Extra-Platforms, Python library to detect OS, arch, shell, CI, AI
Details
- External ID
- 47611994
- Source
- HN
- Company
- —
- Product
- Extra-Platforms, Python library to detect OS, arch, shell, CI, AI
- Website domain
- github.com
- Launched
- April 2, 2026
- Cohort
- —
- Upvotes
- 9
- Upvotes percentile
- 0.5501285347043702
- Tags
- —
- Fetched at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
- Updated at
- Sept. 7, 2026, 9:26 p.m.
Description
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
Enrichment
- Theme
- proxy, dns, and networking tools
- Vertical
- Horizontal
- Function
- Dev tools
- Audience
- Developer
- AI stance
- Not AI
- Project type
- Hobby / open-source project
- Normalized one-liner
- python library to detect system environment and ci
- Manually corrected
- False
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 — 48 launches clear the similarity bar, closest 8 shown.
Attention rank: #25 of 49 (itself plus its competitors, highest first — normalized so YC and Product Hunt are compared fairly).
Launched 145 days after the earliest competitor.
- Backlit Keyboard API for Python · hn · 2026-04-19 · 27 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- Docking · hn · 2026-04-04 · 26 upvotes · similarity 0.42
- A cross-platform toolkit to explore OS internals and capabilities · hn · 2026-01-12 · 7 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- Pyra · hn · 2026-04-17 · 13 upvotes · similarity 0.39
- Roblox-Mac-Linux-Port · github · 2026-09-24 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.37
- Deft-Intruder · hn · 2025-11-25 · 6 upvotes · similarity 0.37
- os2host32 · github · 2026-09-22 · 9 upvotes · similarity 0.37
- Daemon OS · ph · 2026-09-21 · 1 upvotes · similarity 0.37
Other launches for this product
- No other launches for this product.
Same idea, different domain
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