How Porchlight finds your stack
It reads your repo and your domain on your Mac, and shows the evidence for each service.
Porchlight reads the folder you choose, on your Mac:
- Manifests and lockfiles: package.json and package-lock.json, Package.swift and Package.resolved, requirements.txt. It reads the versions you run from these.
- Infrastructure: Terraform resource types, Dockerfiles,
firebase.json,vercel.jsonand similar files. - Workflows and scripts: GitHub Actions, deploy commands such as
gcloud run. - Your code: the hosts it calls (
api.stripe.com), the AI models it names, and the environment variables it reads, by name only.
It never opens .env files, and it skips dependencies, build output and other checkouts inside the folder.
With a domain, it also reads your DNS, certificate and registration, to find your hosting, DNS and mail providers.
Each service shows why it was found. A service found only from an environment variable's name is a suggestion, so it starts unticked.