#3168 Improve plugin command error message to clarify usage syntax Issue created by MeltyBot Migrated from GitLab: https://gitlab.com/meltano/meltano/-/issues/3242 Originally created by @pnadolny13 on 2022-02-11 193848 --- Related to https://gitlab.com/meltano/meltano/-/issues/3237#note_840251651 where @kgpayne said:

Due to our custom syntax for commands, using the executable name is going to be equally jarring when users get to executing

meltano invoke great_expectations:checkpoint

, which is not functionality of the

great_expectations

executable.

I had a recent experience that I could see tripping people up. I wanted to use

dbt docs generate

and

dbt docs serve

which are not supported as

dbt:x

syntax because its not listed in the discovery.yml. This does not work:

meltano invoke dbt:docs generate

So I was thinking about adding an extra command to the plugin config like

docs_generate

that runs

docs generate

under the hood but then I realized that this works:

meltano invoke dbt docs generate

I'm not sure this is a problem but with such a minor difference in syntax I could see it becoming confusing whether your running a meltano command or raw command directly to the package. On one hand its great to allow commands to pass through so all the functionality is preserved but on the other its not clear in what context the command is being run. Maybe just having a warning that a "pass through" command is being used would be helpful, idk but wanted to call it out. meltano/meltano