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07 – Flows

This document outlines the core operational flows of the Cosmos package system, covering installation, uninstallation, updates, and syncing. Cosmos keeps behavior explicit and modular: CLI tools handle orchestration, while core libraries handle deterministic actions like installs and file tracking.

⬆️ Install Flow (cosmos install <star>)

Summary:

Install a Star and its dependencies, supporting local or remote Galaxies, with optional offline mode.

Steps:

  1. CLI loads system config.toml and current universe.toml
  2. CLI loads all cached Galaxies (repositories)
  3. CLI searches for the requested Star across all Galaxies
  4. CLI selects the matching Galaxy + Star and passes it to install_star()
  5. Core checks if the Star is already installed in the Universe
  6. Core resolves and installs dependencies recursively:
  7. Skip if already installed
  8. Otherwise, locate the dependency and install it the same way
  9. Core downloads the .tar.gz if needed (unless in offline mode)
  10. Core extracts the tarball to a temporary directory and runs the installation script (if any) from that location
  11. If there's no install script, it extracts files/* to the install_root
  12. Core updates universe.toml with installed files

⚡ Offline Mode

  • --offline flag blocks any HTTP or file downloads
  • If required files are missing from the cache or local repo, install fails

🚜 Local vs Remote Galaxies

  • Local Galaxies (e.g. file:/// or mounted path): read directly from disk
  • Remote Galaxies:
  • By default, use http://
  • Additional protocols like https://, ipfs:// require enabling optional features in the transport layer

🔍 Dependency Resolution

  • Recursively installs each dependency
  • Finds the first galaxy with a matching version of the required Star.

✨ Notes

  • Nebulae (meta Stars) are processed the same way but do not extract files or run scripts
  • Dependencies are resolved by searching Galaxies in priority order, returning the first match that satisfies the constraint.
  • CLI must ensure the target Star and Galaxy are found before calling core install
  • Core handles everything after that: caching, extraction, install script, tracking
  • Tarballs are always extracted to a temporary directory before installation; Nova scripts execute from this temp directory and install files into install_root

This split ensures the CLI can be customized per distro/environment, while the core logic stays portable, pure, and deterministic.

❌ Uninstall Flow (cosmos uninstall <star>)

Summary:

Remove a Star and its files from the system.

Steps:

  1. Load system config.toml and universe.toml
  2. Check if the Star is installed
  3. If not found, return an error
  4. Delete all recorded file paths
  5. Remove the Star entry from universe.toml

Notes:

  • Cosmos does not track reverse dependencies
  • If uninstall breaks another Star, that's on the user
  • Nebulae uninstall instantly as they have no files

↩️ Update Flow (cosmos update <star>)

Summary:

Upgrade a Star if a newer version is available in any synced Galaxy.

Steps:

  1. Load universe.toml and Galaxy cache
  2. Compare installed version to available versions
  3. If newer version matches semver constraints:
    1. Uninstall the current version
    2. Install the new version via standard flow

Notes:

  • If the Star is not installed, fallback to install
  • Cosmos does not automatically update all dependencies (manual per-Star)
  • Future enhancement: cosmos upgrade to update all upgradable Stars

🧰 Sync Flow (cosmos sync)

Summary:

Download Galaxy metadata, Stars, and (optionally) packages to prepare for installation and offline use.

Steps:

  1. Load config.toml and extract the [galaxies] table
  2. For each Galaxy:
  3. If the URL is local (file://, relative, or /) → skip
  4. If the URL is https:// → abort unless Cosmos was built with TLS support
  5. Otherwise, download meta.toml
  6. Depending on sync level:
  7. --stars: download each listed star.toml
  8. --full: also download each tarball listed in its source field (if protocol supported)
  9. Store all results in {cache_dir}/galaxies/<name>/

Notes:

  • Cosmos does not sync local/mounted Galaxies—they are read directly
  • TLS is not enabled by default; HTTP is supported out of the box
  • Additional protocols are opt-in via the transport feature system
  • meta.toml must include a [stars] table with version strings
  • Sync is one-shot and explicit—no background updates, no auto-indexing

These flows define the fundamental operations of Cosmos, emphasizing transparency, reproducibility, and total independence from external system dependencies.