A warehouse in the cloud is where analytics ends up — it doesn't have to be where development happens. With DuckDB as the engine, the whole loop runs on your machine:
- Zero setup — the database is a file (or nothing at all).
- Fast feedback — model runs in milliseconds, not queue time.
- Cheap mistakes — drop the file, start over.
The same dbt project then deploys against the production warehouse unchanged. Develop local, ship remote.