All model commands should accept model name or ONNX path as a positional argument

Summary

Every command that takes a model input requires -m / --model flag syntax. No command accepts the model name or ONNX file path as a positional argument. This makes the natural follow-on from winml hub — winml inspect ProsusAI/finbert — fail, and equally natural ONNX workflows — winml analyze model.onnx — also fail. The correct syntax is undiscoverable without reading --help.

Motivation

The natural mental model after browsing winml hub or exporting a model is:

# After browsing catalog
winml inspect ProsusAI/finbert
winml perf ProsusAI/finbert
winml build ProsusAI/finbert -o ./

# After exporting to ONNX
winml analyze model.onnx
winml optimize model.onnx -o optimized/
winml quantize model.onnx -o quantized/
winml compile model.onnx --ep qnn -o compiled/
winml perf model.onnx

None of these work today. Every command requires -m:

winml inspect -m ProsusAI/finbert
winml analyze -m model.onnx
winml perf -m model.onnx

The winml hub output gives no hint that -m is required. The flag is undiscoverable without reading --help — a friction point that catches every new user on their first command after browsing the catalog or exporting a model.

Affected Commands

All 10 commands that accept a model input use --model / -m with no positional fallback:

Proposed Solution

Add MODEL as an optional click.argument with required=False to each command. If both the positional arg and -m are provided, -m wins (backward-compatible). If neither is provided, existing error handling applies unchanged.

@click.argument("model_arg", required=False, default=None, metavar="MODEL")
@click.option("-m", "--model", "model_id", default=None, ...)
def inspect(model_arg, model_id, ...):
    model_id = model_id or model_arg
    ...

The metavar should reflect what each command accepts:

• Commands accepting both HF IDs and ONNX paths: metavar="MODEL_OR_ONNX"
• Commands accepting only ONNX paths (compile, optimize, quantize): metavar="MODEL_ONNX"
• Commands accepting only HF IDs (export): metavar="MODEL"

Acceptance Criteria

• All 10 affected commands accept an optional positional argument for the model input
• Positional arg and -m flag are mutually usable; -m takes precedence if both are supplied
• winml inspect ProsusAI/finbert works identically to winml inspect -m ProsusAI/finbert
• winml analyze model.onnx works identically to winml analyze -m model.onnx
• --help output for each command shows the positional in the usage line with appropriate metavar
• No regression in existing -m flag behavior
• winml hub / winml catalog output includes a hint line referencing the positional form

Related

• #413 — winml hub → winml catalog rename (hub is the entry point that exposes this gap)
• #442 — winml flow (guided pipeline — positional arg is especially important here)