Is there a spec or standard for .mobileconfig? I see a lot of talk about mobileconfig files for standing up new boxes. It seems as if they're a configuration file for Profiles. Is there a spec or standard from which they're generated, or can be parsed?

Is there any where this is documented?
Most of my searches land me on this Apple doc titled: Configuration Profile
Reference. I also found this tutorial which covers using the /usr/bin/profiles command to work with profiles on macOS. That tutorial is titled: Use The Profiles Command In High Sierra.

You can use commands like this to import profiles from a file:

/usr/bin/profiles -I -F ~/Desktop/HawkeyesTrickshot.mobileconfig 


The CLI tool dscl also received profile switches in Yosemite.

$ dscl &lt;&lt;&lt;"help" |&amp; grep -A6 "MCX Profile"
MCX Profile Extensions:
    -profileimport    &lt;record path&gt; &lt;profile file path&gt;
    -profiledelete    &lt;record path&gt; &lt;profile specifier&gt;
    -profilelist      &lt;record path&gt; [optArgs]
    -profileexport    &lt;record path&gt; &lt;profile specifier&gt; &lt;output folder path&gt;
    -profilehelp