[dkranchii]

Summary

airflow dags list-jobs accepts --limit, but the sibling airflow dags list-runs command does not — on busy DAGs the command dumps every run since the start of time (subject to date filters). This PR closes that asymmetry with a small, additive flag.

Details

• New ARG_DR_LIMIT typed as positive_int(allow_zero=False) — argparse rejects 0, negative numbers, and non-numeric input up-front.
• Applied in dag_list_dag_runs after the existing run_after DESC sort, so --limit N reliably returns the N most recent runs regardless of insertion order in DagRun.find.
• Default behaviour when the flag is absent is unchanged (all rows returned).

Test plan

• ruff format and ruff check clean.
• Parser smoke test: --limit 3 parses to int(3); --limit 0, --limit -1, --limit abc all rejected by argparse; --limit shows in dags list-runs --help.
• uv run --project airflow-core pytest airflow-core/tests/unit/cli/commands/test_dag_command.py::TestCliDags::test_cli_list_dag_runs airflow-core/tests/unit/cli/commands/test_dag_command.py::TestCliDags::test_cli_list_dag_runs_limit airflow-core/tests/unit/cli/commands/test_dag_command.py::TestCliDags::test_cli_list_dag_runs_limit_rejects_invalid -xvs
• prek run --from-ref main --stage pre-commit

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Was generative AI tooling used to co-author this PR?

• Yes — Cursor

[fat-catTW]

Thanks!
This looks good overall.

Since this adds a user-facing airflow-core CLI option, could you add a newsfragment under airflow-core/newsfragments/, for example 71729.feature.rst or 71729.improvement.rst, mentioning the new airflow dags list-runs --limit option?

[fat-catTW]

Awesome!!

[potiuk]

Thanks — small, well-scoped addition: argparse-level validation via positive_int(allow_zero=False) and slicing after the run_after DESC sort gives exactly the "N most recent runs" semantics. Approving.

A few non-blocking notes:

• --limit caps the output, but DagRun.find still loads every matching run, so the database/memory cost on a busy Dag is unchanged. Fine for a CLI; just worth knowing if someone later wants to push the limit into the query.
• test_cli_list_dag_runs_limit checks the returned rows are sorted, which a wrong-but-sorted subset would also satisfy. Asserting the run ids (e.g. --limit 1 → cli_limit_test_2) would pin the "most recent" part.
• The newsfragment isn't required — AGENTS.md reserves airflow-core/newsfragments/ for major or breaking changes — but it does no harm; keep or drop as you prefer.

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Drafted-by: Claude Code (Opus 5); reviewed by @potiuk before posting