Compilerprovided

Compilerprovided is a term used to describe resources, features, or libraries that are supplied by the compiler or toolchain during compilation rather than being authored in source code or packaged with a program’s runtime. In practice, this means that the compiler either generates code on behalf of the programmer or assumes certain capabilities will be available from the execution environment.

Common manifestations include intrinsic functions and other built-ins that the compiler replaces with specialized machine instructions, desugaring of high-level constructs into lower-level code, and the generation of synthetic methods, accessors, or state machines (for example, for iterators or async methods). These compiler-provided artifacts are not written by developers but are necessary for the program to execute or for the language syntax to be expressed.

In build and packaging workflows, compilerprovided dependencies are those that are required to compile the program but are expected to be provided by the platform or compiler at runtime, so they are not bundled with the final artifact. Marking a dependency as compilerprovided can reduce artifact size but introduces a coupling to a particular toolchain or runtime version. This requires careful documentation and environment control to maintain portability.

Advantages include smaller artifacts and clearer separation between developer-written code and compiler-generated support. Disadvantages include potential portability issues and harder reproducibility if the compiler or platform evolves. Developers should document what is compilerprovided, align build configurations across environments, and test across supported toolchains.