Defer to production

Defer lets you develop against production data and schemas: dbt™ reads unchanged parent models from your production manifest instead of rebuilding them, so you only build what you’re actively working on. This guide enables it in the Code IDE.

Prerequisites

A scheduler connection to your warehouse.
An existing Bolt schedule.
Defer to production enabled on that schedule.

Estimated time: 5 minutes.

How it works

With defer on, dbt™ resolves a ref() from the production manifest when the referenced model is both not in the current run’s selection and not present in your development schema. Paradime fetches the latest manifest.json automatically, so you always defer against current production state.

Steps

Open the defer menu

In the editor toolbar, next to the run button, open the defer menu.

Choose a defer mode

Standard defer to production: reads production objects only when needed.
Defer with --favor-state: always reads from the production manifest, even when the model exists in your development schema.

Once enabled, both data preview and Terminal commands defer automatically.

Compiled SQL now references your production schema for unchanged parents. Compare a deferred run with a standard one:

Deferred (production schema)
Standard (development schema)

with orders as (
    select * from `dbt-demo-project.dbt_prod.stg_orders`
)
select customer_id, count(order_id) as number_of_orders
from orders group by 1

with orders as (
    select * from `dbt-demo-project.dbt_dev.stg_orders`
)
select customer_id, count(order_id) as number_of_orders
from orders group by 1

The deferred run reads dbt_prod; the standard run reads your dev schema. After a deferred run, the Terminal prints a clickable link to the Bolt run it deferred against.

Review dbt’s state comparison caveats to understand the limitations.

Next steps

Schedule settings reference

Enable defer to production on a Bolt schedule.

Create a Bolt schedule

Set up the production run defer relies on.

Foundations

Automate with AI agents

Set up & configure

Orchestrate data pipelines

Migrate to Paradime

Develop in Paradime

Learn dbt™

Defer to production

How it works

Steps

Next steps

Schedule settings reference

Create a Bolt schedule

​How it works

​Steps

​Next steps

Schedule settings reference

Create a Bolt schedule

How it works

Steps

Next steps