Querying clients

[bern]

Hello all,

Is there a way to query clients from a cfengine server?   What I would
like to be able to do, is to query clients to know about specific
configurations of their systems.  For example, before I take any
actions on a client, I might like to know the content of a file before
trying to do modification to it.

I feel lile shooting in the dark when using cfengine without knowing
the exact state of a system.

Thanks,
Bern