So I have some (non-python) files in my monorepo that are generated from other files. An easy example is we generate GitHub's CODEOWNERS from a yml file (for ease). Ideally, this functionality would sit in my build tool (E.g. it knows that script X generates CODEOWNERS from CODEOWNERS.yml). That way: • If CODEOWNERS.yml gets touched it could re-generate (given the right command, like

fmt

) • If CODEOWNERS isn't what we expect due to changes in CODEOWNERS.yml, we error on the right command (like

lint

?) • If someone touches CODEOWNERS but not the yml, also error in a command (like

lint

) Any thoughts on this inside of Pants (I presume as a plugin)

Sounds like a codegen plugin. See https://www.pantsbuild.org/docs/plugins-codegen for details on how to write one of those.

Yup!

So you may need to duct tape codegen onto the

fmt

goal, since that naturally modifies files in the workspace

Perhaps the answer then is that I should implementing a new formatter (and linter by inheritence)

if it makes sense to have this be a formatter then yep! But the codegen example may still be useful in cobbling that together

You could perhaps use the shell command target to generate the file, would still need to figure out how to lint it..