DAG loses concurrency with module chaining

[kpenfound]

When chaining module functions from the CLI, it appears that the expected DAG concurrency is lost. Here is an example:

Reproduced with Dagger v0.11.3

package main

import (
	"context"
	"fmt"
	"math/rand"
)

type MyModule struct{}

type Job struct {
	*Container
	*Directory
	Key string
}

type Jobs struct {
	Jobs []Job
}

func (r *MyModule) JobGroup(
	ctx context.Context,
	// +optional
	sync bool,
) Jobs {
	jobs := Jobs{Jobs: []Job{
		r.echoAndSleep(5),
		r.echoAndSleep(6),
		r.echoAndSleep(7),
	}}
	if sync {
		jobs.Out().Sync(ctx)
	}
	return jobs
}

func (r *MyModule) Hack(ctx context.Context) *Directory {
	jobs := r.JobGroup(ctx, false)
	return jobs.Out()
}

func (r *MyModule) echoAndSleep(seconds int) Job {
	forceRebuild := fmt.Sprint(rand.Int())
	// forceRebuild = "no"
	ctr := dag.Container().From("alpine").
		WithExec([]string{"echo", forceRebuild}).
		WithExec([]string{"sleep", fmt.Sprint(seconds)})
	dir := ctr.Directory("/etc")
	return Job{Container: ctr, Directory: dir, Key: fmt.Sprintf("/sleep-%v", seconds)}
}

func (r Jobs) Out() *Directory {
	out := dag.Directory()
	for _, job := range r.Jobs {
		out = out.WithDirectory(job.Key, job.Directory)
	}
	return out
}

3 jobs run concurrently with:
dagger call job-group --sync out
dagger call hack

The 3 jobs are run serially with:
dagger call job-group out

The final command, job-group out, is functionally identical to hack, with the difference that the functions are chained by the CLI rather than in code

[helderco]

Very cool find! It's not the CLI though, it’s the engine:

• dagger call hack → query{hack{sync}}
• dagger call job-group out → query{jobGroup{out{sync}}}

Something’s happening in the jobGroup step where all the ids are needed for deserialization but it seems it’s syncing too in the process. I wonder if the telemetry integration is forcing evaluation somehow. Something must be.

In hack there's no serialization to pass the result from one function to the other.

[pck]

You're right, something is forcing the sequential evaluation of everything.
If the second Function decides to evaluate only one object the others are still evaluated.
HackOne works as expected.

• dagger call job-group one -> 5.... 6.... 7....
• dagger call hack-one -> 6....

func (jobs Jobs) One() *Container { return jobs.Jobs[1].Container }
func (r *MyModule) HackOne(ctx context.Context) *Container {
	return r.JobGroup(ctx, false).One()
}

[pck]

Changing the Directory field to a string fixes the issue for my usecase.

type Job struct {
	*Container
	OutputDir, Key string
}

[pck]

Wrapping the directory in a container doesn't seem to help. (dag.Container().WithRootfs(dir))