Show HN: Extra-Platforms, Python library to detect OS, arch, shell, CI, AI

What is Extra Platforms?

Extra Platforms detects the runtime architecture, operating system (including Linux distribution), shell, terminal, CI environment & AI coding agents, and exposes rich, cacheable metadata (version, codename, icon, canonical URL). It also groups them into reusable families.

• Accurate detection of architecture, OS/distribution, shell, terminal, and CI systems using lightweight, cacheable heuristics.

• Rich metadata for platforms: version, codename, icon, canonical URL, and "like" relationships.

• Grouping and API primitives: predefined families, is_() predicates, current_() accessors, and Group membership helpers.

• Testing helpers: Pytest decorators and markers such as @skip_ and @unless_ for concise platform-aware tests.

• Extensible and CI-friendly: designed to be lightweight, easy to extend, and suitable for CI-aware workflows.

• Built-in Linux distribution detection via /etc/os-release, with no external dependencies.

Quick start

Quickly inspect your current environment without installing anything, thanks to uvx:

$ uvx extra-platforms extra-platforms 9.0.1

$ uvx extra-platforms extra-platforms 9.0.1

── Architecture ── 📱 ARM64 (AArch64) ──[AARCH64]──────────── id: aarch64 (...)

── Platform ── 🍎 macOS ──[MACOS]──────────────────────────── id: macos (...)

── Shell ── ℤ Zsh ──[ZSH]─────────────────────────────────── id: zsh (...)

── Terminal ── 🍏 Apple Terminal ──[APPLE_TERMINAL]────────── id: apple_terminal (...)

── CI ── ❓ Unknown CI ──[UNKNOWN_CI]──────────────────────── (...)

── Agent ── ✴️ Claude Code ──[CLAUDE_CODE]────────────────── (...)`

The same output is available via python -m extra_platforms.

Or if you want to explore usage of the library in a Python REPL:

$ uvx --with extra-platforms python >>> import extra_platforms

extra_platforms.version '9.0.1'`

Examples

Get the current platform, from which you can access lots of metadata:

>>> from extra_platforms import current_platform

my_os = current_platform() my_os Platform(id='macos', name='macOS') my_os.id 'macos' my_os.name 'macOS' my_os.icon '🍎' my_os.info() { 'id': 'macos', 'name': 'macOS', 'icon': '🍎', 'url': 'https://apple.com/macos/', 'current': True, 'distro_id': None, 'version': '26.2', 'version_parts': {'major': '26', 'minor': '2', 'build_number': None}, 'like': None, 'codename': 'Tahoe', }`

Check if a platform is a specific system:

>>> from extra_platforms import is_gentoo

is_gentoo() False`

Use groups to check if the current platform is part of a specific family:

>>> from extra_platforms import current_platform, BSD, UNIX, LINUX

current_platform() Platform(id='macos', name='macOS') current_platform() in BSD True current_platform() in UNIX True current_platform() in LINUX False`

Or directly use the detection functions returning a boolean that is associated with each group:

>>> from extra_platforms import is_bsd, is_unix, is_linux

is_bsd() True is_unix() True is_linux() False`

List all platforms of a family:

