How to Lint SQL With sqlfluff in CI

sqlfluff lint parses SQL for a given dialect and returns non-zero on violations, so it gates style in CI.

Configure the dialect and templater in .sqlfluff, then run sqlfluff lint over your models directory in the pull request.

Steps

• Add a .sqlfluff with dialect and (for dbt) templater = dbt.
• Run sqlfluff lint models/ on pull requests.
• Optionally run sqlfluff fix locally to auto-correct.

.sqlfluff

[sqlfluff]
dialect = snowflake
templater = dbt
max_line_length = 120

[sqlfluff:indentation]
tab_space_size = 4

Workflow

steps:
  - uses: actions/checkout@v4
  - run: pip install sqlfluff==3.1.0 sqlfluff-templater-dbt dbt-snowflake
  - run: sqlfluff lint models/ --dialect snowflake

Gotchas

• The dbt templater needs your adapter installed to compile models before linting.
• Set the dialect explicitly; the wrong dialect produces spurious parse errors.

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