cube-js/cube · error · UserError

Unsupported dbt metric type '${dbtMetricType}'

Error message

Unsupported dbt metric type '${dbtMetricType}'

What it means

The dbt-to-Cube schema extension only knows how to translate dbt metrics whose type appears in its dbtToCubeMetricTypeMap (sum, count, count_distinct, avg, min, max, etc.). mapMetricType is called from cubeDef when converting each manifest metric to a Cube measure, and if the type string from the manifest has no mapping, this UserError is thrown.

Source

Thrown at packages/cubejs-dbt-schema-extension/src/Dbt.ts:129

  }
}
`;

// For reference:
// - dbt Metrics types: https://docs.getdbt.com/docs/building-a-dbt-project/metrics, https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/issues/4071#issue-102758091
// - Cube measure types: https://cube.dev/docs/schema/reference/types-and-formats#measures-types
const dbtToCubeMetricTypeMap: Record<string, string> = {
  count: 'count',
  count_distinct: 'countDistinct',
  sum: 'sum',
  average: 'avg',
  min: 'min',
  max: 'max',
};

function mapMetricType(dbtMetricType: string): string {
  if (!dbtToCubeMetricTypeMap[dbtMetricType]) {
    throw new UserError(`Unsupported dbt metric type '${dbtMetricType}'`);
  }

  return dbtToCubeMetricTypeMap[dbtMetricType];
}

export class Dbt extends AbstractExtension {
  public async loadMetricCubesFromDbtProject(projectPath: string, options: DbtLoadOptions): Promise<{ [cubeName: string]: any }> {
    const dbtProjectPath = path.join(projectPath, 'dbt_project.yml');
    if (!(await fs.pathExists(dbtProjectPath))) {
      throw new UserError(`'${dbtProjectPath}' was not found. Please make sure '${projectPath}' is a path to the dbt project`);
    }
    // TODO read target path from dbt_project.yml
    const manifestPath = path.join(projectPath, 'target', 'manifest.json');
    if (!(await fs.pathExists(manifestPath))) {
      throw new UserError(`'${manifestPath}' was not found. Please run 'dbt compile' in '${projectPath}'`);
    }
    const manifest = <DbtManifest>(await fs.readJSON(manifestPath));
    Object.keys(manifest.metrics).forEach(metric => {

View on GitHub (pinned to 7d981676b3)

Solutions

  1. Change the metric type in the dbt project to one supported by Cube (sum, count, count_distinct, average, min, max as mapped by the extension) and re-run 'dbt compile'
  2. Manually define the metric as a measure in the Cube schema instead of importing it from dbt
  3. Upgrade the cubejs-dbt-schema-extension package to a version whose metric type map covers your dbt version's metric types
  4. Patch/extend dbtToCubeMetricTypeMap to include the missing type if self-hosting/forking

Example fix

// dbt metrics.yml before
- name: avg_revenue
  type: average_price  # unsupported
// after
- name: avg_revenue
  type: average
Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

const SUPPORTED = ['sum','count','count_distinct','average','avg','min','max'];
if (!SUPPORTED.includes(metric.type)) {
  throw new Error(`Metric ${metric.name}: dbt type '${metric.type}' not supported by Cube dbt extension`);
}

Type guard

function isSupportedMetricType(t) {
  return typeof t === 'string' && ['sum','count','count_distinct','average','avg','min','max'].includes(t);
}

Try / catch

try {
  await dbt.loadMetricCubesFromDbtProject(path, opts);
} catch (e) {
  if (/Unsupported dbt metric type/.test(e.message)) {
    console.warn('Skipping project: unsupported metric type', e.message);
  } else { throw e; }
}

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Running loadMetricCubesFromDbtProject/loadMetricCubesFromDbtCloud where the dbt manifest contains a metric with type 'average' or any type alias/identifier not present in the map (e.g. derived/ratio metrics, expression metrics, or newer dbt metric types like conversion windows).

Common situations: Upgrading dbt produces new metric types unknown to the Cube extension; hand-edited or generated manifest.json uses 'average' instead of 'avg'; using dbt 1.5+ metric spec with types the extension predates; typos in metric type in the dbt project.

Understand the failure class

Background: Invalid enum value errors: "Unknown type", "Invalid scope", "must be one of" — when a string is not on the library's allowed list — this error's family across 23 libraries.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of cube-js/cube@7d981676b3 (2026-09-02). Data as JSON: /api/errors/d22b69b2d907dacc. Report an issue: GitHub.