Concepts

Typeflows treats configuration files as type-safe, composable code objects rather than text files. This section explores the concepts that enable this approach.

Understanding Typeflows

At its core, Typeflows implements Configuration-as-Code through a simple idea: instead of manually creating and maintaining files, you model your entire repository structure as code objects that can be written to disk.

This approach brings the power of programming languages - type-safety, composition, reusability, versioning - to configuration management.

The Typeflows Cycle

Typeflows follows a cycle that improves traditional configuration management:

Author → Share → Consume → Compose → Export

Author

Write configurations as type-safe code using your IDE with full autocomplete, error checking and refactoring support, generate them, or load them from existing resources.

Share

Package your configurations and publish them to artifact repositories as versioned dependencies that others can consume.

Consume

Import configuration packages into your projects, automatically getting updates and improvements as new versions are published via standard software update processes.

Compose

Combine multiple configuration packages and add project-specific customisations to create your complete repository structure.

Export

Generate the actual configuration files in any format (YAML, JSON, Markdown, text, binaries) that your tools expect, using the Typeflows Export task integrated with your build system.

This cycle enables configuration to be managed like software: versioned, tested, shared, and automatically updated across projects.

What Makes Typeflows Different

Traditional configuration management relies on copying files, editing configuration files by hand, and relying on manual processes. Typeflows treats configuration as software, bringing:

• Type Safety: Catch errors at compile time before pushing changes, unlike traditional configuration files that can only be validated by running them
• Composition: Build complex configurations from reusable parts
• Versioning: Track and update configurations like dependencies
• Testing: Validate configurations before deployment
• Tooling: Full IDE support with autocomplete and refactoring

These concepts work together to eliminate configuration drift, reduce errors, and make maintaining infrastructure configurations as reliable as maintaining code.