Documentation for postcircumfix <> assembled from the following pages:

Language documentation: Operators §

From Operators

(Operators) postcircumfix <> §

Decontainerization operator, which extracts the value from a container and makes it independent of the container type.

use JSON::Tiny;

my $config = from-json('{ "files": 3, "path": "/home/some-user/raku.pod6" }');
say $config.raku;      # OUTPUT: «${:files(3), :path("/home/some-user/raku.pod6")}»
my %config-hash = $config<>;
say %config-hash.raku; # OUTPUT: «{:files(3), :path("/home/some-user/raku.pod6")}»

It's a Hash in both cases, and it can be used like that; however, in the first case it was in item context, and in the second case it has been extracted to its proper context.