Issues creating a source file to be referenced by models in dbt

Question

I am new to DBT and I understand how to create a src.yml where my data source in snowflake(database/schema/table) is located to be referenced by my models. But I am not sure how to do that when the data source is a model. The code below successfully references my source(data model) and it runs. but the objective is to create a src.yml, include details of my source (data model) and other models that can reference it.

my model referencing its source: 'mark', 'A_mark_Properties'

with cats(
   select "iD",
          "Val", 
          "Set",
        ROW_NUMBER()OVER ( PARTITION BY "iD" order by "Set" desc )  as num
   from {{ ref('mark', 'A_mark_Properties') }} --refernece the model
   )

The objective is to create a src.yml and add details of my source data model. When creating s source file for referencing a table, it's usually this way, but I am not sure how to create something similar when it comes to data models as the source.

version: 2

sources:
  - name: jaffle_shop
    tables:
      - name: orders
      - name: customers

  - name: stripe
    tables:
      - name: payments

Answer 1

You don't need to add a_mark_properties as a source. If it is a model within the same dbt project, then all you need to do is write {{ ref('a_mark_properties') }} from within a new model.

The way you have your ref() written, it appears you are trying to pull a model from a package that you added to your current project (see advanced ref usage).

However, my guess is you think you have to add mark.a_mark_properties to your src.yml file, when you don't. I'm surprised your model ran unless you did, in fact, add a package (another dbt project) thats called mark and had a model within it called a_mark_properties.

If you actually have a table that ISN'T related to an existing dbt model, then you'd added it to your src.yml file (note: without a database added to source, the default is your target database, which would be analytics according to the dbt tutorial)...

--src.yml
version: 2

sources:
  - name: mark
    tables:
      - name: a_mark_properties

And you would reference it as such...

select *
from {{ source('mark','a_mark_properties') }}

Hard to answer your question when I'm not positive how you got your current work to run properly.