To enable service mesh proxies, you must define and register them with Consul. Proxies are a type of service in Consul that facilitate highly secure communication between services in a service mesh. The topics in the section outline your options for registering service mesh proxies. You can register proxies independently or nested inside a sidecar service registration.
To register proxies with independent proxy service registrations, you can define them in either in config files or via the API just like any other service. Learn more about all of the options you can define when registering your proxy service in the [proxy registration documentation](/consul/docs/connect/registration/service-registration).
