Salesforce B2C Commerce 24.7 > Developing Your Site > Development Components > Cartridges

What Is a Cartridge?

A cartridge is a mechanism for packaging and deploying program code and data. Use cartridges to extend business functionality or integrate with external systems. A cartridge can deliver generic or application-specific functionality.

Generic cartridges: contain reusable business functionality that can be deployed to many sites.
Application-specific cartridges: designed to provide functionality that is specific to the needs of a particular ecommerce site.

Add a cartridge for functionality that is:

Generic: you want to reuse functionality among multiple projects.
Large and self-contained: you want the functionality self-contained for easier maintenance.

Note: New functionality doesn't always require a new cartridge.

Cartridges can contain:

Controllers
Templates
Scripts
Form definitions
Static content (images, CSS files, and client-side JavaScript files)
WSDL files

You configure which cartridges are in use by entering a list of those cartridges in Business Manager . The order in which cartridges are listed matters. The list is basically a classpath, with the cartridge as the class. If you want to overwrite files with a particular cartridge, put the cartridge at the end of the list. Use the code upload version directories to change the active directory.