How WMCHealth cut a 72-minute dbt pipeline down to 5 minutes, with one environment variable
Summary
WMCHealth cut a dbt pipeline from a 72-minute refresh to five minutes by switching one model between two execution modes with a single `ENV_NRT` environment variable: active records only as a table every five minutes, or the full dataset as an incremental overnight. The pattern runs from one codebase and cuts median runtime 93.6% (4,340 to 278 seconds) with over 99% less data processed per near real-time run, and it relies on inner-join propagation to carry the narrower scope through the DAG for free.
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