Dependency And Output Tracking With Automatic Cache Invalidation

Data version control for ML projects.

Unique: Uses content-based checksums (MD5/SHA256) for dependency tracking rather than timestamps, enabling bit-for-bit reproducibility across machines. The Output and Dependency System tracks file paths and checksums in dvc.lock, while the Index System maintains fast lookup of file changes.

vs others: More precise than timestamp-based caching (handles file moves/copies correctly) and simpler than semantic dependency analysis (no code parsing required), making it ideal for file-based pipeline workflows.