Show Notes
dbt State went generally available in September 2026, so rebuilding every model on a cron schedule is now a choice rather than a default. The position here: the tool cannot tell you how stale each model is allowed to be, and the lag_tolerance config most teams set once and globally is a business decision about decision cadence, not an engineering setting.
You leave with a method: meter wasted rebuilds using BigQuery INFORMATION_SCHEMA.JOBS or Snowflake credit consumption, tie tolerance to the decision each model feeds, keep source freshness checks running, read the Explain tab in audit mode, and cap agent queries with resource monitors and maximumBytesBilled. Includes the RxBenefits 59% result, dbt's 15 to 30% range, FinOps Foundation and Flexera 2026 findings.
0:00 Why 60% of scheduled model builds repeat 1:13 What dbt State GA actually changes 2:57 Metering wasted rebuilds before flipping the switch 4:18 Silent semantic drift when models are reused 5:41 Committed spend contracts hide the savings 6:57 Capping autonomous agents in the warehouse
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