sqlmesh plan --no-prompts --no-auto-categorization --forward-only
Will prompt for the "effective from" date (even though --no-prompts is specified), i.e.:
Enter the effective date (eg. '1 year', '2020-01-01') to apply forward-only changes retroactively or blank to only apply them going forward once changes are deployed to prod:
The workaround is to not specify --no-auto-categorization