Glossary
This page defines the one name the documentation uses for each reprobuild concept. The style check reads it: every Do not use entry is rejected in user pages, except inside code.
Action
One unit of work in the build graph: a command with its inputs and outputs, such as one compiler invocation. reprobuild runs an action, or reuses its recorded result when nothing that affects it has changed.
Do not use: node, step, job (for an action). Use "edge" only for the link between two actions.
Action cache
The record of every action's fingerprint and outputs, which lets reprobuild skip an action whose inputs are unchanged. The --action-cache-root option of repro build moves it.
Do not use: build cache (for this record).
Activity
A named grouping of tools, services and settings that a development environment, home profile or system profile can switch on. Commands select one with --activity=NAME; without the option, the activity is default.
Do not use: role, feature, profile (for an activity).
Branch role
A named purpose for a branch, which each repository in a workspace maps to its own branch name. The built-in roles are mainline, unstable, staging, stable, production and lts; a workspace can add its own. A role that a repository does not declare falls back towards its mainline.
Do not use: branch alias, branch class.
Build graph
The graph of actions reprobuild derives from a project, with an edge wherever one action uses another's output. repro graph prints it.
Do not use: action graph, DAG (in prose).
Convention
The rules reprobuild applies to a language's standard layout to derive actions without being told about each file: where the sources are, which directories are libraries, which files are tests. repro show-conventions prints what a convention inferred for a project.
Do not use: standard provider (in user pages), rule set.
Daemon
The background process, one per user, that runs builds and keeps their state loaded between commands. repro daemon status reports on it.
Do not use: server, service (for the daemon).
Dependency evidence
The record of what an action read, wrote and looked for while it ran, captured by monitoring its processes. reprobuild uses it to decide when the action has to run again, so an input you did not declare still counts.
Do not use: observations, monitor data, traces (for dependency evidence).
Develop mode
The state in which a workspace builds a dependency from a local checkout instead of from its locked revision. repro develop starts it for a dependency and repro develop --drop ends it.
Do not use: dev mode, link mode, override mode.
Development environment
The tools, environment variables and services a project declares for working on it. repro shell starts a shell inside it, repro exec runs one command inside it, and the shell hook activates it when you enter the project's directory.
Do not use: dev shell, devEnv (outside code), sandbox.
Fingerprint
A hash over everything that can change an action's result: its command, the contents of its inputs and the tools it runs. reprobuild treats two runs with the same fingerprint as interchangeable and reuses the earlier result.
Do not use: cache key, checksum (for a fingerprint).
Generation
One applied state of a home profile or system profile. Applying a changed profile creates a new generation; repro home rollback and repro system rollback return to an earlier one.
Do not use: snapshot, version, revision (for a generation).
Hermetic
An action is hermetic when everything it reads is accounted for in its fingerprint. reprobuild checks this from the action's dependency evidence instead of trusting its declared inputs.
Do not use: sandboxed, isolated (for hermetic). An action is hermetic because of what its evidence shows, not because of how it is confined.
Home profile
A description of the tools, files and services on your own account, written in home.nim and applied with repro home apply.
Do not use: dotfiles config, home config, home manifest.
Lock file
The file repro.lock, which a repository commits to pin the exact revisions and versions it was built with.
Do not use: lockfile (one word), pin file.
Mainline
The branch role of the branch where completed work lands in a repository. Each repository declares which of its branches that is.
Do not use: main branch, trunk, default branch (for the mainline).
Mode 1
Building from the directory layout alone, with no project file. reprobuild recognises layouts such as apps/<name>/ and libs/<name>/.
Do not use: zero-config mode, layout mode, Tier 1.
Mode 2
Building a project through its ecosystem's own manifest, such as Cargo.toml, package.json or CMakeLists.txt, with a short project file that names the package and the tools it uses.
Do not use: delegate mode, Tier 2.
Mode 3
Building from a short project file that lists packages and the dependencies between them, with the conventions supplying the rest.
Do not use: curated mode, Tier 3.
Package
A named unit in a project file: a package block holding executables, libraries, files or services.
Do not use: module, component, crate (for a reprobuild package).
Project
A directory that reprobuild can build: one with a project file, or one whose layout it recognises (Mode 1). Commands that act on a project take --project-root. In a workspace, a named set of repositories is a workspace project, never a "project".
Do not use: codebase, repo (for a project).
Project file
The file repro.nim, which describes a project to reprobuild. It is Nim code, so the compiler checks it and your editor can navigate it. reprobuild also reads the older name reprobuild.nim.
Do not use: project DSL, DSL file, build file, recipe (for a project file).
Reproducible
An output is reproducible when building the same inputs again produces the same bytes. The documentation uses the word in no weaker sense.
Do not use: consistent, deterministic-ish (for reproducible).
Repository fragment
A file under a workspace's repos/ directory that declares one repository: its name, its checkout path, its remote and its branch roles.
Do not use: repo manifest, repo entry.
Service
A long-running process that a project declares, such as a database. repro up starts a project's services and repro down stops them.
Do not use: daemon (for a project's service), container.
Shell hook
A snippet printed by repro shell hook <shell> that you load from your shell's start-up file. It activates a project's development environment when you enter the project's directory and deactivates it when you leave.
Do not use: direnv hook, prompt hook.
Sibling checkout
A repository cloned next to the others in a workspace directory, so that each one can build against the others' working trees.
Do not use: submodule, nested checkout.
Store
The directory in which reprobuild keeps tools, libraries and build outputs, each under a name derived from its contents. repro store gc removes the entries that nothing refers to.
Do not use: cache directory, Nix store (for reprobuild's store).
System profile
The machine-wide counterpart of a home profile, managed with repro system.
Do not use: machine config, host profile.
Target
What repro build builds when you name it: a package, an executable or library inside one, or a named collection of them. repro build --list-targets lists a project's targets.
Do not use: goal, rule, build target (prefer "target").
Task
A named command that a project declares, which repro run <task> runs inside the project's development environment. repro tasks lists them.
Do not use: recipe, script, job (for a task).
Test certificate
A signed record that named tests passed on one platform against one exact content of a repository. repro test and repro certify produce them, and commit and push checks can require them.
Do not use: test receipt, test proof.
Tool provisioning
How reprobuild obtains the tools a project uses: from PATH, from Nix, from a release tarball, from Scoop, or by building them from source. The --tool-provisioning option chooses among them.
Do not use: toolchain resolution, adapter (in prose).
Trust
Your permission for reprobuild to activate a directory's development environment automatically. repro allow grants it for a directory and repro deny withdraws it. Trust is recorded against the directory's path, not against its contents.
Do not use: allow-list, approval, whitelist.
Workspace
A directory that holds several repositories side by side as sibling checkouts, together with a workspace root that declares which repositories belong together.
Do not use: monorepo, superproject, checkout set.
Workspace project
A named set of repositories in a workspace, declared in projects/<name>.toml of the workspace root. repro workspace enable <project> checks its repositories out.
Do not use: "project" on its own, product, group.
Workspace root
The repository at the top of a workspace that holds its manifests: repro-workspace.toml, projects/ and repos/.
Do not use: manifest repo, umbrella repo.