run dbt with an arbitrary schema

[jthandy]

Right now we're running into a workflow challenge when folks are reviewing PRs. Here's the sequence of events:

• analyst writes and tests code in a feature branch using his/her development target
• analyst builds an audit report that shows outputs that is pointed to development target
• analyst checks in code and submits a PR, sharing report as well
• analyst moves to implement next feature, creating a new branch off master, continuing to use development target
• reviewer looks at PR and associated report, but report fails because the target is now built against a new feature branch.

Everyone's doing everything almost exactly right here, but really, when the PR is submitted, there should be a dbt run done against a schema that is specific to that PR. That schema should be deleted when the PR is closed. Right now, dbt makes it somewhat annoying to actually do this; it requires adding a new target. This should be a workflow that we encourage, not discourage.

[drewbanin]

this is such a good idea. how cool would dbt pull-request be? It could

1. execute dbt run against a brand new schema
2. execute dbt test
3. create a PR for your branch containing run success/fail + test results

^ I'm not sure if the dbt CLI client should be in charge of doing all this, but something to consider....

[drewbanin]

Closing this because arbitrary schemas are now supported via macros