[evancordell]

In the examples it looked as though there is still a CUE unification loop happening during dagger processing:

  deploy: netlify.#Deploy & {
    contents: build.contents.output
  }

It looks like dagger is using cue as a bit more than a YAML replacement; it hydrates cue values as it runs - which is cool! - but that's the part that seemed at odds with CUE's philosophy of pushing nondeterminism into clearly marked files.

[shykes]

Yes, we use CUE as more than just a YAML replacement. In particular we use CUE references to construct the DAG and "compile" it to buildkit.

And, yes, Dagger will gradually fill the missing values in the CUE tree during runtime. Essentially resolving the DAG on the fly. It is pretty cool :)

We have discussed this topic at length with the CUE developers. Our conclusion is that CUE's deterministic core is what matters, and the `_tool.cue` pattern is more peripheral: more of a reference for how other tools might use cue for non-deterministic operations. It's not realistic for CUE to be both a ubiquitous deterministic language, and a successful non-deterministic tool. Its priority is clearly the former, and we're focusing on the latter.