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Mantis Principles

Use vendor neutral industry standards​

Mantis aims to use state of the art technology standards, either existing or emerging, that are relevant for it's time. For e.g

  • OCI is standard for packaging, which can greatly simplify adoption of IaC without concerns of vendor lock-in.
  • Similarly CUE is a next generation configuration language, that aims to be the lingua franca for configuration. It's an Apache 2.0 licensed language, which makes it a good choice for Mantis.

Configuration as Data​

Mantis treats configuration as structured data, leveraging CUE's type system and constraints:

  • Type Safety: Catches errors early, preventing misconfigurations.
  • Validation: Allows quality checking and policy enforcements.
  • Composability: Enables easy combination and extension of configurations.

This approach leads to more robust, flexible, and maintainable infrastructure definitions.

Makefile style programming model​

Mantis uses a build-style flow system, inspired by Makefiles, to define tasks and their dependencies. This makes complex deployments manageable by offering:

  • Task Definition: Clearly defined tasks with explicit inputs/outputs.
  • Explicit Dependencies: Dependencies are clearly defined, ensuring predictable execution order.

This is a hybrid approach that combines the best of pure declarative and imperative worlds, making it easy to reason about code.

Optinionated, yet flexible​

Mantis separates configuration from scripting logic, ensuring:

  • Pure Configurations: Declarative, side-effect-free configurations.
  • No Non-Hermetic Operations: Prevents non-deterministic behavior from file system access or network calls within configurations.
  • First-Class Imports and Dependency Management: Enables composable modules, improving organization, reusability, and maintainability.
  • Enhanced Granular Reuse: CUE's type system allows for modular components and templates, promoting code reuse and reducing duplication.

Benefits​

  • Enhanced Scalability: Modular configurations free from scripting logic allow easier scaling for large infrastructures.
  • Improved Debuggability: Separation of configuration and execution logic simplifies debugging.
  • Low-cost Maintenance and Compliance: Mantis reduces complexity and maintenance overhead by enforcing best practices, particularly in fast-paced, high-churn environments.