Feature Request: CICD Bot supports the --select-model flag #5599
Description
Description
We use the SQLMesh GitHub CI/CD bot and really appreciate it as part of our workflow.
With a growing model base, however, we are experiencing increased CI/CD runtimes. The --select-model functionality in the plan and run commands (especially with the git: selector) is extremely helpful for selecting only models that have changed relative to a specific branch.
Unfortunately, this feature is not yet supported by the SQLMesh GitHub CI/CD bot, which is why we would like to request its addition.
Current Behavior
When a developer is ready to merge a PR into main, the main branch typically contains several new commits. Developers therefore update their branch, which leads to the CI/CD bot currently considering additional models not only those changed in the PR itself when updating the PR environment. As our team grows and PRs remain open for multiple days, the number of unrelated models included in each plan increases significantly, causing long CI runtimes. Supporting --select-model in the CI/CD bot would ensure that only models truly changed within the PR (e.g., --select-model git:main) are planned, and unrelated diffs are ignored.
Feature Request
Add support for the --select-model flag (including the git: selector) in the SQLMesh GitHub CI/CD bot.
Workaround Options
The only current alternative is to stop using the CI/CD bot and instead rely on running sqlmesh plan directly in CI, where --select-model git:<branch> is already supported. However, this would require additional implementation effort and result in losing the convenience of the bot.
Benefits
- Faster CI/CD by reducing unnecessary planned models
- Better developer experience through faster feedback loops
- Lower compute usage
- Scales better as repositories and teams grow