homebrew-dbt

Homebrew tap for installing dbt on macOS and Linux.

As of dbt v2, dbt is distributed as a single precompiled binary — one per platform (macOS and Linux, on both arm64 and x86_64), with no Python runtime required. This tap publishes two formulae for it, each installing a dbt binary from a different build:

Formula	Build	Source	License
dbt-core	Open source	Release assets from the dbt-core repository	Apache-2.0
dbt	Proprietary	Prebuilt binaries hosted on the dbt Labs CDN	Proprietary

Note Both formulae install the dbt binary, so they conflict with each other. Only one can be installed at a time.

Installation

brew tap dbt-labs/dbt

Install the open source build:

brew install dbt-labs/dbt/dbt-core

Or install the proprietary build:

brew install dbt-labs/dbt/dbt

Verify the installation:

dbt --version

For other supported installation methods, see the dbt Core installation docs.

How the formulae are released

The two formulae are updated independently, from two different sources.

dbt-core (open source)

The open source build is distributed as a compiled binary attached to dbt-core GitHub releases (the release ships a dbt-sa-cli binary, which the formula installs as dbt). When a new version is released, Formula/dbt-core.rb is updated to reference the new release assets and checksums.

dbt (proprietary)

The proprietary build is distributed as a prebuilt binary published to the dbt Labs CDN (public.cdn.getdbt.com), one tarball per OS/arch combination. When a new version ships, Formula/dbt.rb is updated automatically to point at the new download URLs and their sha256 checksums.

Repo structure

Formula

Contains the two formulae published by this tap: dbt-core.rb and dbt.rb.

.github

Contains workflows:

• installation-tests.yml — scheduled tests that install each formula from the tap across macOS and Linux (arm64 and x86_64) and run dbt --version to catch regressions.

Legacy v1 formulae

Before dbt was distributed as a compiled binary, this tap published Python formulae for individual v1 adapters — dbt-postgres, dbt-redshift, dbt-snowflake, dbt-bigquery, and the top-level dbt metapackage — up to the 1.x series. Those formulae are no longer maintained or published and have been removed; earlier tags of this repo still contain them for reference.

To install a supported dbt adapter today, follow the dbt Core installation docs.