Re: [BuildStream] bst artifact show

[James Ennis <james ennis codethink co uk>]

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the write up, I really like the sound of this proposal and
I think that a command which does as you suggest could be very useful.
I've left some comments inline.

> The reason why I am proposing a new command and not an addition to
>
> `bst show`, is that since this would require network access, and a
> full
>
> scheduler to be spawned (because of GRPC), it would be easier to have
>
> it completely separated.

My only concern with this is that `bst show` currently loads the
elements and resolves their local cached state, i.e. the state of the
artifact. Additionally, our current artifact subcommands only deal
with artifacts in the *local* cache, and I think that it would be
confusing if we added a command here which only works with a
remote cache.

> - Are we ok with introducing such a new command?

Personally, I don't think this needs another command. I think
this could work if we introduced a `--remote` option to
`bst show`, and when this option is specified, we can spawn the
scheduler. Otherwise, `bst show` remains as it is now.

> Thanks a lot,
>
> Benjamin

Thanks,
James