--- title: dbt From Zero to First Model (Full Walkthrough) | daily.dev description: A full beginner walkthrough for setting up dbt Core from scratch, connecting it to Google BigQuery, and building a first data transformation model. Covers... canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/dbt-from-zero-to-first-model-full-walkthrough--c3m9w1lkh twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: dbt From Zero to First Model (Full Walkthrough) | daily.dev og:description: A full beginner walkthrough for setting up dbt Core from scratch, connecting it to Google BigQuery, and building a first data transformation model. Covers... og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/dbt-from-zero-to-first-model-full-walkthrough--c3m9w1lkh og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/c3M9w1Lkh.png og:image:alt: dbt From Zero to First Model (Full Walkthrough) og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # dbt From Zero to First Model (Full Walkthrough) **[Database Star](https://daily.dev/sources/database-star)** · 23 min read · 1 upvotes · 0 comments ## Summary A full beginner walkthrough for setting up dbt Core from scratch, connecting it to Google BigQuery, and building a first data transformation model. Covers installing dbt via pip in a Python virtual environment, configuring profiles.yml with OAuth authentication, writing a SQL model that cleans raw orders data, declaring sources in YAML, and running built-in tests (not_null, unique, accepted_values). Also briefly introduces the ref function for model dependencies and dbt docs for auto-generated lineage documentation. ## Full article daily.dev links to this article rather than hosting it. Read it at the original source: ## Similar posts on daily.dev - [Building dbt Pipelines with Snowflake Cortex Code: A Hands-On Guide](https://daily.dev/posts/building-dbt-pipelines-with-snowflake-cortex-code-a-hands-on-guide-0iafhtdjm) · Snowflake Community · 0 upvotes · 0 comments - [I Thought Loading Data Was the Finish Line. It Was the Starting Point.](https://daily.dev/posts/i-thought-loading-data-was-the-finish-line-it-was-the-starting-point--vwtdmjd3e) · Towards Data Science · 1 upvotes · 0 comments --- Tags: [#sql](https://daily.dev/tags/sql), [#data-analysis](https://daily.dev/tags/data-analysis), [#google-bigquery](https://daily.dev/tags/google-bigquery) [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/dbt-from-zero-to-first-model-full-walkthrough--c3m9w1lkh) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"TechArticle","headline":"dbt From Zero to First Model (Full Walkthrough)","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/dbt-from-zero-to-first-model-full-walkthrough--c3m9w1lkh","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://daily.dev/posts/dbt-from-zero-to-first-model-full-walkthrough--c3m9w1lkh"},"datePublished":"2026-07-20T02:25:28.730Z","dateModified":"2026-07-20T02:25:48.299Z","description":"A full beginner walkthrough for setting up dbt Core from scratch, connecting it to Google BigQuery, and building a first data transformation model. 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