Meaning
A Channel answers which independently usable part of a Provider is being selected. A Provider may expose one channel or several channels with distinct endpoints, variables, forecast levels, or delivery modes.
Owns
- A provider-local immutable
export_keyused by portable map recipes. - Endpoint and delivery semantics.
- Poll or refresh cadence when applicable.
- Rendering contract and supported presentation capabilities.
- Channel-specific attribution overrides.
Map binding
One selected Channel normally creates one Layer. Compatible vector snapshot channels can be intentionally composed, but the selected subset remains explicit and stable for the existing map.
Boundaries
Runtime status, active versions, counters, errors, and heartbeat timestamps are live database state. They must not be manually mirrored in this bundle.