• augur --help exits early with:

ERROR no way to get connection to the database. There is no db.config.json and the AUGUR_DB environment variable is not set

[...] help requires DB initialization first.
If the intended behavior is that --help should work without DB config, I’m happy to help implement a fix / open a PR.

Originally posted by @mezo78902 in #3627

IMO the help command should just output command information, link to setup docs, etc. i see no reason it needs a database, even if running any of the commands it documents is likely to require them