How we style our YAML

YAML Style Guide

• 2️⃣ Indents should be two spaces
• ➡️ List items should be indented
• 🔠 List items with a single entry can be a string. For example, 'select': 'other_user', but it's best practice to provide the argument as an explicit list. For example, 'select': ['other_user']
• 🆕 Use a new line to separate list items that are dictionaries where appropriate
• 📏 Lines of YAML should be no longer than 80 characters.
• 🛠️ Use the dbt JSON schema with any compatible IDE and a YAML formatter (we recommend Prettier) to validate your YAML files and format them automatically.

info

☁️ As with Python and SQL, the dbt Cloud IDE comes with built-in formatting for YAML files (Markdown and JSON too!), via Prettier. Just click the Format button and you're in perfect style. As with the other tools, you can also customize the formatting rules to your liking to fit your company's style guide.

Example YAML

version: 2

models:
  - name: events
    columns:
      - name: event_id
        description: This is a unique identifier for the event
        tests:
          - unique
          - not_null

      - name: event_time
        description: "When the event occurred in UTC (eg. 2018-01-01 12:00:00)"
        tests:
          - not_null

      - name: user_id
        description: The ID of the user who recorded the event
        tests:
          - not_null
          - relationships:
              to: ref('users')
              field: id