Never used Ansible, but it seems to be somewhat in this dimension, recipes for assembling a system.

NixOS takes it one step further through being more declarative/functional rather than imperative as I understand it.

Both of the above are text files describing the components of a system, described by humans and then fulfilled by the computer.

Though I think @kr may be looking for some kind of framing for the human in doing vaguely similar tasks. Ways of minimizing distraction. Feels like virtual desktops was trying to solve part of that problem, but I never use them.

We're still waiting for the industrial revolution to fully unfold in the digital world.. still wallowing about as romantic artisans.