# Introduction

Welcome to the Yocto Project Application Developer's Guide. This manual provides information that lets you begin developing applications using the Yocto Project.

The Yocto Project provides an application development environment based on an Application Development Toolkit (ADT) and the availability of stand-alone cross-development toolchains and other tools. This manual describes the ADT and how you can configure and install it, how to access and use the cross-development toolchains, how to customize the development packages installation, how to use command-line development for both Autotools-based and Makefile-based projects, and an introduction to the Eclipse IDE Yocto Plug-in.

The ADT is distribution-neutral and does not require the Yocto Project reference distribution, which is called Poky. This manual, however, uses examples that use the Poky distribution.