Ingest Owner from dbt | Official Documentation

Configure dbt workflows to ingest owner metadata from dbt models into your governance platform.

Ingest Owner from dbt

Ingest the model/table owner information from dbt manifest.json or catalog.json file into openmetadata tables.

The owner can be a user or a team in OpenMetadata.

Follow the link here to add the owner to the dbt project’s schema.yml file

Requirements

1. Owner information in manifest.json file

Openmetadata fetches the owner information from the manifest.json file. Below is a sample manifest.json file node containing owner information under node_name->metadata->owner.

"model.jaffle_shop.orders": {
			"metadata": {
				"type": "BASE TABLE",
				"schema": "dbt_jaffle",
				"name": "orders",
				"database": "dev",
				"comment": null,
				"owner": "openmetadata_team"
			}
}

2. Owner information in catalog.json file

Openmetadata fetches the owner information from the catalog.json file. Below is a sample catalog.json file node containing owner information under node_name->metadata->owner.

"model.jaffle_shop.customers": {
      "metadata": {
        "type": "BASE TABLE",
        "schema": "dbt_jaffle",
        "name": "customers",
        "database": "dev",
        "comment": null,
        "owner": "openmetadata"
      },
}

3. Adding the User or Team to OpenMetadata

The user or team which will be set as the entity owner should be first created in OpenMetadata.

While linking the owner from manifest.json or catalog.json files to the entity, OpenMetadata first searches for the user if it is present. If the user is not present it searches for the team.

4. Adding Multiple Owners to dbt Models

OpenMetadata allows you to define multiple owners (users or teams) for dbt models through the owner field under meta.openmetadata in your schema.yml configuration. This helps reflect shared ownership and collaborative accountability on data assets.

Example Configuration

models:
  - name: customers
    meta:
      openmetadata:
        glossary: [
          'Test_Glossary.term_one',
          'Test_Glossary.term_two.nested_term.more_nested_term',
        ]
        tier: 'Tier.Tier2'
        owner: ['John Doe', '[e-mail]']
    config:
      tags: ["model_tag_one", "model_tag_two"]

Guidelines

• Owner Field: Provide a list of users or team identifiers under owner.
• User Validation: Ensure the specified owners (e.g., John Doe, [e-mail]) exist in OpenMetadata as valid user or team entities.
• Overwrite Behavior: Use the dbtUpdateOwners parameter in your ingestion configuration to control whether this list overwrites existing owners or only applies to unowned assets.

Following steps shows adding a User to OpenMetadata:

1. Click on the Users section from homepage

2. Click on the Add User button

3. Enter the details as shown for the user

If the owner’s name in manifest.json or catalog.json file is openmetadata, you need to enter [e-mail] in the email id section of add user form as shown below.

Following steps shows adding a Team to OpenMetadata:

1. Click on the Teams section from homepage

2. Click on the Add Team button

3. Enter the details as shown for the team

If the owner’s name in manifest.json or catalog.json file is openmetadata, you need to enter openmetadata in the name section of add team form as shown below.

Linking the Owner to the table

After running the ingestion workflow with dbt you can see the created user or team getting linked to the table as it’s owner as it was specified in the manifest.json or catalog.json file.

Overriding the existing table Owners

To establish a unified and reliable system for owners, a single source of truth is necessary. It either is directly OpenMetadata, if individuals want to go there and keep updating, or if they prefer to keep it centralized in dbt, then we can always rely on that directly.

When the Update Owners toggle is enabled during the configuration of dbt ingestion, existing owners of tables will be overwritten with the dbt owners.

If toggle is disabled during the configuration of dbt ingestion, dbt owners will only be updated for tables in OpenMetadata that currently have no owners. Existing owners will remain unchanged and will not be overwritten with dbt owners.