Celluster™ Reflex DSL

From configs & tools → to intent as the DSL.
DSLs • Intent • Reflexes • Lifecycle
From SQL to YAML to Reflex DSL — intent becomes the eternal API.

SQL gave us declarative queries for data. Kubernetes and Terraform gave us declarative configs for infrastructure. Celluster’s Reflex DSL goes one step further: it describes how a workload should behave over its entire lifecycle — not just how to launch it.

Configs describe state. Reflex DSL describes state + response — the reflexes a workload should have under pressure, failure, cost or crisis.

See the Reflex DSL DSL evolution at a glance
Four-panel cartoon showing the evolution from SQL to YAML to Terraform/Helm to the Celluster Reflex DSL.
From queries → to configs → to tools → to reflexes. Celluster keeps the good parts of DSLs, but makes intent and lifecycle first-class.

DSL Evolution

Where Reflex DSL fits in the story.

Domain-specific languages have always existed to hide complexity: first for databases, then for infrastructure. Reflex DSL is the next step: lifecycle semantics, not YAML recipes.

Aspect SQL YAML / Terraform / Helm Celluster Reflex DSL
Domain Structured data / queries. Infrastructure, clusters, releases. Workload lifecycle & behavior.
Primary question “What data do I want?” “What resources do I want?” “How should this workload react as the world changes?”
Model Declarative queries. Declarative configs + tools. Intent + reflex verbs (clone, move, decay, throttle, fail over).
Time scale Point-in-time query. Cluster state at deploy time. Continuous: from first packet to last byte.
Who it helps DBAs, analysts. DevOps, platform teams. Everyone who lives with the workload in production: SRE, platform, security, FinOps.

Intent-Driven Reflex DSL

Describe reflexes, not runbooks.

A Reflex manifest captures what a workload is and how it should respond as signals change. Instead of scripting controllers and cron jobs, you describe a small set of reflex rules.

intent: inference.graph.v1 zone: gpu-west-a reflex: on_surge: - clone - spread_across_zones on_hot_node: - migrate on_idle: - decay on_abuse: - throttle

This is not an implementation detail. It’s a semantic contract: whichever environment runs Celluster must honor these reflexes as close to the workload as possible.

Instead of 20 YAML files, dashboards, scripts and alerts, you get one place to say: “Here is how this thing should behave for its entire life.”

Plays Nicely With YAML, Terraform & Helm

Reflex DSL sits above your existing tooling.

Celluster does not ask you to throw away the tools you have:

  • Keep using Terraform to allocate clusters, subnets and GPUs.
  • Keep using Helm or GitOps to manage base images and configs.
  • Use Reflex DSL to describe what happens after the first launch.

Over time, more of the noisy “day 2” work (autoscaling rules, drain scripts, runbooks) can move into reflex semantics, without a big-bang migration.

Terraform and Helm set the stage. Reflex DSL choreographs the show.

Why Intent as a DSL Matters

Less glue, more guarantees.

When behavior is captured as intent, a few things change for teams:

  • Operators stop maintaining dozens of copies of the same rule in different tools.
  • Security sees how a workload is supposed to react to abuse or failure, not just its ports.
  • FinOps can reason about cost reflexes (“decay on idle”, “consolidate”).
  • Contributors get a single, human-readable place to evolve behavior.

Intent becomes the durable contract between teams, tools and infrastructure generations.