dbt Studio for VS Code

dbt Studio brings your dbt project to life inside VS Code — with a model explorer, Jinja SQL language support, and deep GitHub Copilot integration that lets you navigate, run, and understand your dbt project through natural language.

No configuration required. Open a workspace with a dbt_project.yml and it just works.

Features

Copilot Integration (Language Model Tools)

Ask GitHub Copilot anything about your dbt project:

• Run / Test / Build / Compile Models — Execute dbt commands from chat
• List Resources — Browse models, sources, seeds, and snapshots
• Get Resource Info — Inspect model details, columns, and configuration
• Get Project Info — Overview of project statistics and structure
• Get Lineage — Explore upstream and downstream dependencies
• Get Column Lineage — Column-level lineage information
• Analyze Impact — Understand downstream effects of changes before you make them
• Query Database — Run SQL queries through dbt's connection
• Install Dependencies — Run dbt deps from chat
• Load Seeds — Run dbt seed from chat

Model Explorer

A sidebar tree view showing all dbt resources organised by type and materialisation — models, sources, seeds, snapshots, and tests at a glance.

Language Support

• Jinja SQL syntax highlighting for .sql files with Jinja2 templates
• Jinja in YAML — syntax highlighting for Jinja expressions in schema.yml and other dbt YAML files
• Go to Definition — jump from ref('model_name') or source('src', 'table') directly to the file
• Hover Information — see model details and metadata on hover
• Auto-completion for ref(), source(), and Jinja built-in functions

Test Results

View test results in a dedicated panel with pass/fail status indicators.

Getting Started

1. Install the extension

Or search for dbt Studio in the VS Code Extensions panel.

2. Open a dbt project

Open any folder containing a dbt_project.yml. The extension activates automatically.

3. Ask Copilot about your project

Open GitHub Copilot Chat and ask things like:

"List all models in my dbt project" "Show me the lineage for the customers model" "Run the staging models and show results" "What would break if I changed stg_orders?"

Requirements

• VS Code 1.102.0 or later
• GitHub Copilot extension
• Python environment with dbt-core installed
• A dbt project in your workspace

Extension Settings

| dbt-studio.profilesDir | Path to the dbt profiles directory | ~/.dbt | | dbt-studio.logLevel | Log verbosity level | info |

Troubleshooting

Extension not activating?

• Ensure your workspace contains a dbt_project.yml file at the root or in a subfolder.

Copilot tools not appearing?

• Make sure GitHub Copilot is installed and signed in.
• The tools appear as a toolset in Copilot Chat — look for the dbt Studio toolset icon.

"dbt not found" errors?

• The extension auto-detects your Python environment (venv, uv, poetry, pipenv, conda, system Python). Ensure dbt-core is installed in whichever environment your project uses.
• Verify dbt is installed: python -m dbt --version

Manifest not loading?

• Run dbt compile or dbt run in your project first to generate target/manifest.json.
• The extension watches for manifest changes and reindexes automatically.

Development

git clone https://github.com/NiclasOlofsson/dbt-studio-vscode
cd dbt-studio-vscode
npm install
npm run compile

Press F5 in VS Code to launch an Extension Development Host with the extension loaded.

npm test       # run unit tests
npm run lint   # lint

License

MIT