This directory is for features that are intended for reuse across multiple embedders (e.g., Android WebView and Chrome). By default, components can depend only on the lower layers of the Chromium codebase(e.g. base/, net/, etc.). Individual components may additionally allow dependencies on the content API and IPC; however, if such a component is used by Chrome for iOS (which does not use the content API or IPC), the component will have to be in the form of a layered component (http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/layered-components-design). Components that have bits of code that need to live in different processes (e.g. some code in the browser process, some in the renderer process, etc.) should separate the code into different subdirectories. Hence for a component named 'foo' you might end up with a structure like the following (assuming that foo is not used by iOS and thus does not need to be a layered component): components/foo - DEPS, OWNERS, foo.gypi components/foo/browser - code that needs the browser process components/foo/common - for e.g. IPC constants and such components/foo/renderer - code that needs renderer process These subdirectories should have DEPS files with the relevant restrictions in place, i.e. only components/*/browser should be allowed to #include from content/public/browser. Note that there may also be an 'android' subdir, with a Java source code structure underneath it where the package name is org.chromium.components.foo, and with subdirs after 'foo' to illustrate process, e.g. 'browser' or 'renderer': components/foo/android/OWNERS, DEPS components/foo/android/java/src/org/chromium/components/foo/browser/ components/foo/android/javatests/src/org/chromium/components/foo/browser/ Code in a component should be placed in a namespace corresponding to the name of the component; e.g. for a component living in //components/foo, code in that component should be in the foo:: namespace.