kapp VS Hasura

If you want to take it one step further: you might be applying several resources at a time that are logically one "application". kapp (https://carvel.dev/kapp/) lets you group those together and give them a name, and provides a "terraform-like" experience where it shows you its execution plan before applying updates. So then you might do `ytt -f | kapp deploy -a name-of-thing` Or you could use helm's templating engine but then still pass the resulting yaml to kapp for its unification of the deployment step.

since you mentioned Kubernetes...

> It would be nice if there was a separate state reconciliation system that one could adapt to use with Cue or Dhall or any other frontend

this exactly was thinking behind https://carvel.dev/kapp for Kubernetes (i'm one of the maintainers). it makes a point to not know how you decided to generate your Kubernetes config -- just takes it as input.

> In particular the ability to import other files as semantic hashes seems like a great feature.

it's an interesting feature but seems like it should be unnecessary given that config can be easily checked into git (your own and its dependencies).

i think kubernetes is not a great example in favor of more client state (like tf) since k8s has uniform resource structure (metadata.*) and first class labeling support. but as you point out kubectl doesnt use labels well (at least imho).

when building https://carvel.dev/kapp (which i think of as "optimized terraform" for k8s) the goal was absolutely to take advantage of those k8s features. we ended up providing two capabilities: direct label (more advanced) and "app name" (more user friendly). from impl standpoint, difference is how much state is maintained.

"kapp deploy -a label:x=y -f ..." allows user to specify label that is applied to all deployed resources and is also used for querying k8s to determine whats out there under given label. invocation is completely stateless since burden of keeping/providing state (in this case the label x=y) is shifted to the user. downside of course is that all apis within k8s need to be iterated over. (side note, fun features like "kapp delete -a label:!x" are free thanks to k8s querying).

"kapp deploy -a my-app -f ..." gives user ability to associate name with uniquely auto-generated label. this case is more stateful than previous but again only label needs to be saved (we use ConfigMap to store that label). if this state is lost, one has to only recover generated label.

imho k8s api structure enables focused tools like kapp to be much much simpler than more generic tool like terraform. as much as i'd like for terraform to keep less state, i totally appreciate its needs to support lowest common denominator feature set.

common discussion topics:

kapp - Install, upgrade, and delete multiple Kubernetes resources as one "application"

I really like this approach for simplifying Kubernetes. A few projects similar to OAM in that it provides a higher level "Application" CRD:

https://github.com/vmware-tanzu/carvel-kapp

Another strategy is to model access control declaratively and enforce it in the application layer. ZenStack (built above Prisma ORM) and Hasura are good examples of this approach. The following code shows how access policies are defined with ZenStack and how a secured CRUD API can be derived automatically.

Today, this ecosystem is going strong with new providers like Hasura, AppWrite and Supabase powering millions of projects. There are a few reasons people choose this style of hosting, especially if they are more comfortable with frontend development. BaaS lets them set up a database in a secure way, expose some business logic on top of the data, and connect via a dev-friendly SDK from their app or website code to save data easily. These modern tools build a blend of managed database with curated plugins such as authentication, great admin dashboards, and function as a service type capability - all in one package, and often offered as a integrated hosted service.

Hi! If you’ve ever thought about something like using GraphQL for something like this.. You might like Hasura. (Obligatory I work for Hasura)

We’ve got an OpenAPI import and you can setup cron-jobs or one-off jobs and do things like load in headers from the environment variables to pass through. There isn’t currently an easy journey for chaining multiple calls together without writing any code at all, but you can wrap pretty much any API endpoint via OpenAPI import or a custom action, and you can even make minor edits to things like the API contract format to change aliases/naming.

Our goal is to join all the things, databases and API’s. Most people know us for instant GraphQL API’s that give you CRUD on your database, but we also wrap APIs.

Not sure if something like this would fit your use-case and do check out some of the other things mentioned, but depending what you are trying to do I think Hasura might potentially work.

You can find out more here: https://hasura.io

Nested Mutation - 113 thumbs up, and still open since 2019... another case of not listening to the users?

Hasura is an open-source real-time GraphQL API server with a strong authorization layer on your database. You can subscribe to database events via webhooks. It can combine multiple API servers into one unified graphQL API. Hasura is a great tool to build any CRUD GraphQL API. Hasura does not have any authentication mechanisms; e.g., you need an auth server to handle sign-up and sign-in.

7. Hasura

I built that repo to share some techniques behind the Hasura engine. Do check that out if you'd like to branch out a bit from your initial requirements; everything is declaratively defined in metadata, it is not a node/golang solution. https://hasura.io/

Hasura (GraphQL)

Hasura ✅❌ - Insert but not Update