Autotools can require tests that must execute on the target hardware. Since this is not possible in general when cross compiling, site information is used to provide cached test results so these tests can be skipped over but still make the correct values available. The meta/site directory contains test results sorted into different categories such as architecture, endianness, and the libc used. Site information provides a list of files containing data relevant to the current build in the CONFIG_SITE variable that Autotools automatically picks up.

The class also provides variables like SITEINFO_ENDIANNESS and SITEINFO_BITS that can be used elsewhere in the metadata.

Because this class is included from base.bbclass, it is always active.