Runtime Start

input:
run the node.exe

steps:
Load extensions
create runtime artifacts (builders, activators etc)
Load definitions.xml

output
running node awaiting contribution/composite to run

Add Contribution

input:
a contribution jar or file system directory

steps:
Contribution Read

Find all artifacts in the contribution
Read each artifact and create a model (apart from composites which are done later)

Aggregate all definitions.xml files
Read composites
Enhance composite with policy sets based on appliesTo information
- For each composite file read the xml content first...
  - For each policyset in the domain...
    - Extract the value of 'appliesTo' attribute with is an xpath expression
    - Evaluate this expression against the composite xml
      - For each node that results out of the above evaluation
        
        if the node contains an attribute named 'applicablePolicySets'
        
        concatenate to its value, the name of the PolicySet
        
        else
        
        create an attribute named 'applicablePolicySet' and set its value to the name of the PolicySet
Wherever applicable the composite's elements will have the additional attribute name 'applicablePolicySets'.
Parse composites into in memory assembly model

Contribution Resolution

resolve the contribution models against the physical artifacts available in the contribution.

output:
a contribution model in memory containing composite assembly models in memory