How can I configure DBT Dependencies without manually running dbt deps?

I am new to DBT and currently trying to build a Docker container where I can directly run DBT commands within. I have a file where I export env variables (envs.sh) that looks like:

export DB_HOST="secret"
export DB_PWD="evenabiggersecret"

My packages.yml looks like:

packages:
  - package: fishtown-analytics/dbt_utils
    version: 0.6.2

I structured my docker file like:

FROM fishtownanalytics/dbt:0.19.0b1
# Define working directory
WORKDIR /usr/app/profile/
ENV DBT_DIR /usr/app
ENV DBT_PROFILES_DIR /usr/app
# Load ENV Vars
COPY ./dbt ${DBT_DIR}
# Load env variables and install packages
COPY envs.sh envs.sh
RUN . ./envs.sh \
 && dbt deps # Exporting envs to avoid profile not found errors when install deps

However, when I run dbt run inside the docker container I get the error: 'dbt_utils' is undefined. When I manually run dbt deps it seems to fix the issue and dbt run succeeds. Am I missing something when I am originally installing the dependencies?

Update: In other words, running dbt deps when building the Docker image seems to have no effect. So I have to run it manually (when I do docker run for example) before I can start doing my workflows. This issue does not happen when I use a Python image (not the image from fishtown-analytics)

Solution

Running dbt deps is a necessary step in preparing your dbt environment, so you should feel fine invoking dbt deps in the Dockerfile prior to dbt run.

I think, however, your intention is getting lost in the RUN instruction on the last line: either the last-line RUN command should be converted to a CMD instruction or you could perform a RUN dbt depts by itself prior. (See this question for more detail on the differences between RUN and CMD.)

And, for what it's worth: dbt Cloud, the hosted SaaS build environment for dbt, also runs dbt deps as one of its standard steps for all dbt build jobs -- meaning executing at run time, every time, similar to Docker's CMD.