Facts and providers

Observe the environment, plan explicit changes, and extend capabilities through providers.

Facts describe observed state: a platform, a command, a version, or a provider’s inventory. Conditions use those facts to select actions. An unavailable fact is not automatically false; a required observation needs a valid producer or a clear error.

Establish, refresh, configure

An installer can establish a tool, explicitly refresh a declared version fact, and unlock configuration that depends on that version. Etch reinspects newly active actions and their destination claims before applying them.

Providers implement capabilities

Core includes filesystem and command providers. VS Code and Homebrew are reference plugins loaded only when their source bundles are explicitly declared. Plugins are trusted executable code; review them before loading, including during diagnostics.

Providers declare dependencies, owned paths, fact inputs, refreshes, and shared execution resources. Homebrew operations share package-manager:brew, allowing unrelated work to proceed without overlapping package-manager mutations.

Use the fact reference, conditions, and plugin guide for declaration syntax and bundled provider options. Configuration explains the difference between dependency ordering and refresh. Provider authors can use the repository’s authoring guide separately from these consumer references.