Incremental extraction

Incremental extraction is a worker execution concern. The CLI submits only a registered configuration version and does not select local extraction or cache controls.

A configuration package can declare the optional incremental capability. During validation, optional-feature-unqualified warns when the selected source adapter does not qualify that feature.

The supported service

Every managed stage — plan, verify, apply, and sync — begins in a private empty directory it creates for itself and releases when the stage ends. It inherits no side snapshot and no cursor from an earlier run, so a managed run is an explicit cold start and extracts in full.

incremental.full_resync_every remains schema-valid, and a package declaring it is still accepted, but it governs nothing on this path: with no predecessor state to carry forward there is nothing for a cadence to count. Predecessor hydration across workers, and the cadence that would pace it, are later work; until they exist, a managed run's extraction is full every time.

Direct execution

Direct non-service execution keeps the engine's own cache layout, where cursors, side snapshots, and the schema sub-hash live under the run's cache root. The incremental path and the adapter cursor contract are implemented there, but no current entry point selects them: every run requests a full extraction. Warm extraction is therefore not reachable from either path today.

What a saved plan records about deletes

Timestamp-based incremental extraction can miss deleted source rows, so a plan records whether its deletes were derived from a fully enumerated destination. When the destination side did not run a full extract, the saved plan reports delete_operations_computed: false, and runs plan discloses that the review may omit destination deletes. A run that extracted the destination in full records true.

Current timestamp-capable adapters include NetBox, Nautobot, and Infrahub. Other adapters use full extraction unless their capability contract says otherwise.