AFS is ARC's path-addressable filesystem abstraction. A provider supplies resources and declares the operations it supports. ARC routes an operation to the provider that owns the path.
Treat a path as an interface boundary, not evidence that all data lives in one store. A provider decides how it reaches or stores its own data. AFS does not require a client to copy every resource into one shared repository before addressing it.
Path routing
A caller issues an operation on an AFS path. The runtime matches the path to a mount, then hands the operation to that mount's provider. The provider executes only the operations it implements and enforces.
| Stage | Role |
|---|---|
| Caller | CLI (arc afs), RPC, agent tool, or application code |
| AFS path | Virtual address in the instance namespace (for example /modules/project) |
| Mount route | Match the path prefix to a mounted provider |
| Provider | Capability gate and operation implementation |
| Backing system | Provider-owned store or transport |
Start with the contract, not a storage assumption
The core API includes operations for listing, reading, writing, deleting, renaming, inspecting, searching, executing, explaining, and optional batch forms. A provider can expose only the operations it implements. Check the provider's declared capability before making an operation part of an application contract.
| Need | Read next |
|---|---|
| Inspect the installed command surface without changing data | Get started |
| Walk a real local instance with verified command output | Local inspection |
| Understand the operations and their capability boundary | Core contract |
| Keep enumeration, structured query, and free-text search separate | Search and query |
| Use or implement a provider | Providers |
| Look up a term or run a repeatable task | Reference · Recipes |
What this page does not promise
AFS does not make every provider searchable, writable, or executable. In particular, a provider defines its search coverage, index strategy, and relevance or ranking. ARC returns matches in a shared AFSSearchResult envelope and may merge results from searchable providers routed beneath the requested path. Do not assume that this produces a global full-text index, a semantic index, or one uniform ranking across providers.
query is a separate optional collection capability at /.actions/query. A provider that declares the standard query action must execute the complete typed specification; ARC does not turn an unsupported provider into a query provider with a client-side fallback.
A package present under providers/ in the ARC source tree is implementation inventory, not a public support catalog. See Provider catalog.
Version boundary
Facts and command samples on this board were checked against arc 2.0.0-beta.28 and ARC source 44fbd616f unless a page names another boundary. When you use another release, re-run the commands on that release before treating the pasted output as authoritative.