In Nixpkgs, these three platforms are defined as attribute sets under the names <literal>buildPlatform</literal>, <literal>hostPlatform</literal>, and <literal>targetPlatform</literal>.
All three are always defined at the top level, so one can get at them just like a dependency in a function that is imported with <literal>callPackage</literal>:
All three are always defined as attributes in the standard environment, and at the top level. That means one can get at them just like a dependency in a function that is imported with <literal>callPackage</literal>:
<programlisting>{ stdenv, buildPlatform, hostPlatform, fooDep, barDep, .. }: ...buildPlatform...</programlisting>, or just off <varname>stdenv</varname>: