Remove all dbt dependencies from metricflow test environments

.changes/unreleased/Dependencies-20260202-150038.yaml

@@ -0,0 +1,6 @@
+kind: Dependencies
+body: Remove dbt dependencies from Metricflow development packages. This will require an environment refresh across metricflow and dbt-metricflow.
+time: 2026-02-02T15:00:38.874789-05:00
+custom:
+    Author: tlento
+    Issue: "1967"

.pre-commit-config.yaml

@@ -33,6 +33,9 @@ repos:
     rev: v1.3.0
     hooks:
       - id: mypy
+        # dbt-metricflow requires dbt-core, which is not installed in the main metricflow dev environment.
+        # We typecheck dbt-metricflow separately via direct invocation inside the `make lint` command
+        exclude: "^dbt-metricflow/"
         args: [--show-error-codes]
         verbose: true
         # "system" means that the current environment will be used to run the hook, not the environment installed by

CONTRIBUTING.md

@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ When running any one of the hatch commands, the environment is automatically set
     - Run the following commands in your shell, replacing the tags with the appropriate values:
         - `export MF_SQL_ENGINE_URL=<YOUR_WAREHOUSE_CONNECTION_URL>`
         - `export MF_SQL_ENGINE_PASSWORD=<YOUR_WAREHOUSE_PASSWORD>`
-    - Run `make test-<engine>` to execute the entire test suite against the target engine. This will also set the `MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE` to the proper engine identifier and pull in and configure the necessary dbt adapter dependencies for query execution. For example, to run tests against BigQuery, run `make test-bigquery`
+    - Run `make test-<engine>` to execute the entire test suite against the target engine. This will pull in and configure the necessary dependencies for query execution. For example, to run tests against BigQuery, run `make test-bigquery`
     - By default, without `MF_SQL_ENGINE_URL` and `MF_SQL_ENGINE_PASSWORD` set, your tests will run against DuckDB.
 4. Run the linters with `make lint` at any time, but especially before submitting a PR. We use:
     - `Black` for formatting

Makefile

@@ -90,6 +90,8 @@ test-trino:
 .PHONY: lint
 lint:
 	hatch -v run dev-env:pre-commit run --verbose --all-files $(ADDITIONAL_PRECOMMIT_OPTIONS)
+	@echo "\n\nTypechecking dbt-metricflow separately due to dbt-core dependency...\n\n"
+	cd dbt-metricflow && hatch -v run dev-env:mypy --config-file ../mypy.ini dbt_metricflow
 
 # Running data warehouses locally
 .PHONY: postgresql postgres

pyproject.toml

@@ -106,18 +106,14 @@ features = ["dev-env-requirements"]
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.dev-env.env-vars]
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="duckdb"
 MF_SQL_ENGINE_URL="duckdb://"
-# This allows us to use the classes in the `dbt-metricflow` package for tests without installing the package.
-# `dbt-metricflow` can't be installed as it has `metricflow` as a dependency.
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.postgres-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 MF_SQL_ENGINE_URL="postgresql://metricflow@localhost:5432/metricflow"
 MF_SQL_ENGINE_PASSWORD="metricflowing"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="postgres"
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.postgres-env]
 description = "Dev environment for working with PostgreSQL"
@@ -129,17 +125,15 @@ features = ["postgres-env-requirements"]
 ## configured independently of the hatch env construction
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.bigquery-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="bigquery"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.bigquery-env]
 description = "Dev environment for working with BigQuery"
 template = "dev-env"
 features = ["bigquery-env-requirements"]
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.databricks-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="databricks"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.databricks-env]
@@ -149,19 +143,16 @@ features = ["databricks-env-requirements"]
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.redshift-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="redshift"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.redshift-env]
 description = "Dev environment for working with Redshift"
 template = "dev-env"
 features = ["redshift-env-requirements"]
-extra-dependencies = ["dbt-redshift>=1.8.0, <1.9.0"]
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.snowflake-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE="snowflake"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.snowflake-env]
 description = "Dev environment for working with Snowflake"
@@ -170,8 +161,7 @@ features = ["snowflake-env-requirements"]
 
 
 [tool.hatch.envs.trino-env.env-vars]
-PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics:dbt-metricflow"
-MF_TEST_ADAPTER_TYPE = "trino"
+PYTHONPATH="metricflow-semantics"
 MF_SQL_ENGINE_URL = "trino://trino@localhost:8080/memory"
 MF_SQL_ENGINE_PASSWORD=""
 

requirements-files/dev-env-requirements.txt

@@ -1,10 +1,8 @@
-# SqlAlchemy for new client implementation
+# Test SqlClients depend on SqlAlchemy 2.x
 sqlalchemy>=2.0.0, <2.1.0
+# DuckDB engine for DuckDB-backed, SqlAlchemy-based client
 duckdb-engine>=0.13.0, <0.14.0
-
-# dbt dependencies (kept for parallel operation during transition)
-dbt-core>=1.10.4, <1.11.0
-# Excluding 1.2.1 due to window functions returning incorrect results:
+# Excluding duckdb 1.2.1 due to window functions returning incorrect results:
 # https://github.com/duckdb/duckdb/issues/16617
 # Version 1.4.0 seems to have issues as well, so pinning to <1.4.0 until those are resolved.
 duckdb !=1.2.1, <1.4.0

requirements-files/requirements-databricks.txt

@@ -1,3 +1,2 @@
-# SqlAlchemy Databricks connector
-databricks-sql-connector>=3.0.0, <4.0.0
+# SqlAlchemy Databricks connector, includes databricks-sql-connector
 databricks-sqlalchemy>=2.0.0, <3.0.0

requirements-files/requirements-postgres.txt

@@ -1,2 +1,2 @@
-# SqlAlchemy PostgreSQL connector
+# SqlALchemy includes a dialect for PostgreSQL compatible with psycopg2
 psycopg2-binary>=2.9.0, <3.0.0