Typed Inputs

Declaring inputs

Adoption is one value at a time. The RFC's own example promotes a single worker count and leaves everything else untyped.

vars:
  workers: 2

actions:
  - name: test
    command: "pytest -n {{ workers }}"

inputs:
  workers:
    type: integer
    minimum: 1
    default: 2
    description: Number of pytest workers
    expose: non-secret

actions:
  - name: test
    command:
      invoke: pytest -n {{ inputs.workers }}

Writing inputs.workers instead of workers is the promotion. There is no implicit alias and no mutation of vars. Adopting an input also does not silently turn a legacy shell string into direct execution; the example switches to invoke because the RFC recommends structured invocation for dynamic arguments.

Adapted: field names from RFC 0022 §4, not an RFC example

inputs:
  mode:
    type: string
    choices: [debug, release]
    default: debug
    expose: non-secret

Validation before execution

Roadmap 21.1 validates values before Jinja expansion, so a bad value never reaches a template, let alone a process. Root inputs and bundle parameters are to accept and reject the same values.

Callers and profiles

The RFC proposes one CLI option, --input NAME=VALUE, on commands that compile a manifest. Parsing is type-directed, not shell splitting or YAML evaluation: strings and paths keep the text after the first = exactly; integers are signed decimal, no floats; Booleans are exactly true or false; sequences and mappings are JSON with duplicate keys rejected. Unknown names and repeated occurrences are errors.

$ netsuke build --input workers=4

Against the declaration above, --input workers=0 would fail minimum: 1 before any command starts.

Roadmap: 21.2, bind explicit callers and profiles to the same interface.

From the shallow end

The route in, one step at a time

1. Keep vars. Nothing changes.
2. Promote the one value callers actually set, as inputs.workers above.
3. Set it from the command line with --input, or bind it in a profile.
4. Pass it on to a bundle explicitly through with.
5. If a project wants it enforced, the opt-in typed-inputs maturity rule checks named subjects only; it never guesses which variables are public.

Roadmap 21.3 sets the bar: “no context, state, or bundle is required to use a validated worker count.”

Confidence

Planned, not existing. RFC 0022 §8 and roadmap phase 21 set these acceptance requirements.

Determinism is part of the contract: collection order is preserved and mapping keys canonicalized. A maturity setting “cannot disable type correctness, resource limits, or capability checks for an opted-in declaration.” And the honest limit: typed data alone does not stop a tool-specific flag bag from overriding the declared worker policy.

Accessibility and localization

Every human-readable message Netsuke emits is localized by default through its Fluent catalogues, so a rejected value, a missing input, or a type mismatch is explained in the caller's locale; input names, type names, and choices stay exactly as declared, because they are what the caller types. RFC 0022 does not discuss how input diagnostics render in Netsuke's accessible output mode. What it does say concerns what a diagnostic contains and what it must withhold:

• A validation error shows the name, expected type, constraint, source location, and remedy, “without echoing a rejected secret-looking value”. Human output, JSON, verbose output, snapshots, and telemetry share that boundary.
• Values are redacted by default. “Redaction is not secret storage”: the RFC introduces no secret type and promises no confidentiality for values passed as process arguments or persisted in plans.
• Input documentation flows through the existing documentation and schema pipelines, “without a parallel input-help renderer”, and inspection names the effective profile, source, and contract without running a build.
• RFC 0025 §8 tells maturity diagnostics, including typed-inputs findings, to “Reuse Fluent localization” and not to leak input values. Netsuke's existing Fluent catalogues are that surface.

An input’s description is the manifest author’s own text, so Netsuke shows it as written.