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DBT:How to get macros executed in overview.md which is used to overide the dbt docs main page

Requirement: To get datetimestamp in the main page of the dbt docs site , so that we know when it was last refreshed

Code:

Have created a macro and the macro is been called in the overview.md

macro

{% macro get_date_test() %}
    {{ return((date_trunc('day', current_timestamp()) | string).replace('-', '')) }}
{% endmacro %}

under the dbt folder docs>overview.md

{% docs __overview__ %}

This documentation was created-on:: {{ get_date_test }}

{% enddocs %}

dbt_project.yml

docs-paths: ["docs"]

dbt docs doesn't show the date yet

enter image description here

I tried changing to calling as below , it threw an error as dbt couldn't recognize the macro

{{ get_date_test() }}

Solution

  • dbt macros are not meant to work in markdown files. To achieve expected behaviour, run below script before dbt docs generate:

    # custom_overview.py in root of dbt project
import time

path = './models/overview.md'

comment = 'This documentation was created-on:: '
start = '{% docs __overview__ %}' 
end = '{% enddocs %}'

updated_at = time.strftime('%Y%m%d', time.localtime())
overview_dated = start + '\n\n' + comment + updated_at + '\n\n' + end

with open(path, 'w') as f:
    f.write(overview_dated)

print(f'Custom overview.md saved in {path}')

    With a similar approach, any documentation file can be edited or overwritten.

    To sequence it nicely with generating docs, I recommend installing and using pre-commit:

    # .pre-commit-config.yaml
repos:
  - repo: local
    hooks:
    - id: custom-overview
      entry: python ./custom_overview.py
      language: system
      types: [python]
      pass_filenames: false
      always_run: true
  - repo: https://github.com/dbt-checkpoint/dbt-checkpoint
    rev: v1.1.1
    hooks:
    - id: dbt-docs-generate
      args: ["--cmd-flags", "++threads", "64"]