>>> from extra_platforms import LINUX

LINUX.members mappingproxy({ 'altlinux': Platform(id='altlinux', name='ALT Linux'), 'amzn': Platform(id='amzn', name='Amazon Linux'), 'android': Platform(id='android', name='Android'), 'arch': Platform(id='arch', name='Arch Linux'), 'buildroot': Platform(id='buildroot', name='Buildroot'), 'cachyos': Platform(id='cachyos', name='CachyOS'), 'centos': Platform(id='centos', name='CentOS'), 'cloudlinux': Platform(id='cloudlinux', name='CloudLinux OS'), 'debian': Platform(id='debian', name='Debian'), 'exherbo': Platform(id='exherbo', name='Exherbo Linux'), 'fedora': Platform(id='fedora', name='Fedora'), 'gentoo': Platform(id='gentoo', name='Gentoo Linux'), 'guix': Platform(id='guix', name='Guix System'), 'ibm_powerkvm': Platform(id='ibm_powerkvm', name='IBM PowerKVM'), 'kvmibm': Platform(id='kvmibm', name='KVM for IBM z Systems'), 'linuxmint': Platform(id='linuxmint', name='Linux Mint'), 'mageia': Platform(id='mageia', name='Mageia'), 'mandriva': Platform(id='mandriva', name='Mandriva Linux'), 'nobara': Platform(id='nobara', name='Nobara'), 'opensuse': Platform(id='opensuse', name='openSUSE'), 'oracle': Platform(id='oracle', name='Oracle Linux'), 'parallels': Platform(id='parallels', name='Parallels'), 'pidora': Platform(id='pidora', name='Pidora'), 'raspbian': Platform(id='raspbian', name='Raspbian'), 'rhel': Platform(id='rhel', name='RedHat Enterprise Linux'), 'rocky': Platform(id='rocky', name='Rocky Linux'), 'scientific': Platform(id='scientific', name='Scientific Linux'), 'slackware': Platform(id='slackware', name='Slackware'), 'sles': Platform(id='sles', name='SUSE Linux Enterprise Server'), 'tumbleweed': Platform(id='tumbleweed', name='openSUSE Tumbleweed'), 'tuxedo': Platform(id='tuxedo', name='Tuxedo OS'), 'ubuntu': Platform(id='ubuntu', name='Ubuntu'), 'ultramarine': Platform(id='ultramarine', name='Ultramarine'), 'void': Platform(id='void', name='Void Linux'), 'generic_linux': Platform(id='generic_linux', name='Generic Linux'), 'xenserver': Platform(id='xenserver', name='XenServer'), }) LINUX.member_ids frozenset({'centos', 'mageia', 'generic_linux', 'ultramarine', 'tuxedo', 'arch', 'buildroot', 'android', 'exherbo', 'void', 'mandriva', 'fedora', 'slackware', 'parallels', 'xenserver', 'kvmibm', 'nobara', 'amzn', 'guix', 'debian', 'oracle', 'cachyos', 'altlinux', 'rhel', 'ibm_powerkvm', 'rocky', 'scientific', 'sles', 'linuxmint', 'tumbleweed', 'ubuntu', 'pidora', 'cloudlinux', 'gentoo', 'raspbian', 'opensuse'}) print("\n".join([p.name for p in LINUX])) ALT Linux Amazon Linux Android Arch Linux Buildroot CachyOS CentOS CloudLinux OS Debian Exherbo Linux Fedora Gentoo Linux Guix System IBM PowerKVM KVM for IBM z Systems Linux Mint Mageia Mandriva Linux Nobara openSUSE Oracle Linux Parallels Pidora Raspbian RedHat Enterprise Linux Rocky Linux Scientific Linux Slackware SUSE Linux Enterprise Server openSUSE Tumbleweed Tuxedo OS Ubuntu Ultramarine Void Linux Generic Linux XenServer`

Reduce a disparate collection of groups and platforms into a minimal descriptive set, by grouping all platforms into families:

>>> from extra_platforms import AIX, MACOS, SOLARIS, reduce

reduce([AIX, MACOS]) frozenset({ Platform(id='macos', name='macOS'), Platform(id='aix', name='IBM AIX'), }) reduce([AIX, MACOS, SOLARIS]) frozenset({ Group(id='system_v', name='AT&T System Five'), Platform(id='macos', name='macOS'), })`

All recognized architectures and how they're grouped:

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((🏛️ ALL_ARCHITECTURES)) )𝘅 X86( (𝗶 I386) (𝗶 I586) (𝗶 I686) (🖥️ X86_64) )🌐 WEBASSEMBLY( (🌐 WASM32) (🌐 WASM64) )Ⅴ RISCV( (Ⅴ RISCV32) (Ⅴ RISCV64) )⚡ POWERPC( (⚡ PPC) (⚡ PPC64) (⚡ PPC64LE) )🐉 LOONGARCH( (🐉 LOONGARCH64) )🏢 IBM_MAINFRAME( (🏢 S390X) )☀️ ALL_SPARC( (☀️ SPARC) (☀️ SPARC64) )🔲 ALL_MIPS( (🔲 MIPS) (🔲 MIPS64) (🔲 MIPS64EL) (🔲 MIPSEL) )📱 ALL_ARM( (📱 AARCH64) (📱 ARM) (📱 ARMV5TEL) (📱 ARMV6L) (📱 ARMV7L) (📱 ARMV8L)`

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Platforms

All recognized platforms and how they're grouped:

