What causes "Trino" in dbt-labs/dbt-core?

Use a supported adapter (e.g. Postgres-like or Exasol) for column schema workflows.

Trino

Error message

Trino

What it means

A `todo!()` panic in `ColumnBuilder::build` (column_builder.rs:38) for the Trino adapter. No column-building strategy exists for Trino, so any schema-to-column conversion under a Trino adapter panics with the message 'Trino'.

Source

Thrown at crates/dbt-adapter/src/column/column_builder.rs:38

        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 {
            Postgres => Column::new(

View on GitHub (pinned to 0267ce9170)

Solutions

Use a supported adapter (e.g. Postgres-like or Exasol) for column schema workflows.
Implement the Trino arm by sharing `build_postgres_like` with Starburst, since Trino types are Presto/ANSI-like.
Replace the panic with a typed unsupported-adapter error for graceful handling.

Example fix

// before
Trino => todo!("Trino"),
// after
Trino | Starburst => Ok(Self::build_postgres_like(field, type_ops)),

Defensive patterns

Strategy: type-guard

Validate before calling

if adapter == AdapterType::Trino {
    return Err(anyhow!("Trino 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 unimplemented for Trino"))?

Prevention

Avoid Trino profiles for docs generate / catalog workflows until supported
Implement Trino together with Starburst via build_postgres_like
Add a compile-time exhaustive-match lint or test for new AdapterType variants
Check the source dispatch table before assuming an adapter is schema-introspection ready

When it happens

Trigger: Any of the public callers of `build` — schema_to_columns, get_column_schema_from_query, update_node_columns — invoked with adapter type Trino, e.g. during catalog queries or result-set schema extraction.

Common situations: Using a Trino adapter profile with dbt docs generate or tests that introspect query schemas. Frequently paired with the neighboring Starburst arm (Trino and Starburst share lineage).

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of dbt-labs/dbt-core@0267ce9170 (2026-09-07). Data as JSON: /api/errors/c59ab6bbf5c9190b. Report an issue: GitHub.