External metadata.json

[simonw]

A frustration I'm having with https://register-of-members-interests.datasettes.com/ is that I keep coming up with new canned queries but I don't want to redeploy the whole thing just to add them to metadata.json

Maybe Datasette could optionally take a --metadata-url option which causes it to load from a URL instead and occasionally check for updates.

[simonw]

On further thought: this is actually only an issue for immutable deployments to platforms like Zeit Now and Heroku.

As such, adding it to datasette serve feels clumsy. Maybe datasette publish should instead gain the ability to optionally install an extra mechanism that periodically pulls a fresh copy of metadata.json from a URL.

[simonw]

On further thought, I'd much rather implement this using some kind of metadata plugin hook - see #357

[simonw]

I'm not going to do this - there are plenty of smarter ways of achieving a similar goal.