What Is a BuildKit Frontend?
A BuildKit frontend is the component that parses a build definition and converts it into BuildKit's low-level intermediate representation, the build graph that the engine then runs. The default frontend understands Dockerfiles, but the frontend is pluggable, so other languages and syntaxes can drive the same engine. The syntax directive at the top of a Dockerfile selects which frontend to use.
Why it matters
Decoupling the build definition from the execution engine lets new Dockerfile features ship as an updated frontend without changing BuildKit itself. It also enables entirely different build descriptions to target the same caching and parallel-execution engine. Pinning a frontend version makes builds more reproducible.
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