Cross-Project Collaboration

Cross-project collaboration allows downstream dbt projects to reference public models from upstream projects without installing their full source code. This is the core multi-project capability of dbt Mesh.

Requirement: dbt Cloud Enterprise (or dbt Cloud Enterprise+) is required for cross-project refs. Model governance features (contracts, access, groups, versions) work in dbt Core and all dbt Cloud tiers.

Prerequisites

Before a downstream project can reference upstream models:

Upstream Project

1. Models must have access: public (recommended: with contract: {enforced: true})
2. At least one successful production deployment job must have run (generates the manifest.json metadata that dbt Cloud uses to resolve cross-project refs)
3. For Staging environments, a successful staging deployment job is also needed

Downstream Project

1. The upstream project must be declared in dependencies.yml
2. SQL must use two-argument ref(): ref('project_name', 'model_name')

Configuring dependencies.yml

Create dependencies.yml at the root of your downstream project:

# dependencies.yml
projects:
  - name: core_platform  # Must exactly match the upstream project's dbt_project.yml 'name' field

You can combine project dependencies with package dependencies:

# dependencies.yml
packages:
  - package: dbt-labs/dbt_utils
    version: 1.1.1

projects:
  - name: core_platform
  - name: marketing_platform

The name field is case-sensitive and must exactly match the name in the upstream project's dbt_project.yml.

Using Cross-Project ref()

Reference upstream public models using the two-argument form:

-- models/marts/fct_combined_orders.sql
with platform_orders as (
    select * from {{ ref('core_platform', 'fct_orders') }}
),

marketing_attributions as (
    select * from {{ ref('marketing_platform', 'fct_attributions') }}
)

select
    p.order_id,
    p.customer_id,
    p.order_total,
    m.campaign_id,
    m.attribution_type
from platform_orders p
left join marketing_attributions m
    on p.order_id = m.order_id

Referencing Versioned Models Cross-Project

-- Pin to a specific version
select * from {{ ref('core_platform', 'fct_orders', v=1) }}

-- Use the latest version (default)
select * from {{ ref('core_platform', 'fct_orders') }}

Disambiguating Similarly-Named Models

When multiple upstream projects have models with the same name (e.g. stg_customers), the two-argument ref() resolves the ambiguity:

-- These are two different models from two different projects
with core_customers as (
    select * from {{ ref('core_platform', 'stg_customers') }}
),

marketing_customers as (
    select * from {{ ref('marketing_platform', 'stg_customers') }}
)

select ...

Without the project argument, dbt cannot determine which stg_customers you mean and will raise an error.

Advantages Over Package Dependencies

Cross-Project Orchestration

Job Completion Triggers

In dbt Cloud, configure downstream jobs to trigger when upstream jobs complete:

1. Go to the downstream project's job settings
2. Under Triggers, select Job Completion
3. Choose the upstream project and job that should trigger this job

This ensures downstream models always build against fresh upstream data.

Staging Environment Protection

When both projects have staging environments configured, dbt Cloud automatically resolves cross-project refs against the staging environment's metadata — preventing staging development from reading production data.

Bidirectional Dependencies

Two projects can depend on each other (e.g. finance uses models from marketing AND marketing uses models from finance). dbt allows this as long as there are no node-level cycles.

finance/fct_revenue → marketing/dim_campaigns  ✅ OK (project-level cycle)
finance/fct_revenue → marketing/dim_campaigns → finance/fct_revenue  ❌ Node-level cycle

When establishing bidirectional dependencies, deploy projects sequentially to build up the metadata each project needs to resolve the other's refs.

Multi-Project Testing

You can write singular tests that reference models from different projects:

-- tests/assert_orders_have_valid_campaigns.sql
select *
from {{ ref('core_platform', 'fct_orders') }} o
left join {{ ref('marketing_platform', 'dim_campaigns') }} c
    on o.campaign_id = c.campaign_id
where o.campaign_id is not null
    and c.campaign_id is null

Exploring Upstream Models

When working in a downstream project and you need to understand what's available upstream:

1. Check dependencies.yml for declared upstream projects
2. Use the dbt Cloud Catalog (if available) to browse public models across all projects
3. Use dbt ls to list available models:

   # List all models available from an upstream project
   dbt ls --resource-type model --output-keys name,access --select source:core_platform+

4. Check upstream YAML files for access: public models and their contract definitions

Common Mistakes