Why it is called POT

POT is the package manager built into Beans. It works on a file named beans.pot that sits at the root of your project. That file is the manifest: it names your module and lists the Git dependencies you pull in.

Where the name comes from

POT does not stand for anything. There is no hidden expansion in the source, the README, the spec, or these docs. The name is a joke on the project’s own name: Beans keeps its packages in a pot of beans. The manifest file is beans.pot, and the command that works on it is beansc pot.

Type a command Beans does not have, like mod, and it says so plainly:

error: 'mod' is not a Beans command; use 'beansc pot tidy' or 'beansc pot update'

Four ideas to keep apart

Package talk gets confusing because people use one word for four different things. Beans keeps them separate. Learn these four and the rest of POT reads easily.

Idea	Example	What it is
module path	shop	The unit beans.pot names. One dependency, one row in the lock file.
import path	shop.money	A package’s globally unique identity. No two packages share one.
package name	money	What a package calls itself in its package clause.
import binding	cash	A local name for an import, alive in one file only.

Put together, a line like this uses three of them at once:

import shop.money as cash

Here shop.money is the import path, and cash is the import binding you use in this one file. The package itself still calls itself money in its package clause; you just chose to call it cash here.

The beans.pot manifest page covers every field, and the imports guide shows how imports work in day-to-day code.