> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.arupa.dev/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Introduction

> Understand the role of Core Plugins in the Arupa application.

Core Plugins are a set of plugins that provide the standard application
experience around the Arupa Kernel. They are ordinary plugins that use the
same plugin contract as any other plugin. The Kernel does not require this
specific set of plugins to load or run other plugins.

Although they are optional from the Kernel's perspective, Core Plugins often
fulfill important application roles. They provide basic features, publish
shared resources, and implement conventions that let other plugins cooperate
without adding application-specific logic to the Kernel.

## What Core Plugins provide

Core Plugins commonly provide:

* application infrastructure such as login, navigation, and plugin management;
* shared frontend assets, theme resources, and browser-side helpers;
* reusable application capabilities such as secret management;
* implementations of the conventions used by other plugins.

Some Core Plugins act as providers for other plugins. For example, a provider
can publish a resource URL or shared metadata, while consumer plugins discover
it through the agreed convention. This keeps the Kernel focused on plugin
loading, transport, authorization, and IPC.

## Conventions and replacement

Core Plugins are the current implementations of the conventions documented in kernel documentation. These conventions are recommended for plugins that want to
integrate with the standard application experience, but they are not private
Core Plugin APIs.

Because the integration is defined by a convention, you can replace a Core
Plugin or provide a custom implementation without changing the Kernel. The
replacement must preserve the names, formats, metadata, URLs, or behavior that
consumer plugins depend on.

Use the Core Plugins documentation to understand the capabilities and
conventions provided to the rest of the application. Use the [Plugin
Development Guide](../../../arupa/v0/en/plugin/introduction) when you are
building a plugin that runs on the Kernel.