The Data Build Tool (dbt) is an open-source analytics engineering framework that helps transform raw data in data warehouses like Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, or Databricks using SQL-based workflows. It comes in two forms: the free dbt Core CLI tool and the managed dbt Cloud platform, which offers additional features such as scheduling, UI support, and collaboration tools. dbt introduces software engineering best practices into analytics workflows, including version control, automated testing, data lineage tracking, and CI/CD. It enables data teams to build scalable, trustworthy, and auditable data pipelines by allowing them to write modular SQL transformations with built-in testing for data quality and automated dependency tracking. dbt supports best practices for structuring projects with a layered approach, typically divided into staging, intermediate, and marts layers, to ensure clarity, maintainability, and scalability. Additionally, dbt integrates with CI/CD platforms and monitoring tools like OpenLineage and Datadog to enhance pipeline visibility and reliability.