Nanocl is a distributed container orchestration system designed as a Kubernetes alternative, focusing on simplicity and declarative state management. The system manages workloads termed 'Cargoes' (containers), 'VMs', and 'Jobs' using Docker as the underlying runtime. It features a client-server architecture with a CLI (`nanocl`), a central daemon (`nanocld`), and auxiliary sidecar services for proxying (`ncproxy`) and DNS (`ncdns`). The architecture relies on Rust for performance and safety, utilizing `ntex` for async HTTP handling and `diesel` for database persistence. The core operational model is driven by declarative Statefiles (YAML/TOML/JSON) processed with Liquid templating. These files define the desired infrastructure state, which the daemon reconciles against the actual runtime state. The system integrates directly with the Docker daemon via the `bollard` library to manage container lifecycles, networking, and images. It features a robust event-driven architecture where state changes trigger sidecar updates, such as Nginx configuration regeneration for routing. The codebase demonstrates a modular design with shared crates for error handling, stubs, and utilities. It implements a generic repository pattern for database access and abstract lifecycle traits for resource management. The API is versioned and documented via OpenAPI/Swagger, supporting RESTful CRUD operations and real-time event streaming. While the project shows strong architectural patterns, it carries medium technical drift due to API versioning fragmentation and heavy dependency on Docker API behavior.