diff --git a/internal/core/toposort/cycles.go b/internal/core/toposort/cycles.go
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..cd9b939bdd9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/core/toposort/cycles.go
@@ -0,0 +1,153 @@
+// Copyright 2024 CUE Authors
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+package toposort
+
+import "slices"
+
+type ecNodeState struct {
+	visitedIncoming []*ecNodeState
+	blocked         bool
+}
+
+func (ecNode *ecNodeState) excluded() bool {
+	return ecNode == nil
+}
+
+type ecFinderState struct {
+	cycles []*Cycle
+	stack  []*Node
+}
+
+type Cycle struct {
+	Nodes Nodes
+}
+
+func (cycle *Cycle) RotateToStartAt(start *Node) {
+	nodes := cycle.Nodes
+	if start == nodes[0] {
+		return
+	}
+	for i, node := range nodes {
+		if start == node {
+			prefix := slices.Clone(nodes[:i])
+			copy(nodes, nodes[i:])
+			copy(nodes[len(nodes)-i:], prefix)
+			break
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+// Calculate the Elementary Cycles (EC) within the current Strongly
+// Connected Component (SCC).
+//
+// If the component contains no cycles (by definition, this means the
+// component contains only a single node), then the slice returned
+// will be empty.
+//
+// In general:
+//
+//  1. If a component contains two or more nodes then it contains at
+//     least one cycle.
+//  2. A single node can be involved in many cycles.
+//  3. This method finds all cycles within a component, but does not
+//     include cycles that are merely rotations of each
+//     other. I.e. every cycle is unique, ignoring rotations.
+//  4. The cycles returned are unsorted: each cycle is itself in no
+//     particular rotation, and the complete slice of cycles is
+//     similarly unsorted.
+//
+// The complexity of this algorithm is O((n+e)*c) where
+//   - n: number of nodes in the SCC
+//   - e: number of edges between the nodes in the SCC
+//   - c: number of cycles discovered
+//
+// Donald B Johnson: Finding All the Elementary Circuits of a Directed
+// Graph. SIAM Journal on Computing. Volumne 4, Nr. 1 (1975),
+// pp. 77-84.
+func (scc *StronglyConnectedComponent) ElementaryCycles() []*Cycle {
+	nodes := scc.Nodes
+	nodeStates := make([]ecNodeState, len(nodes))
+	for i, node := range nodes {
+		node.ecNodeState = &nodeStates[i]
+	}
+
+	ec := &ecFinderState{}
+	for i, node := range nodes {
+		ec.findCycles(node, node)
+		ec.unblockAll(nodes[i+1:])
+		node.ecNodeState = nil
+	}
+
+	return ec.cycles
+}
+
+func (ec *ecFinderState) findCycles(origin, cur *Node) bool {
+	stackLen := len(ec.stack)
+	ec.stack = append(ec.stack, cur)
+
+	curEc := cur.ecNodeState
+	curEc.blocked = true
+
+	cycleFound := false
+	for _, next := range cur.Outgoing {
+		if next.ecNodeState.excluded() {
+			continue
+		}
+		if next == origin { // found cycle
+			ec.cycles = append(ec.cycles, &Cycle{Nodes: slices.Clone(ec.stack)})
+			cycleFound = true
+		} else if !next.ecNodeState.blocked {
+			if ec.findCycles(origin, next) {
+				cycleFound = true
+			}
+		}
+	}
+
+	if cycleFound {
+		ec.unblock(curEc)
+	} else {
+		for _, next := range cur.Outgoing {
+			if next.ecNodeState.excluded() {
+				continue
+			}
+			nextEc := next.ecNodeState
+			nextEc.visitedIncoming = append(nextEc.visitedIncoming, curEc)
+		}
+	}
+
+	if len(ec.stack) != stackLen+1 {
+		panic("stack is unexpected height!")
+	}
+	ec.stack = ec.stack[:stackLen]
+	return cycleFound
+}
+
+func (ec *ecFinderState) unblockAll(nodes Nodes) {
+	for _, node := range nodes {
+		nodeEc := node.ecNodeState
+		nodeEc.blocked = false
+		nodeEc.visitedIncoming = nodeEc.visitedIncoming[:0]
+	}
+}
+
+func (ec *ecFinderState) unblock(nodeEc *ecNodeState) {
+	nodeEc.blocked = false
+	for _, previousEc := range nodeEc.visitedIncoming {
+		if previousEc.blocked {
+			ec.unblock(previousEc)
+		}
+	}
+	nodeEc.visitedIncoming = nodeEc.visitedIncoming[:0]
+}
diff --git a/internal/core/toposort/cycles_test.go b/internal/core/toposort/cycles_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..dd900b580c9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/internal/core/toposort/cycles_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+// Copyright 2024 CUE Authors
+//
+// Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+// you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+// You may obtain a copy of the License at
+//
+//     http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+//
+// Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+// distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+// WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+// See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+// limitations under the License.
