Hello cafe, I'm working on a project where the main goal of the program is building some complex output (e.g. a Haskell function, module, etc.). In this process there is almost always some partially finished product on which to work. Currently I'm modelling this with a wrapper around StateT containing the partial product but I'm having some doubts about this approach. On one of the projects there is some rule-based transformation which needs to be done. The problem is with the matching and applying the rules. The matches need to retrieve information from the monads in the stack, and the application of a rule changes values in the stack. However when a match fails the stack should be left *untouched* and another rule should be tried. The solution I've in mind depends on the stack being pure. When the monad stack is pure a rule can be applied, returning a maybe value (or having a MaybeT wrapper) and when returning Nothing (failed rule) reverting the stack to it's point before applying the rule. As I'm not quite sure about the design (nor good at software design) I've some questions about this approach. 1. Is there a better approach then using a state monad for building the 'products'? 2. My solution with saving/reverting monad-stacks seems quite a hassle/hack, so is it a good approach or is there something better? Thanks in advance, Lars