Feed "label for plots" through as an "alias" in ESMValTool recipe

[Naomi Parsons (NParsonsMO)]

Closes #298 .

PR creation checklist for the developer

• Has <issue_number> above ☝️ been replaced with the issue number?
• Has main been selected as the base branch?
• Does the feature branch name follow the format <issue_number>_<short_description_of_feature>?
• Does the text of the PR title exactly match with the text (not including the issue number) of the issue title?
• Have appropriate reviewers been added to the PR (once it is ready for review)?
• Has the PR been assigned to the developer(s)?
• Have the same labels as on the issue (except for the good first issue label) been added to the PR?
• Has the Climate Model Evaluation Workflow (CMEW) project been added to the PR?
• Has the appropriate milestone been added to the PR?

Definition of Done for the developer

• Does the change in this PR address the above issue / have all acceptance criteria been met?
• Does the change in this PR follow the requirements in the wiki: Developer Guide (including copyrights)?
• Have new tests related to the change been added?
• Do all the GitHub workflow checks pass?
• Do all the tests run locally and pass? (Note: the tests are not run by the GitHub workflow, see wiki: Run the tests locally)
• Has the API documentation (e.g. docstrings in Python modules) related to the change been updated appropriately?
• Has the user documentation (i.e. everything in the doc directory) related to the change been updated appropriately, including the Quick Start section?
• Do the HTML pages render correctly? (See wiki: Build the documentation locally)

PR creation checklist for the reviewer

• Has <issue_number> above ☝️ been replaced with the issue number?
• Has main been selected as the base branch?
• Does the feature branch name follow the format <issue_number>_<short_description_of_feature>?
• Does the text of the PR title exactly match with the text (not including the issue number) of the issue title?
• Have appropriate reviewers been added to the PR (once it is ready for review)?
• Has the PR been assigned to the developer(s)?
• Have the same labels as on the issue (except for the good first issue label) been added to the PR?
• Has the Climate Model Evaluation Workflow (CMEW) project been added to the PR?
• Has the appropriate milestone been added to the PR?

Definition of Done for the reviewer

• Does the change in this PR address the above issue / have all acceptance criteria been met? N/A
• Does the change in this PR follow the requirements in the wiki: Developer Guide (including copyrights)?
• Have new tests related to the change been added?
• Do all the GitHub workflow checks pass?
• Do all the tests run locally and pass? (Note: the tests are not run by the GitHub workflow, see wiki: Run the tests locally)
• Has the API documentation (e.g. docstrings in Python modules) related to the change been updated appropriately?
• Has the user documentation (i.e. everything in the doc directory) related to the change been updated appropriately, including the Quick Start section? N/A
• Do the HTML pages render correctly? (See wiki: Build the documentation locally)

[mo-nikosbaltas]

This looks good. I run the tests and the metoffice workflow and all run correctly. I have not seen Acceptance Criteria in the #298 issue. I have seen comments on possible implementation, but as I understand at the moment this issue provides just the entries to 'alias' for both EVAL and REF. Is this sufficient?

[Naomi Parsons (NParsonsMO)]

This looks good. I run the tests and the metoffice workflow and all run correctly. I have not seen Acceptance Criteria in the #298 issue. I have seen comments on possible implementation, but as I understand at the moment this issue provides just the entries to 'alias' for both EVAL and REF. Is this sufficient?

I believe it is, as it needs to be combined with a separate PR on the ESMValTool repo to actually see any difference, but good to check with Alistair Sellar (@alistairsellar) or Emma Hogan (@ehogan). I'll ask for a second reviewer tomorrow.

[mo-nikosbaltas]

I will wait for comments by Alistair Sellar (@alistairsellar) and Emma Hogan (@ehogan) and then I can approve.

[Alistair Sellar (alistairsellar)]

Looks good, thanks Naomi Parsons (@NParsonsMO)!

Yes, this meets the (unwritten :D ) acceptance criteria for the issue. The labels appear in the recipe, which means that when #302 is done, the labels appear in the plots.

I've suggested that we populate the labels in the default metadata. It's useful that the current commit demonstrates that when these are blank, it correctly populates them with the suite ID.

Also, copyrights on changed files will need updated to 2026.