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# IPython plugins

IPython has a plugin mechanism that allows users to create new and custom runtime components for IPython. Plugins are different from extensions:

- Extensions are used to load plugins.
- Plugins are a more advanced configuration system that gives you access to the running IPython instance.
- Plugins are traited and configurable.

At this point, the documentation of our plugin system is minimal. If you are interested in creating a new plugin, see the following files:

- `IPython/extensions/parallelmagic.py`
- `IPython/extensions/autoreload.py`

As well as our documentation on the configuration system and extensions.

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