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The dbt™ version upgrade agent does the project-preparation half of a version upgrade for you: given a target dbt™ version, it audits the project against that version’s changes, fixes deprecations and incompatibilities, runs dbt parse and dbt build to prove the project still works, and opens one PR with the evidence. You review and merge the PR, then flip the version in Settings.
Prerequisites
  • Your repository connected so the agent can branch, commit, and open PRs.
  • A warehouse connection for the environment the agent runs in, so dbt build can execute.
  • Familiarity with programmable agents and building an agent in the UI.
  • The version guide for your target version, so you can review the agent’s PR against what should change.
Estimated time: 20 minutes to build the agent; the run time depends on project size.

Steps

1

Create the agent

In the Agent app, open Agents, select New agent, and choose Start from scratch. Fill in the builder fields below and leave Model on Auto. See Build an agent in the UI for a tour of the builder.Name: dbt-version-upgrade-agentRole:
Goal:
Backstory:
Allowed tools (everything else is refused, see the Tools Reference):
  • read_file, write_file, replace_in_file, search_files_and_directories, ripgrep_search
  • run_terminal_command
Output: the pull request is the deliverable; optionally add post_slack_message to the allowed tools and set a channel if you want an audit trail of each upgrade run.
2

Deploy the agent

Select Deploy and choose where the agent lives: Just here saves it to the workspace and makes it live immediately, Open a pull request commits it to your repo as .dinoai/agents/dbt-version-upgrade-agent.yml so it is governed as code. See Creating Agents in the App.
3

Run the upgrade from Chat

Hover the agent card and select Chat, then send the target version:
Watch the run: baseline parse, the checklist audit, the fixes, the re-validation, and finally the PR. Review the PR against the version guide for your target version before merging.
4

Merge, then switch the version

Merge the PR, then have an Admin change the version in Settings > Workspace > General (or pin a Bolt environment first to test). This human step is deliberate: the agent prepares the project, but the version switch affects every user in the workspace. See Upgrade dbt Core™ version.
The run produces one PR on upgrade/dbt-<version> whose description lists every fix grouped by checklist item, shows dbt parse going from N warnings to zero (for the target version’s deprecations), and includes a dbt build summary. Anything the agent could not fix appears under “Manual follow-ups”. If parse or build failed for reasons the agent introduced, no PR is opened. After merging and switching the version in Settings, run a Bolt schedule to confirm production is green.

How it works

The agent automates the “prepare the project” half of every version guide in this section; the version switch itself stays a human Admin action. Its checklist mirrors the official dbt™ upgrade guides: Because each run targets one version and ends in one PR with parse and build evidence, the review stays small enough to actually verify against the version guides.

Next steps

dbt™ version upgrades overview

The per-version guides to review each PR against.

Run an agent with Bolt

Trigger agents from a Bolt schedule.

Manage dbt™ version

The Settings switch you flip after the PR merges.

Programmable Agents reference

The agent schema, tools, and API.