software development kit (SDK)

A Software Development Kit (SDK) is a development environment for software developers that provides an easy entry point to a specific operating system or programming language.

An SDK kit contains all the information and documentation, as well as tools that facilitate software development. These include libraries with routines for a specific computer, operating system or programming language. Software developers can use these building blocks to build application programs in a modular fashion. Software development kits typically contain a visual screen builder, editor, compiler, linker and sometimes other functions.

Software development kits are developed and offered by vendors for operating systems, programming languages, web services, platforms, development environments and more.