---
type: Domain Concept
title: Provider
description: A concrete provider and acquisition implementation of a Data Product.
tags: [catalog, provider, acquisition]
visibility: public
---

# Meaning

A Provider answers **where and how GeoLama obtains a Data Product**. Examples
include a government API, a commercial weather service, or a live transport
feed.

# Owns

- The acquisition adapter.
- Update semantics and execution mode.
- Provider-level licensing and coverage metadata.
- A stable operational source identity used by workers, RLS, and map bindings.
- An ordered set of [Channels](channel.md).

# Relationship to Data Product

A Provider implements one [Data Product](data-product.md) and its exact
normalized contract version. Multiple interchangeable Providers may implement
the same Data Product.

# Boundaries

Provider configuration is operational state. Secrets remain server-side and
must never be copied into this knowledge bundle. Current health, heartbeat,
feature counts, and publication state belong to Postgres rather than Markdown.