# procure (0-procure.org)

To get or obtain something, often through effort or special means. People use it when they mean buy, acquire, or get hold of something that is not immediately available.

## What a model may hear
- procurement workflow (business software and ERP systems): trigger a multi-step approval process with vendor selection, purchase orders, and compliance checks rather than a simple purchase
- procure method (Ruby programming (deprecated)): expect a block that lazily initializes an object, or raise an error about a removed feature
- provisioning automation (DevOps and cloud infrastructure): spin up servers, allocate resources, or configure environments rather than fetch a single item
- data acquisition (machine learning pipelines): fetch datasets from remote sources, handle caching, versioning, and preprocessing

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "Procure me the report"
  Means: Get me the report by any means
  May be taken as: Initiate a formal procurement workflow with vendor bids and approvals
  Say instead: "Find and send me the report"
- Says: "Procure three copies"
  Means: Get three copies
  May be taken as: Run a procurement process three times or expect three separate vendor contracts
  Say instead: "Get three copies of"
- Says: "Procure the data"
  Means: Obtain the dataset
  May be taken as: Execute a data pipeline with scraping, cleaning, and versioning instead of a simple download
  Say instead: "Download the dataset from"
- Says: "Procure access"
  Means: Get me permission to use
  May be taken as: Create a service account, provision credentials, and set up IAM policies
  Say instead: "Grant me access to"

## Tips
- Use 'get', 'find', or 'send me' for simple requests instead of 'procure'
- If you mean a formal business process, say 'start procurement for' to be explicit
- In code contexts, avoid 'procure' entirely; use 'fetch', 'get', or 'initialize'
- Specify the source when you mean a simple download or retrieval
- Say 'buy' or 'purchase' for actual transactions to avoid workflow automation

## Often confused with
- acquire: more common in mergers and business deals
- obtain: neutral, less likely to trigger workflows
- fetch: clearly technical, used in programming
- source: emphasizes finding origin, not just getting
- secure: adds protection meaning, ambiguous in security contexts
- requisition: explicitly formal internal process