What is the purpose of environment variables in dbt?

The purpose of environment variables in dbt is primarily to securely manage sensitive information. Environment variables provide a secure way to store and access credentials and other sensitive data such as API keys, database passwords, and other configuration settings without hardcoding them into your dbt project files. This approach minimizes the risk of exposing sensitive information within the codebase or version-controlled files, making it a best practice in ensuring security.

By using environment variables, users can easily configure their dbt projects across different environments (e.g., development, staging, production) without needing to alter the source code, which enhances security and supports best practices in data engineering and analytics workflows. This method also allows teams to maintain different configurations in different environments seamlessly.

The other options focus on differing aspects that do not align with the primary function of environment variables in dbt. For instance, feature toggling involves enabling or disabling features programmatically, tracking user activity pertains more to analytics and user behavior analysis, and enhancing query performance relates to optimizing SQL queries and database operations rather than storing sensitive configuration information.