Kapitan is a configuration-as-code CLI tool that renders infrastructure manifests (Kubernetes, Terraform, Docker, etc.) from a hierarchical YAML inventory and pluggable template engines (Jsonnet, Jinja2, Kadet, Helm, Kustomize, CUE). It manages secrets via references (GPG, cloud KMS, Vault, base64), fetches remote dependencies (Git, HTTP, OCI, Helm charts), and supports multiple inventory backends (Reclass, OmegaConf). The compilation pipeline is inventory-driven: targets define classes and parameters, which are deep-merged and interpolated, then passed to input-type compilers that produce deterministic output files. The architecture is modular—separate packages for inputs, inventory backends, secrets/references, and dependency management—all orchestrated by the `kapitan compile` CLI command. It is not a data research project; it is a production-grade infrastructure tool with a large test suite, CI/CD, and documented extension points.