{"slug": "cue", "name": "CUE", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 3.664, "rising": 1.02, "first": "2026-01-16", "latest": "2026-10-30", "why": "I like CUE a lot. We use it pretty heavily for schema enforcement of CRDs.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 6, "neutral": 1, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 2, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I like CUE a lot. We use it pretty heavily for schema enforcement of CRDs.", "icon": true, "domain": "cuelang.org", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://cuelang.org", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["CUE"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 804969184, "item_id": 50310574, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50310574", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use CUE as the deterministic abstraction layer and generate Go/TS from that", "excerpt": "I use CUE as the deterministic abstraction layer and generate Go/TS from that, but any language can be generated because it is piped through a text/template rendering engine. Deterministic workflows are more challenging because they are more complex in nature, as soon as you start interacting with the world outside of a pure language itself.", "context": "", "use_case": "deterministic abstraction, code generation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's missing for a true deterministic abstraction layer?"}, {"id": 797970288, "item_id": 49873143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49873143", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "MVS + OCI is the gold standard imo", "excerpt": "fun fact, in the process of designing CUE modules, the Go team said they would use a registry if they could do it over, CUE uses OCI registries MVS + OCI is the gold standard imo CUE module proposal (implemented a while back) - https://github.com/cue-lang/cue/discussions/2939 MVS, the fast and deterministic dependency resolving algorithm Go uses instead of SAT solvers - https://research.swtch.com/vgo-mvs", "context": "", "use_case": "module dependency management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't couple your Go code to GitHub"}, {"id": 793561488, "item_id": 49597593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49597593", "by": "bjconlan", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's the best thing I've come across (that I don't need to mange myself)", "excerpt": "I have an old colleague who I've been leaning on for ai things (they're more on the pulse than I) who uses cue (cuelang.org) for distributing and formalizing a set of skills/prompts. It's the best thing I've come across (that I don't need to mange myself) https://github.com/p3bot/start The tool itself does more than just manage skills/prompts but I found that part of it particularly good (well new to me; not familiar", "context": "", "use_case": "distributing skills and prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you manage skills files?"}, {"id": 761637744, "item_id": 47602359, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602359", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-04-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They are central to my personal dev tool", "excerpt": "CUE and Dagger, though they are talked about by more than nobody They are central to my personal dev tool https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof", "context": "", "use_case": "personal dev tool", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?"}, {"id": 758286320, "item_id": 47392895, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392895", "by": "teleforce", "date": "2026-03-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is where configuration language like CUE can be used to complement LLM [1].", "excerpt": "> The LLM makes this easier but the improvement drops to about 2-3x b/c there is a lot of back and forth + me reading the code to confirm etc (yes, another LLM could do some of this but then that needs to get setup correctly etc) > The back and forth part can be faster if e.g. you have scripts/programs that deterministically check outputs This is where configuration language like CUE can be used to complement LLM [1]", "context": "", "use_case": "deterministic validation of LLM output", "switched_from": "", "story": "100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["deterministic abstraction, code generation", "module dependency management", "distributing skills and prompts", "personal dev tool", "deterministic validation of llm output", "custom agent stack"], "compared": [{"slug": "dagger", "name": "Dagger", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50306069", "title": "Ask HN: What's missing for a true deterministic abstraction layer?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49868404", "title": "Don't couple your Go code to GitHub", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49589914", "title": "Ask HN: How do you manage skills files?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602040", "title": "Ask HN: What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47386636", "title": "100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47052629", "title": "I'm going to build my own OpenClaw, with blackjack and bun", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-02": {"neutral": 1}, "2026-03": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 2}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "quotes": [{"id": 804969184, "item_id": 50310574, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50310574", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-10-30", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use CUE as the deterministic abstraction layer and generate Go/TS from that", "excerpt": "I use CUE as the deterministic abstraction layer and generate Go/TS from that, but any language can be generated because it is piped through a text/template rendering engine. Deterministic workflows are more challenging because they are more complex in nature, as soon as you start interacting with the world outside of a pure language itself.", "context": "", "use_case": "deterministic abstraction, code generation", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What's missing for a true deterministic abstraction layer?"}, {"id": 797970288, "item_id": 49873143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49873143", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "MVS + OCI is the gold standard imo", "excerpt": "fun fact, in the process of designing CUE modules, the Go team said they would use a registry if they could do it over, CUE uses OCI registries MVS + OCI is the gold standard imo CUE module proposal (implemented a while back) - https://github.com/cue-lang/cue/discussions/2939 MVS, the fast and deterministic dependency resolving algorithm Go uses instead of SAT solvers - https://research.swtch.com/vgo-mvs", "context": "", "use_case": "module dependency management", "switched_from": "", "story": "Don't couple your Go code to GitHub"}, {"id": 793561488, "item_id": 49597593, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49597593", "by": "bjconlan", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It's the best thing I've come across (that I don't need to mange myself)", "excerpt": "I have an old colleague who I've been leaning on for ai things (they're more on the pulse than I) who uses cue (cuelang.org) for distributing and formalizing a set of skills/prompts. It's the best thing I've come across (that I don't need to mange myself) https://github.com/p3bot/start The tool itself does more than just manage skills/prompts but I found that part of it particularly good (well new to me; not familiar", "context": "", "use_case": "distributing skills and prompts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: How do you manage skills files?"}, {"id": 761637744, "item_id": 47602359, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47602359", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-04-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "They are central to my personal dev tool", "excerpt": "CUE and Dagger, though they are talked about by more than nobody They are central to my personal dev tool https://github.com/hofstadter-io/hof", "context": "", "use_case": "personal dev tool", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What dev tools do you rely on that nobody talks about?"}, {"id": 758286320, "item_id": 47392895, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47392895", "by": "teleforce", "date": "2026-03-15", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "This is where configuration language like CUE can be used to complement LLM [1].", "excerpt": "> The LLM makes this easier but the improvement drops to about 2-3x b/c there is a lot of back and forth + me reading the code to confirm etc (yes, another LLM could do some of this but then that needs to get setup correctly etc) > The back and forth part can be faster if e.g. you have scripts/programs that deterministically check outputs This is where configuration language like CUE can be used to complement LLM [1]", "context": "", "use_case": "deterministic validation of LLM output", "switched_from": "", "story": "100 hour gap between a vibecoded prototype and a working product"}, {"id": 752846769, "item_id": 47052923, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47052923", "by": "verdverm", "date": "2026-02-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "My stack is built on ADK-go, CUE, Dagger, VSCode, and system prompts derived from Claude Code", "excerpt": "I fully support more people building out custom agent stacks. Let's not have Big Ai define how we use this once-in-history advancement. My stack is built on ADK-go, CUE, Dagger, VSCode, and system prompts derived from Claude Code", "context": "", "use_case": "custom agent stack", "switched_from": "", "story": "I'm going to build my own OpenClaw, with blackjack and bun"}, {"id": 746357216, "item_id": 46647326, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46647326", "by": "athorax", "date": "2026-01-16", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I like CUE a lot. We use it pretty heavily for schema enforcement of CRDs.", "excerpt": "I like CUE a lot. We use it pretty heavily for schema enforcement of CRDs. That being said, it is pretty complex and learning to use it was anything but straight forward. For more basic configs, I would potentially look into KCL https://www.kcl-lang.io/ It has a much simpler usage overall especially if you are only really trying to enforce some config rules. The other alternative is to just use whatever language you ", "context": "", "use_case": "schema enforcement of CRDs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Cue Does It All, but Can It Literate?"}]}