> If I need a for-loop, I'll write my own script to generate the JSON. OK, so you are using some service that expects JSON to config. You have a script to gen

> If I need a for-loop, I'll write my own script to generate the JSON. OK, so you are using some service that expects JSON to config. You have a script to generate the JSON. Now you gotta make sure to run the script on changes. You also need to check in the JSON into your VCS despite it being a generate artifact. This leads to the perpetual "somebody fixes an issue in the artifact, and it gets wiped after someone uses the script" issues. What you're saying is theoretically very good! But it doesn't play well with the combo of assumptions made everywhere in hosted services and some PL infrastructure: - every project is 1 git repository, and vice versa - commit security is an all or nothing proposition (so it's hard to have permissions like "this file can only be edited by this user" or "this commit can be made directly to `main`, _if_ it only touches this file") - configuration as configuration - version numbers have to be written into code And obviously this is a problem, because everyone keeps on inventing YAML-based programming idioms for each of their services! Because static configuration doesn't map to even the simplest of setups very well. People come and them mention stuff like Dhall. But really people want to be able to write programs that read files, make HTTP requests, and then make decisions about what to do based on that. And things like "if this test suite fails, do this other orchestration". The ideal CI flow is not staticly definable at the start of execution! There is a killer protocol out there, and it's ... something like Skylark, with a standard library that gives file reading, checking of statuses, probably HTTP and the like.... and an executable that allows for configuring permissions in certain ways. The bonus would be just re-doing Bazel but with less guardrails. If someone showed up with CI/CD that was more in this vein they would become the dominate CD host very quickly in my opinion.