[Feature] An option to silence warnings

[jtcohen6]

Is this your first time submitting a feature request?

• I have read the expectations for open source contributors
• I have searched the existing issues, and I could not find an existing issue for this feature
• I am requesting a straightforward extension of existing dbt functionality, rather than a Big Idea better suited to a discussion

Describe the feature

https://docs.getdbt.com/reference/global-configs/warnings

warn_error_options:
  error: # previously called "include", promote to "error"
  warn: # previously called "exclude", keep as "warn"
  silence: # NEW: ignore entirely

(We'd retain the old names as well for backwards compatability)

Describe alternatives you've considered

• A separate config, WARN_SILENCE, that takes a list. This would be better in the case where a user wants to silence warnings via project flags (version-controlled default for everyone), and also promote specific warnings as errors (via include/exclude) in different runtime environments, without needing to re-specify the silence list every time. While that's slightly more ergonomic, it's also less explicit, and it doesn't feel like a show-stopper.
• Only allow users to silence deprecation warnings. I think there's a valid reason to generalize this to all kinds of warnings, e.g. silence ConstraintNotEnforced once for the entire project rather than once per model/constraint in the project.
• Remove TestsConfigDeprecation (= give up in advance)

Who will this benefit?

All users of dbt, especially since:

• In v1.8, we are renaming tests → to data_tests, for clearer distinction from unit_tests. Tens of thousands of projects will experience the TestsConfigDeprecation. They won't all be able to take action. We should give them a way to silence the deprecation (for now).
• We should still reword that deprecation message! Wording of TestConfigDeprecation is incorrect #9579

Are you interested in contributing this feature?

:)

Anything else?

Sketched out a start:

• dbt-labs/dbt-common@60a6ef1
• 31b1002

Example:

$ cat dbt_project.yml
name: "my_dbt_project"

tests:
  +enabled: True

flags:
  warn_error_options:
    silence:
      - TestsConfigDeprecation

$ dbt --no-partial-parse parse
16:02:55  Running with dbt=1.8.0-a1
16:02:56  Registered adapter: duckdb=1.7.0
16:02:57  Performance info: /Users/jerco/dev/scratch/testy/target/perf_info.json

Slack thread with more context

[MichelleArk]

From technical refinment:

• would need to ensure all instantiations of the WarnErrorOptions support both include/exclude and warn/error syntax
  *. eg: CLI instantiation: https://github.com/dbt-labs/dbt-core/blob/main/core/dbt/cli/option_types.py#L56-L61

[martynydbt]

@QMalcolm I removed the blocker since you're unblocked.

[FishtownBuildBot]

Opened a new issue in dbt-labs/docs.getdbt.com: dbt-labs/docs.getdbt.com#5417

[mirnawong1]

we've opened a docs PR dbt-labs/docs.getdbt.com#5434 and sharing the preview