DBT run model only once - dbt

Question

I've created a model to generate a calendar dimension which I only want to run when I explicitly specify to run it.
I tried to use incremental materialisation with nothing in is_incremental() block hoping dbt would do nothing if there was no query to satisfy the temporary view. Unfortunately this didn't work.
Any suggestion or thoughts for how I might achieve this greatly appreciated.
Regards,
Ashley

Answer 1

I've used a tag for this. Let's call this kind of thing a "static" model. In your model:
{{ config(tags=['static']) }}
and then in your production job:
dbt run --exclude tag:static
This doesn't quite achieve what you want, since you have to add the selector at the command line. But it's simple and self-documenting, which is nice.
I think you should be able to hack the incremental materialization to do this. dbt will complain about empty models, but you should be able to return a query with zero records. It'll depend on your RDBMS if this is really much better/faster/cheaper than just running the model, since dbt will still execute a query with the complex merge logic.
{{ config(materialized='incremental') }}
{% if is_incremental() %}
select * from {{ this }} limit 0
{% else %}
-- your model here, e.g.
{{ dbt_utils.date_spine( ... ) }}
{% endif %}
Your last/best option is probably to create a custom materialization that checks for an existing relation and no-ops if it finds one. You could borrow most of the code from the incremental materialization to do this. (You would add this as a macro in your project). Haven't tested this, but to give you an idea:
-- macros/static_materialization.sql
{% materialization static, default -%}
-- relations
{%- set existing_relation = load_cached_relation(this) -%}
{%- set target_relation = this.incorporate(type='table') -%}
{%- set temp_relation = make_temp_relation(target_relation)-%}
{%- set intermediate_relation = make_intermediate_relation(target_relation)-%}
{%- set backup_relation_type = 'table' if existing_relation is none else existing_relation.type -%}
{%- set backup_relation = make_backup_relation(target_relation, backup_relation_type) -%}
-- configs
{%- set unique_key = config.get('unique_key') -%}
{%- set full_refresh_mode = (should_full_refresh() or existing_relation.is_view) -%}
{%- set on_schema_change = incremental_validate_on_schema_change(config.get('on_schema_change'), default='ignore') -%}
-- the temp_ and backup_ relations should not already exist in the database; get_relation
-- will return None in that case. Otherwise, we get a relation that we can drop
-- later, before we try to use this name for the current operation. This has to happen before
-- BEGIN, in a separate transaction
{%- set preexisting_intermediate_relation = load_cached_relation(intermediate_relation)-%}
{%- set preexisting_backup_relation = load_cached_relation(backup_relation) -%}
-- grab current tables grants config for comparision later on
{% set grant_config = config.get('grants') %}
{{ drop_relation_if_exists(preexisting_intermediate_relation) }}
{{ drop_relation_if_exists(preexisting_backup_relation) }}
{{ run_hooks(pre_hooks, inside_transaction=False) }}
-- `BEGIN` happens here:
{{ run_hooks(pre_hooks, inside_transaction=True) }}
{% set to_drop = [] %}
{% if existing_relation is none %}
{% set build_sql = get_create_table_as_sql(False, target_relation, sql) %}
{% elif full_refresh_mode %}
{% set build_sql = get_create_table_as_sql(False, intermediate_relation, sql) %}
{% set need_swap = true %}
{% else %}
{# ----- only changed the code between these comments ----- #}
{# NO-OP. An incremental materialization would do a merge here #}
{% set build_sql = "select 1" %}
{# ----- only changed the code between these comments ----- #}
{% endif %}
{% call statement("main") %}
{{ build_sql }}
{% endcall %}
{% if need_swap %}
{% do adapter.rename_relation(target_relation, backup_relation) %}
{% do adapter.rename_relation(intermediate_relation, target_relation) %}
{% do to_drop.append(backup_relation) %}
{% endif %}
{% set should_revoke = should_revoke(existing_relation, full_refresh_mode) %}
{% do apply_grants(target_relation, grant_config, should_revoke=should_revoke) %}
{% do persist_docs(target_relation, model) %}
{% if existing_relation is none or existing_relation.is_view or should_full_refresh() %}
{% do create_indexes(target_relation) %}
{% endif %}
{{ run_hooks(post_hooks, inside_transaction=True) }}
-- `COMMIT` happens here
{% do adapter.commit() %}
{% for rel in to_drop %}
{% do adapter.drop_relation(rel) %}
{% endfor %}
{{ run_hooks(post_hooks, inside_transaction=False) }}
{{ return({'relations': [target_relation]}) }}
{%- endmaterialization %}

Answer 2

We are working with dbt run --select MODEL_NAME for each model we want to run. So a dbt run in our environment never executes more then one model. By doing so you never run in a situation where you execute a model by accident.