One selling point of Pants relative to Bazel is [first-class python](https://www.pantsbuild.org/#first-class-python). I am trying to understand what implications this has for the [task-based vs artifact-based distinction](https://bazel.build/basics/artifact-based-builds)

Rather than being an imperative set of commands in a Turing-complete scripting language describing how to produce an output, buildfiles in Bazel are a declarative manifest describing a set of artifacts to build, their dependencies, and a limited set of options that affect how they’re built.

One way to think about it might be: BUILD files are Python programs that produce descriptions of various artifacts.

That makes sense! Thank you.

It may be related to phased vs. unphased builds, although those sounds like terms with particular definitions that I may not be aware of. I think dynamic dependencies are somewhat orthogonal: one could have dynamic (aka inferred?) dependencies even with fully declarative/non-executable config, one would just have to write fewer

dependencies=[...]

configs.

Ah sorry, I thought I had seen something in relation to phase in pants documentation, but I might be thinking of https://buck2.build/docs/about/why/