On Tue Dec 6, 2022 at 10:01 AM GMT, Ludovic Courtès wrote:
> The implementation based on manifests can of course miss packages, so
> it’s a tradeoff.  Purely local indexing will only find packages you
> already have anyway, so eventually we’ll need a second mode that would
> download a database.

Someone on IRC suggested that we use GraphQL to allow us to request
that a substitute server search for files in a database constructed
using all the packages that have been built.

I suggest something like this:

  # on the client
  when [built a package derivation]
    [add files to local database]

  when [user ran guix find]
    if [send find request to substitute server] didn't work
      [search through local database]
    [display result]

  # on the substitute server
  when [built a package definition]
    [add files to local database]

  when [user sent find request]
    [search through local database]
    [reply with result]

    -- (