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

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I built Extra Platforms over the past 5 years because I kept writing the same detection boilerplate over and over. And also because Python's original platform.linux_distribution() function has been removed in Python 3.8. Its replacement, Distro, only covers Linux.It detects six traits (CPU architecture, OS/distribution, shell, terminal, CI, agents), which are grouped into families (BSD, LINUX, UNIX, ...) for convenience.You can try the library without installing anything: $ uvx --with extra-platforms python >>> from extra_platforms import current_platform, BSD, is_linux >>> current_platform() Platform(id='macos', name='macOS') >>> current_platform() in BSD True >>> is_linux() False It also ships Pytest decorators (@skip_linux, @unless_macos) for platform-conditional tests.The library has zero dependencies and is Apache-2.0 licensed.I'm interested in collecting edge cases, which you can send me by performing an auto-detection with: $ uvx extra-platforms

HN · launched Apr 2, 2026 · 9 upvotes (top 45%) · 0 views

Niche: hardware monitoring and diagnostic tools · 129 launches, 9 in the last 7 days ▼ -44% · Explore this niche →

Category and tags
  • Horizontal
  • Dev tools
  • Developer
  • Not AI
  • Hobby / open-source project

Visit website ↗ Source listing ↗

More like this: all 129 launches in hardware monitoring and diagnostic tools →

Could you build this?

Partial The logic is largely cross-platform heuristic scripts, but thoroughly identifying hundreds of obscure OS distros, environments, architectures, and CI/AI runtimes requires continuous edge-case curation and multi-environment hardware testing.

What it would actually take: The architecture is a modular Python detection engine checking `/etc/*release`, `sysctl`, Windows registry keys, CPUID flags, and environment variables. The hard part is the long-tail edge cases across dozens of operating systems, architectures (ARM, RISC-V, x86), and CI/containerized environments that cannot be accurately derived without systematic testing suites across diverse real machines.

Discussion

2 comments analyzed.

Concerns raised: Multiple agents in same environment handling unclear, Single agent limitation may be restrictive

Feature requests: Support multiple simultaneous agents, Clarify behavior when multiple agents detected

Competitors

Other products that read as similar to this one : 112 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.

Attention rank: #56 of 113 (itself plus its competitors, highest first, normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).

Launched 145 days after the earliest competitor.

Related data

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