diff --git a/metricflow/test/cli/test_cli.py b/metricflow/test/cli/test_cli.py
index 732416fae9..dd7fcad4ff 100644
--- a/metricflow/test/cli/test_cli.py
+++ b/metricflow/test/cli/test_cli.py
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@
 from dbt_semantic_interfaces.parsing.objects import YamlConfigFile
 from dbt_semantic_interfaces.test_utils import base_semantic_manifest_file
 
+from metricflow.cli.cli_context import CLIContext
 from metricflow.cli.main import (
     dimension_values,
     dimensions,
@@ -76,7 +77,19 @@ def create_directory(directory_path: str) -> Iterator[None]:
     shutil.rmtree(path)
 
 
-def test_validate_configs(cli_runner: MetricFlowCliRunner) -> None:  # noqa: D
+def test_validate_configs(cli_context: CLIContext) -> None:
+    """Tests config validation from a manifest stored on the filesystem.
+
+    This test is special, because the CLI bypasses the semantic manifest read into the CLIContext and
+    validates the config files on disk. It's not entirely clear why we do this, so we should probably
+    figure that out and, if possible, stop doing it so we can have this test depend on an injectable
+    in-memory semantic manifest instead of whatever is stored in the filesystem.
+
+    At any rate, due to the direct read from disk, we have to store a serialized semantic manifest
+    in a temporary location. In order to spin up the CLI this requires us to ALSO have a dbt_project.yml
+    on the filesystem in the project path. Since we don't want to clobber whatever semantic_manifest.json is
+    in the real filesystem location we do all of this stuff here.
+    """
     yaml_contents = textwrap.dedent(
         """\
         semantic_model:
@@ -98,16 +111,26 @@ def test_validate_configs(cli_runner: MetricFlowCliRunner) -> None:  # noqa: D
         apply_transformations=False,
     ).semantic_manifest
 
-    target_directory = Path().absolute() / "target"
-    with create_directory(target_directory.as_posix()):
-        manifest_file = target_directory / "semantic_manifest.json"
-        manifest_file.write_text(manifest.json())
+    project_directory = Path().absolute()
+    # If the dbt_project.yml doesn't exist in this path location the CLI will throw an exception.
+    dummy_project = Path(project_directory, "dbt_project.yml")
+    dummy_project.touch()
 
-        resp = cli_runner.run(validate_configs)
+    try:
+        cli_runner = MetricFlowCliRunner(cli_context=cli_context, project_path=str(project_directory))
+        target_directory = Path(project_directory, "target")
+        with create_directory(target_directory.as_posix()):
+            manifest_file = Path(target_directory, "semantic_manifest.json")
+            manifest_file.write_text(manifest.json())
+
+            resp = cli_runner.run(validate_configs)
 
         assert "ERROR" in resp.output
         assert resp.exit_code == 0
 
+    finally:
+        dummy_project.unlink()
+
 
 def test_health_checks(cli_runner: MetricFlowCliRunner) -> None:  # noqa: D
     resp = cli_runner.run(health_checks)
diff --git a/metricflow/test/fixtures/cli_fixtures.py b/metricflow/test/fixtures/cli_fixtures.py
index f2c81afbe6..70258ef9e9 100644
--- a/metricflow/test/fixtures/cli_fixtures.py
+++ b/metricflow/test/fixtures/cli_fixtures.py
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 from __future__ import annotations
 
+import os
 import pathlib
 import tempfile
 from typing import Generator, Optional, Sequence
@@ -17,6 +18,7 @@
 from metricflow.model.semantic_manifest_lookup import SemanticManifestLookup
 from metricflow.plan_conversion.column_resolver import DunderColumnAssociationResolver
 from metricflow.protocols.sql_client import SqlClient
+from metricflow.test.fixtures.setup_fixtures import dbt_project_dir
 from metricflow.test.time.configurable_time_source import ConfigurableTimeSource
 
 
@@ -99,19 +101,19 @@ def cli_context(  # noqa: D
 class MetricFlowCliRunner(CliRunner):
     """Custom CliRunner class to handle passing context."""
 
