Cache

Cache population

At the start of runs, dbt caches metadata about all the objects in all the schemas where it might materialize resources (such as models). By default, dbt populates the relational cache with information on all schemas related to the project.

There are two ways to optionally modify this behavior:

• POPULATE_CACHE (default: True): Whether to populate the cache at all. To skip cache population entirely, use the --no-populate-cache flag or DBT_POPULATE_CACHE: False. Note that this does not disable the cache; missed cache lookups will run queries, and update the cache afterward.
• CACHE_SELECTED_ONLY (default False): Whether to limit cache population to just the resources selected in the current run. This can offer significant speed improvements when running a small subset of a large project, while still providing the benefit of caching upfront.

For example, to quickly compile a model that requires no database metadata or introspective queries:

dbt --no-populate-cache compile --select my_model_name

Or, to improve speed and performance while focused on developing Salesforce models, which are materialized into their own dedicated schema, you could select those models and pass the cache-selected-only flag:

dbt --cache-selected-only run --select salesforce

Logging relational cache events

The LOG_CACHE_EVENTS config allows detailed logging for relational cache, which are disabled by default.

dbt --log-cache-events compile