diff --git a/core/session.ts b/core/session.ts
index 8773ee028..0c23345eb 100644
--- a/core/session.ts
+++ b/core/session.ts
@@ -60,7 +60,7 @@ function mapColumnDescriptionToProto(
       })
     ];
   }
-  const columnDescriptor: dataform.IColumnDescriptor[] = description.description
+  const columnDescriptor: dataform.IColumnDescriptor[] = !!description
     ? [
         dataform.ColumnDescriptor.create({
           path: currentPath,
diff --git a/tests/core/core.spec.ts b/tests/core/core.spec.ts
index 26f67551e..df3668531 100644
--- a/tests/core/core.spec.ts
+++ b/tests/core/core.spec.ts
@@ -528,7 +528,6 @@ suite("@dataform/core", () => {
           type: "table",
           columns: {
             dimension_column: {
-              description: "Dimension description",
               displayName: "Dimension",
               dimension: "timestamp"
             },
@@ -553,7 +552,6 @@ suite("@dataform/core", () => {
       );
       expect(dimensionColumn).to.eql(
         dataform.ColumnDescriptor.create({
-          description: "Dimension description",
           dimensionType: dataform.ColumnDescriptor.DimensionType.TIMESTAMP,
           displayName: "Dimension",
           path: ["dimension_column"]
diff --git a/version.bzl b/version.bzl
index 5cf6d225e..ecda71676 100644
--- a/version.bzl
+++ b/version.bzl
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 # NOTE: If you change the format of this line, you must change the bash command
 # in /scripts/publish to extract the version string correctly.
-DF_VERSION = "1.5.5"
+DF_VERSION = "1.5.6"