Project dir argument not used when running debug

[gobbledygook88]

Describe the bug

When running dbt debug --project-dir=<some directory> in another directory to that of your dbt project, the dbt_project.yml is not used.

Steps To Reproduce

With an existing dbt project:

$ cd /tmp
$ dbt debug --project-dir=<path/to/project> --profiles-dir=$HOME/.dbt/

we get the following output:

Using profiles.yml file at /app/src/pipeline/profiles.yml

Configuration:
  profiles.yml file [OK found and valid]
  dbt_project.yml file [ERROR not found]
  profile: some-profile-name [OK found]
  target: production [OK found]

Expected behavior

Would expect the output to be the following:

Using profiles.yml file at /app/src/pipeline/profiles.yml

Configuration:
  profiles.yml file [OK found and valid]
  dbt_project.yml file [OK found and valid]
  profile: some-profile-name [OK found]
  target: production [OK found]

System information

Which database are you using dbt with?

• postgres
• redshift
• bigquery
• snowflake
• other (specify: ____________)

The output of dbt --version:

installed version: 0.14.0
   latest version: 0.14.1

Also tried with version 0.14.1. and obtained the same behavior.

The operating system you're using:
Ubuntu 19.04

The output of python --version:
Python 3.7.4

Additional context

After a brief debugging session, we found the get_nearest_project_dir() function in dbt/core/dbt/task/base.py. This function is called when running dbt compile and dbt run, but not dbt debug.

Inspecting the parsed arguments shows the project_dir attribute is set correctly.

When running dbt debug in the actual project directory, dbt is able to pick up dbt_project.yml correctly.

[drewbanin]

Thanks for the report @gobbledygook88! Your diagnosis sounds spot-on to me

[beckjake]

Fixed in #1989