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dbt · Testing & Documentation

What are exposures?

Mediumdbt-18
exposureslineagebiimpact analysis

Question

What are dbt exposures, and why would you define them?

Solution

An exposure declares a downstream use of your dbt models outside the dbt project: a dashboard, an ML feature table consumer, a reverse-ETL sync, or an executive report.

Example

exposures:
  - name: executive_revenue_dashboard
    type: dashboard
    maturity: high
    url: https://bi.example.com/dashboards/revenue
    description: Daily revenue by region for leadership.
    depends_on:
      - ref('fct_orders')
      - ref('dim_regions')
    owner:
      name: Analytics
      email: analytics@example.com

Why exposures matter

fct_orders ──▶ exposure: executive_revenue_dashboarddim_regions ──▶                                     
  • Lineage reaches real consumers, not only other SQL models
  • Impact analysis: "changing fct_orders breaks this Looker dashboard"
  • Ownership and URLs live next to the data product
  • Selection: dbt build --select +exposure:executive_revenue_dashboard

Mental model

Models are producers. Exposures are named dependents that dbt does not build, but must not break silently.

Interview tip: "Exposures close the gap between warehouse models and business-facing artifacts so lineage and ownership are explicit."

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