+
+package toposort_test
+
+import (
+	"slices"
+	"testing"
+
+	"cuelang.org/go/internal/core/adt"
+	"cuelang.org/go/internal/core/runtime"
+	"cuelang.org/go/internal/core/toposort"
+)
+
+func TestElementaryCycles(t *testing.T) {
+	type TestCase struct {
+		name     string
+		inputs   [][]string
+		expected [][]string
+	}
+
+	a, b, c, d, e, f, g := "a", "b", "c", "d", "e", "f", "g"
+
+	testCases := []TestCase{
+		{
+			name:     "no cycles",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{a, b, c}},
+			expected: [][]string{},
+		},
+		{
+			name:     "cycle of 2",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{a, b}, {b, a}},
+			expected: [][]string{{a, b}},
+		},
+		{
+			name:     "cycle of 3",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{a, b}, {b, c}, {c, a}},
+			expected: [][]string{{a, b, c}},
+		},
+		{
+			name:     "cycle of 3 and 4",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{a, b, c, d}, {c, a}, {d, b}},
+			expected: [][]string{{a, b, c}, {b, c, d}},
+		},
+		{
+			name:     "unlinked cycles",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{a, b, c, d}, {d, b}, {e, f, g}, {g, e}},
+			expected: [][]string{{b, c, d}, {e, f, g}},
+		},
+		{
+			name: "fully connected 4",
+			inputs: [][]string{
+				{a, b, c, d}, {d, c, b, a}, {b, d, a, c}, {c, a, d, b},
+			},
+			expected: [][]string{
+				{a, b}, {a, b, c}, {a, b, c, d}, {a, b, d}, {a, b, d, c},
+				{a, c}, {a, c, b}, {a, c, b, d}, {a, c, d}, {a, c, d, b},
+				{a, d}, {a, d, b}, {a, d, b, c}, {a, d, c}, {a, d, c, b},
+				{b, c}, {b, c, d},
+				{b, d}, {b, d, c},
+				{c, d},
+			},
+		},
+		{
+			name:     "nested cycles",
+			inputs:   [][]string{{b, c}, {e, c, b, d}, {d, f, a, e}, {a, f}},
+			expected: [][]string{{a, e, c, b, d, f}, {a, f}, {b, c}},
+		},
+	}
+
+	index := runtime.New()
+
+	for _, tc := range testCases {
+		t.Run(tc.name, func(t *testing.T) {
+			testAllPermutations(t, index, tc.inputs,
+				func(t *testing.T, perm [][]adt.Feature, graph *toposort.Graph) {
+					var cyclesNames [][]string
+					for _, scc := range graph.StronglyConnectedComponents() {
+						for _, cycle := range scc.ElementaryCycles() {
+							fs := cycle.Nodes.Features()
+							names := make([]string, len(fs))
+							for j, f := range fs {
+								names[j] = f.StringValue(index)
+							}
+							cyclesNames = append(cyclesNames, names)
+						}
+					}
+					for _, cycle := range cyclesNames {
+						rotateToStartAt(cycle, slices.Min(cycle))
+					}
+					slices.SortFunc(cyclesNames, compareStringses)
+
+					if !slices.EqualFunc(cyclesNames, tc.expected, slices.Equal) {
+						t.Fatalf(`
+For permutation: %v
+       Expected: %v
+            Got: %v`,
+							permutationNames(index, perm),
+							tc.expected, cyclesNames)
+					}
+				})
+		})
+	}
+}
diff --git a/internal/core/toposort/graph.go b/internal/core/toposort/graph.go
index 88668c2761c..1faaadc5d27 100644
--- a/internal/core/toposort/graph.go
+++ b/internal/core/toposort/graph.go
@@ -33,7 +33,10 @@ type Node struct {
 	// temporary state for calculating the Strongly Connected
 	// Components of a graph.
 	sccNodeState *sccNodeState
-	position     int
+	// temporary state for calculating the Elementary Cycles of a
+	// graph.
+	ecNodeState *ecNodeState
+	position    int
 }
 
 func (n *Node) IsSorted() bool {
diff --git a/internal/core/toposort/graph_test.go b/internal/core/toposort/graph_test.go
index 14db33a61a2..5f731c0f0cd 100644
--- a/internal/core/toposort/graph_test.go
+++ b/internal/core/toposort/graph_test.go
@@ -47,6 +47,23 @@ func compareStringses(a, b []string) int {
 	return cmp.Compare(len(a), len(b))
 }
 
+// Consider that names are nodes in a cycle, we want to rotate the
+// slice so that it starts at the given node name. This modifies the
+// names slice in-place.
+func rotateToStartAt(names []string, start string) {
+	if start == names[0] {
+		return
+	}
+	for i, node := range names {
+		if start == node {
+			prefix := slices.Clone(names[:i])
+			copy(names, names[i:])
+			copy(names[len(names)-i:], prefix)
+			break
+		}
+	}
+}
+
 func allPermutations(featureses [][]adt.Feature) [][][]adt.Feature {
 	nonNilIdx := -1
 	var results [][][]adt.Feature