Adaptation tactics are specified in an adaptation policy script file using an adaptation policy language (XML). The language is interpreted and executed by a run time support system - the decision engine. Awareware treats adaptation and configuration behaviors explicitly in a XML file, and the adaptation tactic is separated from the application. The adaptation tactics are specific to the application. Thus the developer decides what awareness to use, when reconfiguration should be invoked, and how an adaptation tactic is expressed in terms of reconfiguration primitives.

An example of the tactic is shown as below:

if (Awareness.Network.Bandwidth < 100K ) then

if (Awareness.User.Preference == Interactive ) then ...

The decision module is a virtual machine that interprets the adaptation tactic at run time. Reconfiguration command scripts are a set of reconfiguration primitives defined in system configurator. The reconfiguration primitives are used by the decision module to interact with components when making a configuration change; and these are standard primitives, not defined by system developers.