dbt-labs/dbt-core · error

Athena

Error message

Athena

What it means

A `todo!()` panic in `ColumnBuilder::build` (column_builder.rs:37) for the Athena adapter. The adapter-to-column-builder dispatch has no Athena implementation, so converting an Arrow schema into column metadata while connected to Athena panics with the message 'Athena'.

Source

Thrown at crates/dbt-adapter/src/column/column_builder.rs:37

    pub fn new(adapter_type: AdapterType) -> Self {
        Self { adapter_type }
    }

    pub fn build(&self, field: &FieldRef, type_ops: &dyn TypeOps) -> AdapterResult<Column> {
        use AdapterType::*;
        match self.adapter_type {
            Snowflake => Ok(Self::build_snowflake(field, type_ops)),
            Bigquery => Ok(Self::build_bigquery(field, type_ops)),
            Databricks | Spark => Ok(Self::build_databricks(field, type_ops)),
            Redshift => Ok(Self::build_redshift(field, type_ops)),
            Postgres | Salesforce | DuckDB | LakeCompute => {
                Ok(Self::build_postgres_like(field, type_ops))
            }
            Fabric => Ok(Self::build_fabric(field, type_ops)),
            ClickHouse => Self::build_clickhouse(field, type_ops),
            Exasol => Ok(Self::build_exasol(field, type_ops)),
            Starburst => todo!("Starburst"),
            Athena => todo!("Athena"),
            Trino => todo!("Trino"),
            Dremio => todo!("Dremio"),
            Oracle => todo!("Oracle"),
            Datafusion => todo!("Datafusion"),
        }
    }

    pub fn build_from_parts(
        &self,
        name: String,
        dtype: String,
        char_size: Option<u32>,
        numeric_precision: Option<u64>,
        numeric_scale: Option<u64>,
        mode: Option<BigqueryColumnMode>,
    ) -> Column {
        use AdapterType::*;
        match self.adapter_type {

View on GitHub (pinned to 0267ce9170)

Solutions

  1. Switch to a supported adapter for schema/column operations until Athena is implemented.
  2. Implement the Athena arm in column_builder.rs:37, likely delegating to `build_postgres_like` since Athena (Presto-derived) column types map similarly.
  3. Return a descriptive DbtError instead of `todo!()` so callers get a catchable error rather than an abort.

Example fix

// before
Athena => todo!("Athena"),
// after
Athena => Ok(Self::build_postgres_like(field, type_ops)),
Defensive patterns

Strategy: type-guard

Validate before calling

if adapter == AdapterType::Athena {
    return Err(anyhow!("Athena column building is not implemented yet"));
}

Type guard

fn build_supported(t: AdapterType) -> bool {
    matches!(t, Postgres | Salesforce | DuckDB | LakeCompute | Fabric | ClickHouse | Exasol)
}

Try / catch

std::panic::catch_unwind(AssertUnwindSafe(|| builder.build(field, type_ops)))
    .map_err(|_| anyhow!("column building not implemented for this adapter"))?

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Calling schema_to_columns, get_column_schema_from_query, or update_node_columns (directly or via catalog generation / query result introspection) with the adapter type set to Athena.

Common situations: Running docs generation or a schema-aware operation on an Athena adapter profile. Also hit when a test suite exercises Athena adapter coverage before the builder arm exists.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of dbt-labs/dbt-core@0267ce9170 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2588676ae3085e46. Report an issue: GitHub.