I think all of this is indicative of a deeper problem, which is YAML is a great config but doesn't work when you need code. When you're doing simpler deploymen

I think all of this is indicative of a deeper problem, which is YAML is a great config but doesn't work when you need code. When you're doing simpler deployments then config files are great. It keeps the learning curve flat for new users. The problem is that as users get more experienced, they ramp up the complexity, then start trying to shoehorn more abstraction into a format where it doesn't fit. The most visible example is the need for code reuse. Any sufficiently complex artifact is going to have a lot of similar sub-components. What you want is a macro or subroutine that translates simple parameters into common patterns. What you end up with is a lot of brittle copy-pasting. Text templating is a kludge that usually works fine until it doesn't. At the end of the day everything ends up messily converging to Greenspun's Tenth Law.