Every component has a declaration that describes the component's attributes and capabilities. For components that are distributed in packages, the declaration is expressed using a component manifest file and loaded with the help of a component resolver.

{: width=“836”}

You declare components using component manifest language (CML) files. At build time, the Component Manifest Compiler (cmc) tool validates and compiles the manifest source into a binary format (.cm) and stores it in the component's package. At runtime, component resolvers load the binary manifest into a ComponentDecl FIDL structure for Component Manager.