API Guide > Setting up your build environment >

# Introduction to building plug-ins and applications

In the following section we describe how to build plug-ins and standalone API applications. A plug-in is used to extend the functionality of Maya and utilizes dynamic loading of shared objects. Standalone API applications allow for creating applications that can be run on the command line. To build either a plug-in or standalone API application, certain environment variables must be set.

Standalone API applications have an additional requirement for running. These types of applications must know where Maya is installed along with the location of Maya’s libraries. The environment variable MAYA_LOCATION along with the platform specific library path environment variable is used for this. More details on these environment variables will be provided in the sections that follow.