www/docs/en/3.0.0/config_ref/index.md

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title: Configuration Reference
---

# Configuration Reference

Many aspects of an application's behavior can be controlled with a
platform-agnostic configuration file, `config.xml`, which is formatted
based on the W3C's
[Packaged Web Apps (Widgets)](http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/)
specification.

For projects created with the Cordova CLI (described in The
Command-line Interface), this file can be found in the top-level `www`
directory.  Using the CLI to build projects regenerates versions of
this file in various subdirectories within `platforms`. For non-CLI
projects, each platform-specific file serves as a source.

While the location of the `config.xml` file may change depending on
the platform, its contents generally do not. Some platform-specific
features are also specified in the same configuration file. Details
are listed below:

- [iOS Configuration](../guide/platforms/ios/config.html)
- [Android Configuration](../guide/platforms/android/config.html)
- [BlackBerry Configuration](../guide/platforms/blackberry/config.html)

## config.xml Elements

The [Apache Cordova](http://cordova.io) project strives abstract away native platform specifics via web-inspired and web-based
abstractions that are heavily standards driven and adopted by the web community. Please take a few minutes to familiarize
yourself with the [config.xml specification](http://www.w3.org/TR/widgets/), to understand the type of application metadata the
Apache Cordova project aims to abstract and provide simple entry points for.

An example:

        <widget>
            <preference name="MySetting" value="true" />
            <feature name="MyPlugin" value="MyPluginClass" />
            <access origin="*" />
            <content src="index.html" />
        </widget>

A list of supported elements across major platforms which are supported in Apache Cordova follow.

### `<feature>`

These elements map to native APIs that the application accesses. At
runtime, the Apache Cordova framework maps `<feature>` elements to
native code to enable your Cordova application to access device APIs
otherwise unavailable to typical web-based applications.

### `<access>`

These elements define how your whitelist works. Please see the
[Domain Whitelist Guide](../guide/appdev/whitelist/index.html) for more information.

### `<content>`

This element defines your application's start page relative to the
project's standard web assets root directory. This element is optional,
the default is `index.html`.