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((⚙️ ALL_PLATFORMS)) )≛ UNIX_LAYERS( (Ͼ CYGWIN) )𝐕 SYSTEM_V( (➿ AIX) (🔥 ILLUMOS) (🌞 SOLARIS) )🅟 OTHER_POSIX( (🍂 HAIKU) (🦬 HURD) )≚ LINUX_LAYERS( (⊞ WSL1) (⊞ WSL2) )🐧 LINUX( (🏔️ ALPINE) (Δ ALTLINUX) (⤻ AMZN) (🤖 ANDROID) (🎗️ ARCH) (⛑️ BUILDROOT) (⌬ CACHYOS) (💠 CENTOS) (꩜ CLOUDLINUX) (🌀 DEBIAN) (🐽 EXHERBO) (🎩 FEDORA) (🥚 GENERIC_LINUX) (🗜️ GENTOO) (🐃 GUIX) (🤹 IBM_POWERKVM) (🔱 KALI) (🤹 KVMIBM) (🌿 LINUXMINT) (⍥ MAGEIA) (💫 MANDRIVA) (▲ MANJARO) ( NOBARA) (🦎 OPENSUSE) (📶 OPENWRT) (🦴 ORACLE) (∥ PARALLELS) (🍓 PIDORA) (🍓 RASPBIAN) (🎩 RHEL) (⛰️ ROCKY) (⚛️ SCIENTIFIC) (🚬 SLACKWARE) (🦎 SLES) (↻ TUMBLEWEED) (🤵 TUXEDO) (🎯 UBUNTU) (🌊 ULTRAMARINE) (∅ VOID) (Ⓧ XENSERVER) )Ⓑ BSD( (🪰 DRAGONFLY_BSD) (😈 FREEBSD) (🍎 MACOS) (🌘 MIDNIGHTBSD) (🚩 NETBSD) (🐡 OPENBSD) (🌅 SUNOS) )🪟 ALL_WINDOWS( (🪟 WINDOWS)`

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Tip

More groups exist beyond those shown in the diagram, and more utilities are available for each platform. See the platform documentation for details.

Shells

All recognized shells:

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((🐚 ALL_SHELLS)) )⌨️ WINDOWS_SHELLS( (▶ CMD) (🔷 POWERSHELL) )◇ OTHER_SHELLS( (🐟 FISH) (𝜈 NUSHELL) (🐍 XONSH) )🅲 C_SHELLS( (𝐂 CSH) (𝐓 TCSH) )💲 BOURNE_SHELLS( (🪶 ASH) (＃ BASH) (💨 DASH) (𝐊 KSH) (ℤ ZSH)`

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Terminals

All recognized terminals:

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((💻 ALL_TERMINALS)) )⬢ WEB_TERMINALS( (⬡ HYPER) (🐈 TABBY) (🔵 VSCODE_TERMINAL) )▦ NATIVE_TERMINALS( (🍏 APPLE_TERMINAL) (𝐆 GNOME_TERMINAL) (⬛ ITERM2) (💎 KONSOLE) (🔀 TILIX) (⊡ WINDOWS_TERMINAL) (𝐗 XTERM) )⧉ MULTIPLEXERS( (📺 GNU_SCREEN) (📟 TMUX) (🪵 ZELLIJ) )🎮 GPU_TERMINALS( (🔳 ALACRITTY) (◰ CONTOUR) (🦶 FOOT) (👻 GHOSTTY) (🐱 KITTY) (🏞️ RIO) (🔡 WEZTERM)`

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CI systems

All recognized CI systems:

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((♺ ALL_CI)) (═ AZURE_PIPELINES) (⟲ BAMBOO) (🪁 BUILDKITE) (⪾ CIRCLE_CI) (≋ CIRRUS_CI) (ᚙ CODEBUILD) (🐙 GITHUB_CI) (🦊 GITLAB_CI) (⥁ HEROKU_CI) (🏙️ TEAMCITY) (👷 TRAVIS_CI)`

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Agents

All recognized AI coding agents:

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--- config: {"mindmap": {"padding": 5}} ---

mindmap ((🧠 ALL_AGENTS)) (✴️ CLAUDE_CODE) (👾 CLINE) (➤ CURSOR)`

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Used in

Check these projects to get real-life examples of extra-platforms usage:

Feel free to send a PR to add your project in this list if you are relying on Extra Platforms in any way.