id,node_id,number,title,user,state,locked,assignee,milestone,comments,created_at,updated_at,closed_at,author_association,active_lock_reason,draft,pull_request,body,reactions,performed_via_github_app,state_reason,repo,type
1953001043,I_kwDOAMm_X850aG5T,8343,Add `metadata_only` param to `.to_zarr`?,5635139,open,0,,,17,2023-10-19T20:25:11Z,2023-11-15T05:22:12Z,,MEMBER,,,,"### Is your feature request related to a problem?

A leaf from https://github.com/pydata/xarray/issues/8245, which has a bullet:

> compute=False is arguably a less-than-obvious kwarg meaning ""write metadata"". Maybe this should be a method, maybe it's a candidate for renaming? Or maybe make_template can be an abstraction over it

I've also noticed that for large arrays, running `compute=False` can take several minutes, despite the indexes being very small. I think this is because it's building a dask task graph — which is then discarded, since the array is written from different machines with the `region` pattern.

### Describe the solution you'd like

Would introducing a `metadata_only` parameter to `to_zarr` help here:
- Better name
- No dask graph

### Describe alternatives you've considered

_No response_

### Additional context

_No response_","{""url"": ""https://api.github.com/repos/pydata/xarray/issues/8343/reactions"", ""total_count"": 2, ""+1"": 2, ""-1"": 0, ""laugh"": 0, ""hooray"": 0, ""confused"": 0, ""heart"": 0, ""rocket"": 0, ""eyes"": 0}",,,13221727,issue