About local_md5 context variable

The local_md5 context variable calculates an MD5 hash of the given string. The string local_md5 emphasizes that the hash is calculated locally, in the dbt-Jinja context. This variable is typically useful for advanced use cases. For example, when you generate unique identifiers within custom materialization or operational logic, you can either avoid collisions between temporary relations or identify changes by comparing checksums.

It is different than the md5 SQL function, supported by many SQL dialects, which runs remotely in the data platform. You want to always use SQL hashing functions when generating surrogate keys.

Usage:

-- source
{%- set value_hash = local_md5("hello world") -%}
'{{ value_hash }}'

-- compiled
'5eb63bbbe01eeed093cb22bb8f5acdc3'