---
title: Core concepts
slug: 1WsV-core-concepts
description: Discover how Kubeark, the innovative application that seamlessly connects policies with providers, empowers users with comprehensive information including UI name, icon, and more. Explore the extensive range of components covered in this document, from so
docTags: 
createdAt: 2023-07-19T12:45:55.996Z
---

- **Application**: links Policies with a Provider and holds information such as UI name and icon.
- **Source**: a location from which users can be added to Kubeark, such as LDAP connection or OAuth2 connection.
- **Provider**: a way for other applications to authenticate against Kubeark, such as OIDC or SAML.
- **Policy**: a yes/no gate that evaluates to True or False based on Policy Kind and settings. Used for custom logic, granting/denying access, and more.
- **Flows & Stages:** ordered sequence of stages used for user authentication, enrollment, etc.
- **Property Mappings**: makes information available for external applications, such as setting user roles in AWS based on group memberships in Kubeark.
- **Outpost**: a separate component of authentik that offers services not implemented directly into the authentik core, such as Reverse Proxying.
- **System tasks**: longer-running tasks run in the background by Kubeark, such as syncing LDAP sources or backing up the database.