Quickstart

Get dbt-bigquery-monitoring up and running in under 5 minutes.

Before you start, check the required rights to make sure your service account has the necessary IAM roles.

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1) Install the package

Add to packages.yml (check dbt Hub for the latest version):

# packages.yml
packages:
  - package: bqbooster/dbt_bigquery_monitoring
    version: [">=0.24.0", "<1.0.0"]

dbt deps

2) Set the minimum configuration

In dbt_project.yml, set the output schema and your BigQuery region:

# dbt_project.yml
models:
  dbt_bigquery_monitoring:
    +schema: "dbt_bigquery_monitoring"   # tables land in <target_schema>_dbt_bigquery_monitoring

vars:
  bq_region: 'us'       # Change to 'EU', 'europe-west1', etc. if needed

tip

Not sure of your region? In the BigQuery UI, open Job history (bottom panel), click any job, and check the Location field.

3) Run the package

dbt run -s dbt_bigquery_monitoring

4) Verify the setup

Run the debug operation to confirm all variables are resolved as expected:

dbt run-operation debug_dbt_bigquery_monitoring_variables

Then try a quick sanity-check query:

-- Most expensive queries in the last 24 hours
SELECT
  user_email,
  LEFT(query, 80) AS query_preview,
  ROUND(query_cost, 4) AS cost_usd
FROM {{ ref('most_expensive_jobs') }}
WHERE DATE(hour) = DATE_SUB(CURRENT_DATE(), INTERVAL 1 DAY)
ORDER BY query_cost DESC
LIMIT 10

5) What's next?

Goal	Guide
Monitor multiple GCP projects	Project mode
Get exact dollar costs	GCP Billing export
Query history beyond 6 months	Audit logs
Trace costs to dbt models	Add metadata to queries
See all available variables	Package settings
Schedule regular runs	Running the package