feature: create blank/template input JSONs

[a-frantz]

The workflow for using this feature would look something like:

sprocket inputs quality-check.wdl > qc-inputs.json
vim qc-inputs.json
sprocket run --input qc-inputs.json quality-check.wdl

There are some considerations to make before implementing. Are the output JSONs filled in with anything? Or blank? How to handle nested inputs? Inputs with default values? etc.

[fahdfady]

Hey,

I'm interested in implementing this feature. After reviewing the codebase and the docs, I'd like to propose an approach for the sprocket inputs command by adding a new subcommand to the CLI that:

• Extracts input parameters from a WDL file
• Generates a JSON template with appropriate placeholders
• Handles nested structures and includes default values when defined

I've started exploring the input validation and WDL parsing components of the codebase to understand how to best implement this. If this approach sounds reasonable, I can begin working on a prototype implementation.

[fahdfady]

Inputs with default values?

@a-frantz can you explain more about the "default values"? i cannot understand what you're referring to.

[fahdfady]

@claymcleod can you assign me on this? I'm interested in this and already started working on implementing a solution

[claymcleod]

There you go! I believe by "default values" he just means an input with a default value (see the second input here [https://github.com/openwdl/wdl/blob/wdl-1.2/SPEC.md#task-inputs]—it has a = and a value that is used as the default if a user doesn't specify their own value).

[a-frantz]

Me and Andrew discussed the usefulness of an --include-runtime flag. We decided it would not be useful, as any resulting JSON would be way too massive to comfortably edit. In theory, runtime attributes should be overridden very rarely. A user who needs to override a runtime value can add it to the resulting JSON manually.

Making this comment for posterity, to say that adding runtime values to sprocket inputs is a "won't do".