Declarative signature specification for built-in functions

[fricklerhandwerk]

Problem statement

Currently, implementation of builtins procedurally checks validity of arguments, and interface documentation has to be written manually.

Solution proposal

Create a data structure that represents language values and use that when registering primops; automatically generate interface documentation from that.

Related

• https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2023-11-03-nix-team-meeting-minutes-100/35245#next-stabilisation-steps-3
• Use/write an interface definition language for docs and codegen #9817
• Systematize builtins.fetchTree docs #9732
• Combined parsing and schema generations (libfetchers, WIP) #9273

[nixos-discourse]

This issue has been mentioned on NixOS Discourse. There might be relevant details there:

https://discourse.nixos.org/t/2024-06-05-nix-team-meeting-minutes-150/46583/1