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Getting started

refter uses the refter-cli and a valid dbt manifest to deploy your documentation to refter. To learn more about the refter-cli and all available options check out the client documentation.

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refter supports deploying multiple dbt projects to the same project. This is useful if you have multiple dbt projects that relate to each other. For example, if you have a separate dbt project for application data and a dbt project for external data sources, you can combine them into a single refter documentation project.

Install the refter-cli

Deploying your documentation to refter is easy. Start by installing the refter-cli.

pip install refter-cli

Update your dbt manifest

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refter uses the dbt manifest to generate documentation. Make sure you have compiled your dbt project before deploying to refter.

dbt compile

or

dbt ls

Push a deployment

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By default refter will use the target/manifest.json file in the root of your dbt project. If you want to point refter to a manifest file in a different location you can use the --manifest flag. This is helpful if you have multiple dbt projects in the same git repository.

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Make sure the manifest file exists by running dbt compile or dbt ls before deploying to refter. Consult the dbt documentation for more information.

Now navigate to your dbt project and run this in the root of you dbt project:

cd /path/to/dbt/project
refter deploy --token <your-api-key>
refter deploy --manifest /path/to/manifest.json
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refter-cli uses an API token to authenticate with refter. You can generate an API token as an admin user in the refter settings.

If everything went well you should get a success message. You can now go to your refter project to see the status of your deployment. When the deployment completes, your documentation will either be created or updated.