link you provided above that it's as simple as placing the dbt_loom.config.yml right next to my referencing project's dbt_project.yml file, the problems reported by the dbt Power User extension disappeared, and I can visualize cross-project dependencies in the graph within VS Code as shown above.