[Bug] Project being misidentified as a custom key in config

[HunterAnnan]

Is this a new bug in dbt-core?

• I believe this is a new bug in dbt-core
• I have searched the existing issues, and I could not find an existing issue for this bug

Current Behavior

dbt is throwing warnings about the project key in config files/blocks. It warns that it should be under config.meta, but that is not correct. project is an alias for database under dbt-bigquery. This emerged with an upgrade to 1.11.

Expected Behavior

Per the docs:

database is interchangeable with the BigQuery concept of project

The behaviour should be exactly the same as that for database, no warning should be shown here.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Use a project with BigQuery
2. Create a model with the project key in the config block
3. dbt run the model

Relevant log output

[WARNING][CustomKeyInConfigDeprecation]: Deprecated functionality
Custom key `project` found in `config` in file
`models/path/to/model.sql`.
Custom config keys should move into the `config.meta`.

Environment

- OS: macOS Tahoe 26.2
- Python: 3.13.0
- dbt: 1.11.2

Which database adapter are you using with dbt?

bigquery

Additional Context

No response

[graciegoheen]

Added this to our epic to resolve false deprecation warnings, thanks for opening