---
title: Contextual development environment
description: The platform is a contextual development environment that displays the currently selected application, identifies the scope of every application artifact, and prevents any changes that violate the access settings for an application.
locale: en-US
canonical_url: https://www.servicenow.com/docs/r/australia/application-development/c\_ContextualDevelopmentEnvironment.html
release: australia
topic_type: concept
last_updated: "2026-03-12"
reading_time_minutes: 1
breadcrumb: [Learning about developing on the ServiceNow AI Platform, Building applications]
---

# Contextual development environment

The platform is a contextual development environment that displays the currently selected application, identifies the scope of every application artifact, and prevents any changes that violate the access settings for an application.

Application developers can use the contextual development environment to:

-   Determine the application context
-   View and select applications
-   Enforce application version standards
-   Enforce application resource throttling
-   Enforce script protection policies