# Applications Applications are the representation of your ecosystem's services. Each application can contain one or more instances which are the physical instances of your service. Like folders, they hold the ability to store authentication settings and can also inherit it from a parent folder. The authentication is then cascaded to every instance. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://docs.ostara.dev/documentation/applications.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.