dbt Interview Project

This project uses dbt (data build tool) with SQLite for data transformation.

Quick Start (Recommended - ~2 minutes)

Option 1: Local Setup in a virtual environment. (Fastest setup)

If you prefer to run without docker, make alone should get you what you need:

# Check and install dependencies
make check-deps  # Will show what's missing

# Bootstrap the project
make init

# Activate the virtual environment
source .venv/bin/activate

# Now you can use dbt directly
dbt run
dbt test

Option 2: Docker (Most isolated)

Check if you already have Docker installed:

docker --version && docker-compose --version

If both commands work, you're ready to go! Skip to the usage instructions below.

If you don't have Docker installed:

macOS:

1. You have docker but not docker-compose:

   • Install docker-compose: brew install docker-compose

2. You have neither docker nor docker-compose:

   • Install Rancher Desktop (open source, no account required):
     • brew install --cask rancher
     • Or download DMG from Rancher Desktop releases
   • Launch Rancher Desktop from Applications
   • Add ~/.rd/bin to your PATH:
     • zsh: echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rd/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.zshrc && source ~/.zshrc
     • bash: echo 'export PATH="$HOME/.rd/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile && source ~/.bash_profile
   • Includes docker and docker-compose - works exactly like Docker Desktop

Linux:

• sudo apt-get install docker.io docker-compose (or your distro's equivalent)

Once Docker is installed, this is the fastest way to get started:

# Start the container (first time builds image, subsequent times are instant)
make docker

# Inside the container, initialize the database
make clean

# Run your dbt models
dbt run

---

Typical Workflow

Docker Workflow

# Start interactive container (first time builds image, subsequent times are instant)
make docker

# Inside container (dependencies already installed, no need for a venv in a container):
make clean                    # Initialize/reset database
dbt run                       # Run all models
dbt run --select <model_name> # Run specific model
dbt test                       # Run tests

Local Workflow

# First time setup
make init

# Regular development
source .venv/bin/activate      # activate the venv
make clean                     # Reset database and reload seeds (or: bin/start.sh)
dbt run                        # Run your dbt models
dbt run --select <model_name>  # Run specific model
dbt test                       # Run tests

# Note: make run, make test, etc. also work if you prefer