[CT-2603] [Feature] CLI Should Support a Reading vars From YAML File

[jeffquinn-blr]

Is this your first time submitting a feature request?

• I have read the expectations for open source contributors
• I have searched the existing issues, and I could not find an existing issue for this feature
• I am requesting a straightforward extension of existing dbt functionality, rather than a Big Idea better suited to a discussion

Describe the feature

I would like to be able to run dbt run --vars-file my_variables.yml instead of having to pass a literal yaml encoded string as a command line argument.

In my personal case we have a project with multiple configuration sets that allow us to reuse the same DBT models for several clients. I would like to have the config set of each client in a directory, client_1_vars.yml, client_2_vars.yml, etc. and I would use scripting to pass the correct one at runtime.

Describe alternatives you've considered

The alternative is to have all our configuration sets encoded in dbt_project.yml underneath a dictionary keyed by project name, this will clause eventual file bloat of the dbt_project.yml file, and will be generally less clear.

Who will this benefit?

I think this would be of general use to anyone with more complex dbt projects that have different sets of configurations. Yaml strings as a command line arg are kind of awkward, and for any CLI I would argue its always good to have an option to pass params from a file or from command line args, as you never know which one will be more convenient for a given user at any time.

Are you interested in contributing this feature?

I'm willing and able to contribute this feature

Anything else?

No response

[dbeatty10]

Thanks for proposing this idea and sharing your use-case @jeffquinn-blr !

This is similar enough to #2955 that I'm going to close this one as a duplicate.

Would you be willing to read through that discussion and add your unique thoughts and ideas within #2955?