Efficiently handling long-running workflows is crucial for scaling modern data pipelines. Apache Airflow’s deferrable operators help offload tasks during idle periods — freeing worker slots while tracking progress. This session explores how Cosmos 1.9 ( https://github.com/astronomer/astronomer-cosmos ) integrates Airflow’s deferrable capabilities to enhance orchestrating dbt ( https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core ) in production, with insights from recent contributions that introduced this functionality. Key takeaways: Deferrable Operators: How they work and why they’re ideal for long-running dbt tasks. Integrating with Cosmos: Refactoring and enhancements to enable deferrable behaviour across platforms. Performance Gains: Resource savings and task throughput improvements from deferrable execution. Challenges & Future Enhancements: Lessons learned, compatibility, and ideas for broader support. Whether orchestrating dbt models on a cloud warehouse or managing large-scale transformations, this session offers practical strategies to reduce resource contention and boost pipeline performance.