Application Research
Application Research is a topic collection focused on specifications for declaring application service integration dependencies. It covers five specification formats: Score (platform-agnostic workload specs), Cloud Native Application Bundle (CNAB), Open Component Model (OCM), Open Resource Discovery (ORD), and Radius — all aimed at enabling deployment teams to understand what services (APIs, databases, caches, message buses, blob stores) an application requires.
APIs
Score Workload Specification API
Score is a platform-agnostic workload specification that enables developers to define their workloads once and deploy them across multiple platforms including Kubernetes, Docker...
Cloud Native Application Bundle API
CNAB (Cloud Native Application Bundle) is a specification for packaging and distributing cloud-native applications. The API manages bundle lifecycle including installation, upgr...
Open Component Model API
Open Component Model (OCM) provides a standard for describing software components in a supply chain, enabling teams to track, reference, and verify software artifacts.
Open Resource Discovery API
Open Resource Discovery (ORD) is a protocol for machine-readable resource and capability discovery, enabling API management platforms to automatically discover what services and...
Radius Application Platform API
Radius is an open-source, cloud-agnostic application platform that enables developers to define and deploy applications with their dependencies in a portable, declarative way ac...
Features
Score enables defining workloads once and deploying across multiple platforms
CNAB provides standardized packaging and distribution of cloud-native applications
OCM enables tracking and verifying software components through delivery pipelines
ORD enables machines to discover what resources and APIs an application exposes
Radius enables portable application definitions with dependency declarations across clouds
Use Cases
Define an application once and deploy it across Kubernetes, Docker, or cloud platforms
Explicitly declare all required services (databases, caches, queues) for an application
Track and verify software component provenance and integrity
Enable API management platforms to automatically discover application capabilities
Move applications between cloud providers without rewriting configuration
Integrations
Primary deployment target for Score, CNAB, OCM, and Radius specs
Score and CNAB support Helm-based deployment and chart generation
Score workloads can be compiled to Docker Compose files
Radius integrates with Terraform for infrastructure provisioning
GitOps-based deployment of Score and CNAB bundles via ArgoCD
ORD integrations enable Backstage service catalog population