
These are used to determine whether or not a formula’s install was specifically requested by a user and/or pulled in as a dependency.
Homebrew's Formula API
This is the (partially) documented public API for Homebrew.
The main class you should look at is the {Formula} class (and classes linked from there). That's the class that's used to create Homebrew formulae (i.e. package descriptions). Assume anything else you stumble upon is private.
You may also find the Formula Cookbook and Ruby Style Guide helpful in creating formulae.
Good luck!