Engineers sometimes use the phrase DRY - Don't Repeat Yourself. It's commonly used when writing or reviewing code that is repetitive. The usual solution is to take the repetitious code and turn it into something that can be reused.
It's really easy to fall into the "repeat yourself" trap, even with a tool like InSpec. InSpec Profiles contain some number of controls and tests that describe the compliance status of a host or system. It's likely that all hosts in a fleet need to be tested against the same compliance rules. But what if one host has a legitmate reason to fail a particular test? Or what if a test for a group of hosts is considered a lower severity failure than a different group of hosts? Don't fork/copy that profile just yet!
In addition to its own controls, an InSpec profile can bring in the controls from another InSpec profile. Additionally, when inheriting