Kubecon: A Terraform Killer Built On Apple’s Pkl

ATLANTA — Terraform has you tripping? YAML sewage you cross-eyed?

A startup, Platform Engineering Labs, has tackled nan ongoing headache that Infrastructure arsenic Code (Iac)  has been to many, utilizing a little-known configuration connection from Apple Corp., called Pkl, on pinch an agentic-based backend architecture.

The resulting unfastened root level is called Formae. Those astatine KubeCon+CloudNativeCon North America, being held present this week, tin cheque retired a demo of Formae, astatine Booth No. 2152.

The Challenge of Infrastructure arsenic Code

Infrastructure arsenic Code is nan believe of redeeming your system’s configuration successful a file, usually utilizing YAML aliases JSON, which IaC orchestrators past usage arsenic an instruction group to rotation retired infrastructure. The advantages IaC promises are automated deployments — a existent clip saver — and a defender against strategy drift, which is erstwhile systems autumn retired of alignment from their desired authorities (usually owed to manual intervention).

Yet aft everything is group up once, Day 2 operations pinch IaC tin beryllium a headache, contends Pavlo Baron, co-founder and CEO of Platform Engineering Labs, successful an question and reply pinch The New Stack. IaC files are brittle things. They quickly get analyzable and difficult to understand, easy to corrupt pinch protector IT work, and easy to make mistakes with. They connection nary guidance arsenic to if nan values they clasp are moreover correct.

“We built Formae retired of our ain pain,” Baron said.

Baron himself was 1 of nan founders of observability package supplier Instana, which was purchased by IBM successful 2020. He remained astatine IBM until nan institution purchased HashiCorp, and saw an opportunity successful nan IT automation space. Baron brought in Zachary Schneider from Instana to service arsenic CTO for nan caller company.

At Instana, some knowledgeable firsthand nan headaches operations tin cause.

“We ever kept talking astir a azygous thing: How is it that developers get each nan caller shiny worldly and operations group don’t,” Baron recalled. “How tin we amended that?”

How Formae Works

Within nan Formae environ, an individual IT assets is extracted into a versioned, declarative codification artifact called a “forma” (which is nan Latin singular for “form”) that tin past beryllium programmed against.

Unlike Terraform aliases Pulumi, authorities guidance successful Formae is handled not by nan clients themselves, but by agents, to defender against strategy drift. Changes are made successful nan aforesaid measurement information patches are rolled out, minimizing nan blast radius of each update.

The usability tin besides usage a command-line interface to make changes directly. Multiple group tin rumor commands and they are ordered into a queue for execution. Resources are versions and stored successful a information store.

Introducing Pkl

The codification is written successful an different language, Apple’s Pkl, which nan institution developed in-house to manage its ain strategy deployments.

Pkl is different from JSON and YAML successful that it forces users to create a schema for each type of resource, on pinch a type annotation. With type annotation, nan type values —and sometimes moreover a scope of permissible values themselves —  are already established for nan adaptable itself. So less typos tin sneak successful and disrupt nan operations.

This is thing that YAML doesn’t do. It offers nary guidance arsenic to what nan values should be. It doesn’t cheque to spot if nan values you person entered are incorrect.

These Pkl annotations tin alert developers astir what their choices are. It besides provides a base from which further devices tin beryllium built to further automate deployments.

“So if you want to do low-level worldly pinch Pkl, pinch functions and classes and whatsoever, you sewage it,” Baron said. “If you want conscionable to state connected nan precocious level immoderate properties successful immoderate object, you tin do that, too.”

For instance, level engineers tin usage Formae to group each nan imaginable sizes of a database strategy that are disposable to developers. The developers themselves tin conscionable prime 1 of a scope of choices (i.e., small, medium, large) that champion fresh their needs.

Certainly, nan believe of infrastructure deployment is fresh for improvement, but will Formae scratch nan itch? Stop by nan Platform Engineering Labs booth astatine KubeCon and find retired for yourself.

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