> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://docs.standardknowledge.com/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://docs.standardknowledge.com/concepts/concepts.md).

# Overview

Today, people lack clarity and efficiency because each app or data source they work with only shows them a partial view of their work and only supports a subset of the capabilities they need to get work done. Trying to offer or build a holistic and integrated experience is hard and results in a messy web of one-to-one integrations that is hard to maintain. This is true both for companies trying to consolidate data between tools they use internally, and for software companies wanting to let their users push or pull data to or from other software tools.

**Standard Knowledge Language is an open source initiative to solve these problems by defining a protocol for interacting with non-standard data formats and APIs through standard abstractions of data and capabilities.**

Unlike other approaches (see [Motivations](/other/motivations.md)), SKL does not require existing API providers to change their APIs or offerings. Instead, it provides a streamlined way for developers to easily connect to a theoretically infinite number of APIs simultaneously.

Continue to get an understanding of the core concepts of SKL!