Toolchainprovided

Toolchainprovided is a configuration concept used in some software build systems to mark dependencies that are supplied by the toolchain environment and therefore should not be bundled with the produced artifact. The term blends toolchain, the set of compilers, linkers, and runtimes provided by the build or target environment, with provided, indicating that the component is available to the build or runtime but not included in the final package.

Generally, declaring a dependency as toolchainprovided tells the build system to make the artifact available to the build or toolchain components during compilation or execution, while excluding it from the packaged artifact. This reduces final artifact size and avoids duplicating a component that the target environment already supplies, such as a system library or a vendor-provided runtime.

Toolchainprovided is distinct from common scopes like compileOnly or runtimeOnly, though it shares the idea of not shipping the artifact. The exact semantics depend on the tool; some systems treat toolchainprovided as a special dependency scope that only applies when a toolchain feature is active. In others, it is a documentation tag with no automatic packaging effect.

Example (pseudo-syntax): toolchainprovided 'org.example:tool-lib:1.2.3'. This indicates that the library is required by the toolchain during build or execution but should not be packaged with the application.

Adoption and caveats: The concept is not standardized across ecosystems and varies by toolchain. Misconfigurations can lead to portability issues if the target environment lacks the toolchain-provided component, potentially causing build or runtime failures.