---
id: introduction
title: Introduction
slug: /
---

# Introduction to Cadl

Cadl is a language for describing cloud service APIs and generating other API description languages, client and service code, documentation, and other assets. Cadl provides highly extensible core language primitives that can describe API shapes common among REST, GraphQL, gRPC, and other protocols.

## Try Cadl

You can try Cadl on the web without installing anything.

- [Cadl playground](https://cadlplayground.z22.web.core.windows.net)
- [Cadl playground for Azure services](https://cadlplayground.z22.web.core.windows.net/cadl-azure/)
