[CT-1364] [Bug] profiles.yml in project dir doesn't work when running dbt from outside with --project-dir

Is this a new bug in dbt-core?

• I believe this is a new bug in dbt-core
• I have searched the existing issues, and I could not find an existing issue for this bug

Current Behavior

Assume your profiles.yml is located at the root of your project’s directory. Since dbt 1.3, this is supposed to be the first location dbt looks in. However, running dbt from outside with:

dbt run --project-dir /path/to/project

returns a “profile not found” error.

Expected Behavior

dbt should look for profiles.yml in the project’s root directory, regardless of whether dbt is ran from the directory itself or from outside.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Put profiles.yml in project’s directory
2. dbt run --project-dir /path/to/project

Relevant log output

No response

Environment

- OS:
- Python:
- dbt:

Which database adapter are you using with dbt?

No response

Additional Context

No response

[dbeatty10]

Indeed our messages got crossed – I started a draft and forgot to check for any responses before hitting “send”!

Your opinion on this is rational and reasonable. For the 5% use case, I buy into your assumption that the project directory rather than the current working directory would be the more common one.

You hit the nail on the head that our design decision was focused on the 95% use case, and we decided leave the 5% use case to be handled with the explicit flags. This allowed the code changes to be much more simple while still retaining the ability for more advanced configuration.

[seub]

Thank you for your reply! I expressed my humble opinion in my second message above, I think our messages probably got crossed 😃