add new snapshot spec - main

website/docs/docs/dbt-versions/release-notes.md

@@ -20,6 +20,9 @@ Release notes are grouped by month for both multi-tenant and virtual private clo
 
 ## September 2024
 
+- **New**: In dbt Cloud Versionless, [Snapshots](/docs/build/snapshots) have been updated to use YAML configuration files instead of SQL snapshot blocks. This new feature simplifies snapshot management and improves performance, and will soon be released in dbt Core 1.9.
+  - Who does this affect? New user on Versionless can define snapshots using the new YAML specification. Users upgrading to Versionless who use snapshots need to migrate their snapshot definitions to YAML. 
+  - Users on dbt 1.8 and earlier: No action needed; existing snapshots will continue to work as before. However, we recommend upgrading to Versionless to take advantage of the new snapshot features.
 - **Enhancement**: You can now run [Semantic Layer commands](/docs/build/metricflow-commands) commands in the [dbt Cloud IDE](/docs/cloud/dbt-cloud-ide/develop-in-the-cloud). The supported commands are `dbt sl list`, `dbt sl list metrics`, `dbt sl list dimension-values`, `dbt sl list saved-queries`, `dbt sl query`, `dbt sl list dimensions`, `dbt sl list entities`, and `dbt sl validate`. 
 - **New**: Microsoft Excel, a dbt Semantic Layer integration, is now generally available. The integration allows you to connect to Microsoft Excel to query metrics and collaborate with your team. Available for [Excel Desktop](https://pages.store.office.com/addinsinstallpage.aspx?assetid=WA200007100&rs=en-US&correlationId=4132ecd1-425d-982d-efb4-de94ebc83f26) or [Excel Online](https://pages.store.office.com/addinsinstallpage.aspx?assetid=WA200007100&rs=en-US&correlationid=4132ecd1-425d-982d-efb4-de94ebc83f26&isWac=True). For more information, refer to [Microsoft Excel](/docs/cloud-integrations/semantic-layer/excel).
 - **New**: [Data health tile](/docs/collaborate/data-tile) is now generally available in dbt Explorer. Data health tiles provide a quick at-a-glance view of your data quality, highlighting potential issues in your data. You can embed these tiles in your dashboards to quickly identify and address data quality issues in your dbt project.

website/docs/faqs/Snapshots/snapshot-target-is-not-a-snapshot-table.md

@@ -27,3 +27,4 @@ A snapshot must have a materialized value of 'snapshot'
 This tells you to change your `materialized` config to `snapshot`. But when you make that change, you might encounter an error message saying that certain fields like `dbt_scd_id` are missing. This error happens because, previously, when dbt treated snapshots as tables, it didn't include the necessary [snapshot meta-fields](/docs/build/snapshots#snapshot-meta-fields) in your target table. Since those meta-fields don't exist, dbt correctly identifies that you're trying to create a snapshot in a table that isn't actually a snapshot.
 
 When this happens, you have to start from scratch — re-snapshotting your source data as if it was the first time by dropping your "snapshot" which isn't a real snapshot table. Then dbt snapshot will create a new snapshot and insert the snapshot meta-fields as expected.
+