## Tiers and Namespaces
Packer plugins are published and maintained by a variety of sources, including
HashiCorp, and the Packer community. We use tiers and badges to
denote the source of a plugin. Additionally, namespaces are used to help users
identify the organization or publisher responsible for the integration, as shown
in the table below.
| Tier | Description | Namespace |
| -------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------- |
| | Official plugins are owned and maintained by HashiCorp. | hashicorp |
| | Verified plugins are owned and maintained by third-party technology partners. Plugins in this tier indicate HashiCorp has verified the authenticity of the Plugin’s publisher, and that the partner is a member of the [HashiCorp Technology Partner Program](https://www.hashicorp.com/partners).| Third-party organization |
| | Community providers are published by individual maintainers, groups of maintainers, or other members of the Packer community. | Third-party organization or maintainer's individual account |
| | Archived plugins are plugins that are no longer maintained by HashiCorp, a partner, or the community. This may occur if an API is deprecated or interest was low. | hashicorp or third-party |
## HCP Packer Badge
is present for plugins that HashiCorp has verified to communicate build status to the HCP Packer registry.