Means to reduce duplication of plugin fields

Metadata

Project: craft-application
Number: #99
Type: issue
State: open
Author: sed-i
Labels: —
Created: 2023-06-01 06:43 PM UTC
Updated: 2025-05-23 05:27 PM UTC
Closed: —

Current evaluation

Feature request for a top-level 'definitions' section in craft app YAML to reduce duplication of recurring repo/source fields via anchors. Transferred to craft-application; maintainer sought opinion on approach (similar to grammar changes) in March 2024, no resolution since.

Suggested action: keep open

Reason: Maintainer @lengau explicitly acknowledged the request ('interesting idea') and transferred it to craft-application, then in March 2024 asked @cmatsuoka for an opinion, noting it would be 'fairly similar to the grammar related changes' — so it is triaged and under consideration, not stale-dead. No implementation found in the codebase (no 'definitions' top-level field, no YAML anchor support), and the last activity (465 days ago) is a maintainer question awaiting a response, so it should remain open pending that decision.

Impact: 35 Quick Win: 12.25 Staleness: 55 Complexity: 65 Confidence: 60 Support Request: 10

Issue body

### What needs to get done It could be handy if a recurring repo could be mentioned only once, for example: ```yaml definitions: kubeflow-source: &kubeflow-source source: https://github.com/kubeflow/kubeflow source-type: git source-tag: v1.7-branch # upstream branch source-depth: 1 parts: backend: plugin: nil <<: *kubeflow-source ``` Currently this fails with: ``` Bad rockcraft.yaml content: - extra field 'definitions' not permitted in top-level configuration ``` ### Why it needs to get done If the same repo+tag are used multiple times, it could be easier to maintain and easier to read.

Evaluation history

Date	Model	Scores	Action	Summary
2026-09-01 04:24 AM UTC	qwen/qwen3.8-27b	Impact: 35 Quick Win: 12.25 Staleness: 55 Complexity: 65 Confidence: 60 Support Request: 10	keep open	Feature request for a top-level 'definitions' section in craft app YAML to reduce duplication of recurring repo/source fields via anchors. Transferred to craft-application; maintainer sought opinion on approach (similar to grammar changes) in March 2024, no resolution since.
2026-07-22 12:16 PM UTC	qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b	Staleness: 85 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 75 Support Request: 10	close stale	Feature request to support YAML anchors and aliases in rockcraft.yaml for reducing plugin field duplication. Transferred to upstream craft-application framework over a year ago with an internal ticket created. Currently inactive.
2026-07-09 12:47 AM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 85 Complexity: 45 Confidence: 75 Support Request: 10	needs triage	Feature request to support YAML anchors in rockcraft.yaml for reducing plugin field duplication. Acknowledged by maintainers and transferred to upstream craft-application, but remains unlabelled and inactive.
2026-06-17 09:47 AM UTC	qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6	Staleness: 75 Complexity: 40 Confidence: 75 Support Request: 10	keep open	Request to support YAML anchors in rockcraft.yaml for reducing plugin field duplication. Blocked by schema restrictions. Transferred to upstream craft-application framework. Internal ticket CRAFT-2612 created; awaiting upstream review and implementation.

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