description: Learn about resource groups in version 2 of Consul's internal architecture. The auth, catalog, and mesh groups structure Consul's ability to target individual workloads or an entire collection of workload endpoints.
The v2 catalog API and Traffic Permissions API are currently in beta. This documentation supports testing and development scenarios. Do not use these APIs in secure production environments.
This topic provides an overview of resource groups in Consul's v2 architecture.
Refer to the [`consul resource` CLI command reference](/consul/docs/commands/resource) to learn about using the Consul CLI to interact with resources.
## Introduction
Consul's v2 architecture manages workloads using _resources_. Each resource is part of a _resource group_.
These resource groups structure Consul's ability to target either an _individual workload identity_ or an _entire collection of workload endpoints_ when managing service mesh traffic. There are three resource groups in the v2 API:
- `auth` group: Resources apply to workload identity
- `catalog` group: Resources apply to all workloads associated with a service
- `mesh` group: Resources apply to either workload identities or all workloads
For example, traffic permissions are part of the `auth` group. Permissions allow or deny traffic according to the other v2 catalog resource in the `auth` group, the workload identity. Meanwhile, when Consul routes service mesh traffic it applies rules to workloads based on the Service, which is a resource in the `catalog` group.
One practical impact of resource groups is that the [HTTPRoute](/consul/docs/k8s/multiport/reference/httproute), [GRPCRoute](/consul/docs/k8s/multiport/reference/grpcroute), and [TCPRoute](/consul/docs/k8s/multiport/reference/tcproute) CRDs require you to specify a `name` and `type` in configuration blocks. The `catalog.v2beta1.Service` type indicates that the rules defined in these CRDs apply to all workloads registered in the Consul catalog under the given name.
You can also use the `consul resource` command to return information about Consul resources in each group using a `group.groupVersion.kind` syntax. Refer to [`consul resource`](/consul/docs/commands/resource) for more information.
## Resource group reference
The following table describes the Consul resources that belong to each resource group and the resource's `group.groupVersion.kind` syntax.
