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diff --git a/doc/guix.texi b/doc/guix.texi
index c75ca0c2c8..f6357bdaec 100644
--- a/doc/guix.texi
+++ b/doc/guix.texi
@@ -1519,6 +1519,13 @@ Build systems are @code{<build-system>} objects. The interface to
create and manipulate them is provided by the @code{(guix build-system)}
module, and actual build systems are exported by specific modules.
+Under the hood, build systems first compile package objects to
+@dfn{bags}. A @dfn{bag} is like a package, but with less
+ornamentation---in other words, a bag is a lower-level representation of
+a package, which includes all the inputs of that package, including some
+that were implicitly added by the build system. This intermediate
+representation is then compiled to a derivation (@pxref{Derivations}).
+
Build systems accept an optional list of @dfn{arguments}. In package
definitions, these are passed @i{via} the @code{arguments} field
(@pxref{Defining Packages}). They are typically keyword arguments