tab-complete arguments to --models and --exclude

[drewbanin]

Feature

Feature description

dbt should support tab-completion of model names in the --models and --exclude CLI arguments. This may prove difficult as dbt would need to know about all of the models on disk in order to provide completion suggestions. One option may be to use the manifest as a cache of existing model names. That would work well in many cases, but would also exclude brand-new models.

The --models and --exclude flags also accept tag: qualifiers. I'm unsure if the first version of this needs to account for tags, but that would certainly be nice!

Who will this benefit?

dbt users are increasingly implementing standards around how they name models. A very typical model may be named stg_server_event_active_pings, which is a whole lot of typing! dbt should encourage the use of descriptive model names, and the requirement to type out the exact model name when providing --models is a chore.

[mikekaminsky]

Huge fan of this! In case it's helpful, here's how it was implemented in our similar-to-DBT project at Harry's: link

[joshtemple]

Since dbt is using argparse, any thoughts on using the argcomplete library as a means of accomplishing this?

[drewbanin]

Hey @mikekaminsky @joshtemple - check out this repo: https://github.com/fishtown-analytics/dbt-completion.bash

This works super well on macOS + Bash, but might need some more love to get it working in other OS's or shells! Wanted to give you guys a sneak preview for commenting on the issue -- will post about this in Slack at some point tomorrow :)