---
icon: IconDirectory
title: 'plugins'
head.title: Plugins directory
---

# Plugins directory

Nuxt will automatically read the files in your `plugins` directory and load them. You can use `.server` or `.client` in the file name to load a plugin just on server- or client-side.

::alert{type=warning}
All plugins in your `plugins/` directory are auto-registered, so you should not add them to your `nuxt.config` separately.
::

## Creating plugins

The only argument passed to a plugin is [`nuxtApp`](/docs/usage/nuxt-app).

```ts
import { defineNuxtPlugin } from '#app'

export default defineNuxtPlugin(nuxtApp => {
  // Doing something with nuxtApp
})
```

## Typing plugins

If you provide a global property on the nuxt app instance, you can declare the type of this property like this:

```ts
import { defineNuxtPlugin } from '#app'

export default defineNuxtPlugin(nuxtApp => {
  nuxtApp.provide('hello', msg => `Hello ${msg}!`);
})

declare module '#app' {
  interface NuxtApp {
    $hello (msg: string): string
  }
}
```