What type of error should you investigate when the Jinja snippets in .sql files are invalid?

When you encounter invalid Jinja snippets in .sql files, the type of error you should investigate is a compilation error. This is because Jinja is a templating language used within dbt to dynamically generate SQL code. During the compilation phase, dbt processes the Jinja snippets and converts them into valid SQL statements. If there is an issue with the syntax or structure of these snippets, the compilation process will fail, and you will receive a compilation error.

In this case, the error arises before any SQL is executed against the database. By identifying that it is a compilation error, you can focus on correcting the Jinja syntax, ensuring that your templates are properly formatted and logically structured to generate valid SQL upon compilation. This distinction is crucial, as it allows you to resolve issues in your dbt models effectively before runtime and database execution.

Other types of errors, such as dependency errors, runtime errors, and database errors, occur at different stages of the dbt workflow and are not directly related to the validity of Jinja snippets in your SQL files. Thus, understanding the nature of the compilation error helps in debugging and fixing the specific problem efficiently.