Avoiding Config Warnings while Updating Your dbt Project to v1.1

With the recent release of dbt 1.1, users may start to see warnings like this:

  
Warning: while parsing model config: Ignore unexpected key "meta"
  
dbt 1.1 introduces a subtle but important shift in how configuration properties are structured for sources, models, and other resources.

What's Changed?

Historically, dbt allowed you to set properties like freshness, meta, tags, docs, group, and access directly under resources such as sources. For example:
  
sources:
  - name: ecom
    freshness:
      warn_after:
        count: 24
        period: hour
  
In dbt 1.1, these properties must now be nested under a new config key:
  
sources:
  - name: ecom
    config:
      freshness:
        warn_after:
          count: 24
          period: hour
  

This structural change is part of dbt’s effort to standardize configuration across resource types and reduce ambiguity between config and non-config properties. The full dbt 1.1 version guide can be found here.

Why the Change Matters

  1. Grouping all configuration properties under config helps make your YAML files more readable and maintainable.
  2. It avoids accidental overwrites or misplacements, which can lead to unexpected behavior.
  3. Aligning with dbt’s evolving conventions ensures compatibility with newer versions and tooling in the ecosystem.

What You Should Do

  • Audit your YAML files: Check your sources, models, and other resource definitions for any top-level meta, tags, freshness, etc.
  • Move them under config: Update these properties to sit inside a config: block for each resource.
  • Test locally: Run dbt debug and dbt run to make sure you’ve squashed any warnings or errors.

MetaMove, A Handy CLI Tool for Migration

Recognizing that restructuring your YAML files can be tedious, especially for larger dbt projects, the folks at Lightdash recently released the open source project Metamove. Metamove can fix the dbt 1.10 deprecation warnings for specific tags while maintaining readability and comments. Their documentation on the project can be found on their website, here.

MetaMove’s Capabilities:

  • Automatically processes meta and tags at any nesting level, including inside columns. Merges new values into existing config sections without overwriting them.
  • Handles dictionaries, lists, and scalar values.
  • Maintains comments and whitespace so your files stay human-readable.

Limitations to Watch Out For:

  • Properties other than meta and tags are not currently supported: If you need to move other properties such as freshness or access, metamove
  • If you’re using community plugins or extensions, some config keys might not be fully recognized
  • While the tool is smart, a manual review is still advised for critical production environments

How Driftwave Can Help

If you’re managing multiple dbt environments or working with a team that’s still adapting to the latest version, Driftwave can help streamline your migration. We specialize in managed hosting and expert support for open-source analytics tools like dbt, Lightdash, and Metabase.

Reach out to see how we can help modernize your analytics stack without the vendor lock-in.