Minor Description
You can (an IMHO should) write an explanation of the configuration in the ivy file
<ivy-module version="2.0">
<configurations>
<conf name="runtime" description="Runtime Libraries"/>
</configurations>
</ivy-module>
The Ant task <ivy:info/> makes the names names available, but not the descriptions.
So the first RFE is making them available (accoding to 'infotest.configurations') as 'infotest.configuration.descriptions'.
Another RFE is enhanding <ivy:retrieve/> to create a describing file in the destination directory which contains this information.
E.e. with Ivy pattern lib/[conf]/[artifact].[ext] you would create with <ivy:retrieve descriptionfile="readme.txt"/> a file lib/runtime/readme.txt with content "Runtime Libraries".
(!! Recreate old files, but beware that multiple confs could result in the same dir if the ivy pattern doesnt contain a [conf]. )