Dbt Docs MCP - MCP Server

dbt-docs-mcp

Model Context Protocol (MCP) server for interacting with dbt project metadata, including dbt Docs artifacts (manifest.json, catalog.json). This server exposes dbt graph information and allows querying node details, model/column lineage, and related metadata.

Key Functionality

This server provides tools to:

Search dbt Nodes:
- Find nodes (models, sources, tests, etc.) by name (search_dbt_node_names).
- Locate nodes based on column names (search_dbt_column_names).
- Search within the compiled SQL code of nodes (search_dbt_sql_code).
Inspect Nodes:
- Retrieve detailed attributes for any given node unique ID (get_dbt_node_attributes).
Explore Lineage:
- Find direct upstream dependencies (predecessors) of a node (get_dbt_predecessors).
- Find direct downstream dependents (successors) of a node (get_dbt_successors).
Column-Level Lineage:
- Trace all upstream sources for a specific column in a model (get_column_ancestors).
- Trace all downstream dependents of a specific column in a model (get_column_descendants).
Suggested extensions:
- Tool that allows executing SQL queries.
- Tool that retrieves table/view/column metadata directly from the database.
- Tool to search knowledge-base.

Getting Started

Prerequisites: Ensure you have Python installed and uv

Clone the repo:

git clone <repository-url>
cd dbt-docs-mcp

Optional: parse dbt manifest for column-level lineage:
- Setup the required Python environment, e.g.:
```
uv sync
```
- Use the provided script scripts/create_manifest_cl.py and simply provide the path to your dbt manifest, dbt catalog and the desired output paths for your schema and column lineage file:
```
python scripts/create_manifest_cl.py --manifest-path PATH_TO_YOUR_MANIFEST_FILE --catalog-path PATH_TO_YOUR_CATALOG_FILE --schema-mapping-path DESIRED_OUTPUT_PATH_FOR_SCHEMA_MAPPING --manifest-cl-path DESIRED_OUTPUT_PATH_FOR_MANIFEST_CL
```
- Depending on your dbt project size, creating column-lineage can take a while (hours)

Run the Server:

If your desired MCP client (Claude desktop, Cursor, etc.) supports mcp.json it would like as below:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "DBT Docs MCP": {
        "command": "uv",
        "args": [
            "run",
            "--with",
            "networkx,mcp[cli],rapidfuzz,dbt-core,python-decouple,sqlglot,tqdm",
            "mcp",
            "run",
            "/Users/mattijs/repos/dbt-docs-mcp/src/mcp_server.py"
        ],
        "env": {
            "MANIFEST_PATH": "/Users/mattijs/repos/dbt-docs-mcp/inputs/manifest.json",
            "SCHEMA_MAPPING_PATH": "/Users/mattijs/repos/dbt-docs-mcp/outputs/schema_mapping.json",
            "MANIFEST_CL_PATH": "/Users/mattijs/repos/dbt-docs-mcp/outputs/manifest_column_lineage.json"
        }
        }
    }
}