guys, would it be fair to say that the 'crosswalk' stuff is essentially an 'opinionated' version of some of the pulumi APIs?

Yep, that's a good way to put it. Another way to think of it is proving a friendlier interface (abstraction) to some of the more complex services and resources.

ok yep that's also a good way to think of it! thanks for that... i have been using the .net SDK for now but I'm weighing up the benefits of the crosswalk stuff and a potential switch to typescript (since crosswalk is not available for .net)

Which Crosswalk specifically are you interested in? AWSX or EKS?

AWSX

I use the AWSX stuff in typescript, and I think in most cases you're more likely to get benefit by starting with AWSX, then occasionally migrating bits out of that, as you need more control and configuration.