dbt-preflight

dbt Preflight

Use this skill before opening a PR, reviewing a dbt change, or assessing risk in an analytics repository.

Goals

• Understand which dbt assets changed.
• Estimate downstream impact.
• Detect likely gaps in testing, contracts, documentation, and YAML alignment.
• Recommend the narrowest safe validation path.

What to inspect

• changed models
• changed snapshots
• changed seeds
• changed macros
• changed tests
• changed schema YAML files
• changed semantic models
• changed metrics
• changed saved queries
• changed exposures or BI-facing assets

Review checklist

Check for:

• model grain changes
• renamed columns or breaking contract changes
• missing or weakened tests
• YAML not updated after model changes
• metrics or semantic definitions drifting from prior meaning
• high blast radius due to downstream dependencies
• incremental logic changes
• snapshot logic changes
• joins or filters that may alter business meaning

Validation planning

Recommend the narrowest meaningful validation path first:

1. targeted model or test checks
2. narrow downstream or dependency checks
3. broader PR-level validation only if needed

If exact commands are available in the repo, use them. If not, say what should be validated conceptually.

Output format

Return:

1. changed assets summary
2. likely blast radius
3. likely missing checks or weak spots
4. recommended validation plan
5. items that need stakeholder or domain-owner confirmation

Rules

• Focus on correctness and semantic impact, not style.
• Be conservative with claims.
• Do not edit code unless explicitly asked.