Poky's inputs and outputs were already detailed at a high level of abstract in the previous chapters. We already know that BitBake uses metadata to generate different types of artifacts, including images. Besides the generated artifacts, BitBake creates much more content during this process, which may be used in several ways, dependent upon our goals.

During the build process, BitBake performs several tasks and continuously modifies the build directory. We can understand it better following the usual BitBake flow, as follows:

• Fetching: The first action realized by BitBake is to download the source code. This step may modify the build directory as it tries to use the cached downloaded copy of the source code, or performs the download and stores it inside the build/download directory.
• Source preparation: After fetching the source code is complete...