Chef is a tool for CaC, with support for describing and enforcing the configuration of servers. Chef uses a centralized server, Chef Server, where all configuration for all servers is saved. Here, the correct desired state for every server is determined, which is then pulled by the Chef Client, an agent that runs on the node that is being managed.

Defining the desired state for a server is done using a number of constructs. The lowest level is the recipe. A recipe contains one or more resources, built-in capabilities that can be used. An example resource is execute , which runs a bash command. Another example resource is apt_update, which provides the means to interact with the apt package manager. One or more recipes are combined in cookbooks, which describe a capability that can be assigned to a node. The assignment of one or more cookbooks to a node is done using the run list. The run list contains all cookbooks that have to be applied to a node.

Interaction with the Chef Server is done using a command-line tool called knife.

While the terminology is completely different, there are many conceptual parallels between PowerShell DSC and Chef.