Feature request: generate sources "update" mode also update staging models (rather than overwrite or leave unchanged)

[jaredx435k2d0]

Describe the current behavior
If I have a pre-existing some_staging_model.sql as:

SELECT
	col1

FROM
	some_table

WHERE
	col1 = FALSE

, and there is a new column that should be added due to it's being recently-added in the source, generate sources will remove my existing transformations when it updates some_staging_model.sql as:

SELECT
	col1
,	col2

FROM
	some_table

Requested behaviour
I would expect that it would retain the existing SQL, and just add new columns / drop newly-deleted columns

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: macOS 13.2.1 (22D68)
• Python 3.10.10
• dbt-core==1.3.3
• dbt-coves==1.3.0a29
• dbt-snowflake==1.3.0

Additional context
Contents of my .dbt_coves.config.yml:

generate:
  sources:
    update_strategy: update

Maybe this should only be the case if the update strategy is set to "update"?

I'm trying to automate my staging layer refresh using dbt-coves. If, however, I'll lose all staging layer transformations every time it's run, then I can't use it for this purpose.

[BAntonellini]

@jaredx435k2d0 --update-strategy, as you can read in the docs in README.md, defines the action to perform on property files (yaml):

--update-strategy
# Action to perform when a property file already exists: 'update', 'recreate', 'fail', 'ask' (per file)

---

About SQL, when a staging model .sql file exists, the program asks you whether want to overwrite it or leave it as is.

[jaredx435k2d0]

@BAntonellini got it.

I just changed this to be a feature request to also update SQL files.