Looking for early adopters for a new package manager called BigConfig

amiorin
Mon, 16 Mar 2026 18:03:04 +0000
Project Discussions

Hi all!

I’m looking for early adopters for my side project, BigConfig. It’s a package manager similar to Helm but designed with greater flexibility in mind.

Currently, I’m building a package for Airflow. The setup uses Terraform to provision compute resources on any hyperscaler (I’m using Oracle’s free tier for now) and Ansible to handle the installation of Airflow and its dependencies.

In BigConfig, every package also functions as a library. My next goal is to build an Airflow Console that allows users to spin up new instances without writing code—much like a cloud provider’s UI. I plan to test both Ansible and Kamal for the console deployment to see which fits the workflow better.

I’ve compiled a quick comparison table below:

Feature | Helm | BigConfig
Scope | Kubernetes-only: Focused strictly on K8s manifests | Full Stack: Manages K8s, Terraform, Ansible, and any CLI tool (including Helm itself)
Logic Type | Templating: String manipulation of YAML files using Go templates | Programming: Logic written as actual Clojure code
Workflow | CLI-driven: You run commands like helm install | REPL-driven: Evaluate and debug infra code in real-time; supports CLI and Library use
Learning Curve | High: Learning values.yaml and template logic | Very High: Requires Clojure and tool-specific knowledge
Template Language | Go templates | Jinja-inspired
Ecosystem | 20K+ packages available | Just starting out
Multi-cloud | Yes, through Kubernetes | Yes, through the template engine
Tool Support | K8s/Containers only | Terraform, Ansible, Helm, and more
Locking | No | Client-side using Git tags
Control Planes | No | Yes

Why Clojure?
Nix proved that if you solve a critical enough pain point, people will put in the effort to learn a new language. I’m betting on that same logic for BigConfig. By offering a Clojure-based ecosystem, we provide a level of power that justifies the learning curve. Using a Lisp for package management isn’t just a theory; Guix has already proven it works. BigConfig simply makes that power more accessible for modern workflows.

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