Packs
Versioned, bundled sets of operational context for a specific engineering domain — architecture patterns, constraints, standards, and terminology shipped as a single loadable artifact.
Definition
A Pack is a versioned, bundled set of operational context for a specific engineering domain. A Pack contains all the context a model needs to operate within that domain: the architecture patterns, approved standards, version constraints, terminology, and operational conventions that apply.
A Pack is loaded at session initialization, before any work begins. It is not injected piecemeal during the session — it is applied as a complete, governed unit.
What a Pack Contains
The content of a Pack is domain-dependent. A backend services Pack might include:
- Approved framework versions and known incompatible versions to avoid
- Service boundary and communication patterns (REST, gRPC, event-driven)
- Logging and observability standards
- Error handling conventions
- Data model design patterns
- Security constraints for this domain
A frontend Pack would contain different content: component library conventions, state management patterns, accessibility requirements, build pipeline constraints.
The Pack bundles everything a model needs to operate within that domain under governed context, without requiring the engineer to manually reconstruct it each session.
Versioning
Packs are versioned. When operational standards evolve — a new approved framework version, a revised security policy — a new version of the Pack is authored. Sessions specify which Pack version they apply, and the version is recorded in the operational lineage.
This means governance changes are traceable. A session that ran under Pack v2.1 and a session that ran under Pack v2.2 operated under different constraints, and the lineage record reflects this.
Relationship to Seeds
Seeds establish the governance ground truth. Packs provide the domain-specific operational context. A typical session loads the relevant Seeds first (establishing baseline governance), then applies the appropriate Pack (establishing domain context).
In Yanzi
Packs are stored as context artifacts in the Yanzi corpus and referenced by name and version in composition parameters. yanzi pack apply <name>@<version> loads a Pack into the active session context.