Feature request: Perform a calculation remotely, and return the Docker image

[eschnett]

Consider this scenario:

I am developing on a laptop that doesn't have much CPU power. I want to perform a computation (e.g. install a package from source) that is CPU intensive.

Here is an idea: I write a script for this action (e.g. make). Caliban wraps the local state into a container (caliban build), runs the script remotely (caliban submit), and then saves the resulting Docker image. Locally, I can then pull that image and extract the files I need, e.g. the compiled library.

The use case I have in mind is not about building the dependencies (i.e. to externalize building Docker images), but rather to perform actions that I would usually do via caliban shell. This is relevant e.g. for the Einstein Toolkit, or for other packages that contain a large amount of legacy code and which cannot practically be split into dependencies that can be declared in .cabalconfig.json and pre-built.