-    def __init__(self, cli_context: CLIContext) -> None:  # noqa: D
+    def __init__(self, cli_context: CLIContext, project_path: str) -> None:  # noqa: D
         self.cli_context = cli_context
+        self.project_path = project_path
         super().__init__()
 
     def run(self, cli: click.BaseCommand, args: Optional[Sequence[str]] = None) -> Result:  # noqa: D
-        # TODO: configure CLI to use a dbt_project fixture
-        dummy_dbt_project = pathlib.Path("dbt_project.yml")
-        dummy_dbt_project.touch()
+        current_dir = os.getcwd()
+        os.chdir(self.project_path)
         result = super().invoke(cli, args, obj=self.cli_context)
-        dummy_dbt_project.unlink()
+        os.chdir(current_dir)
         return result
 
 
 @pytest.fixture
 def cli_runner(cli_context: CLIContext) -> MetricFlowCliRunner:  # noqa: D
-    return MetricFlowCliRunner(cli_context=cli_context)
+    return MetricFlowCliRunner(cli_context=cli_context, project_path=dbt_project_dir())
diff --git a/metricflow/test/fixtures/setup_fixtures.py b/metricflow/test/fixtures/setup_fixtures.py
index 8512802b01..9c936d0f22 100644
--- a/metricflow/test/fixtures/setup_fixtures.py
+++ b/metricflow/test/fixtures/setup_fixtures.py
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 import os
 import warnings
 from dataclasses import dataclass
+from pathlib import Path
 
 import _pytest.config
 import pytest
@@ -170,6 +171,14 @@ def dialect_from_url(url: str) -> SqlDialect:
     return SqlDialect(dialect_protocol[0])
 
 
+def dbt_project_dir() -> str:
+    """Return the canonical path string for the dbt project dir in the test package.
+
+    This is necessary for configuring both the dbt adapter for integration tests and the project location for CLI tests.
+    """
+    return os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), Path("dbt_projects", "metricflow_testing"))
+
+
 @pytest.fixture(scope="session", autouse=True)
 def warn_user_about_slow_tests_without_parallelism(  # noqa: D
     request: FixtureRequest,
diff --git a/metricflow/test/fixtures/sql_client_fixtures.py b/metricflow/test/fixtures/sql_client_fixtures.py
index 8a60588b0d..b54e019f4d 100644
--- a/metricflow/test/fixtures/sql_client_fixtures.py
+++ b/metricflow/test/fixtures/sql_client_fixtures.py
@@ -11,7 +11,7 @@
 from dbt.cli.main import dbtRunner
 
 from metricflow.protocols.sql_client import SqlClient
-from metricflow.test.fixtures.setup_fixtures import MetricFlowTestSessionState, dialect_from_url
+from metricflow.test.fixtures.setup_fixtures import MetricFlowTestSessionState, dbt_project_dir, dialect_from_url
 from metricflow.test.fixtures.sql_clients.adapter_backed_ddl_client import AdapterBackedDDLSqlClient
 from metricflow.test.fixtures.sql_clients.common_client import SqlDialect
 from metricflow.test.fixtures.sql_clients.ddl_sql_client import SqlClientWithDDLMethods
@@ -127,8 +127,7 @@ def __initialize_dbt() -> None:
     We use the debug command to initialize the profile and make it accessible. This has the nice property of
     triggering a failure with reasonable error messages in the event the dbt configs are not set up correctly.
     """
-    dbt_dir = os.path.join(os.path.dirname(__file__), "dbt_projects/metricflow_testing/")
-    dbtRunner().invoke(["debug"], project_dir=dbt_dir, PROFILES_DIR=dbt_dir)
+    dbtRunner().invoke(["debug"], project_dir=dbt_project_dir(), PROFILES_DIR=dbt_project_dir())
 
 
 def make_test_sql_client(url: str, password: str, schema: str) -> SqlClientWithDDLMethods: