To make Consul aware of proxies in your service mesh, you must register them. Learn more about proxy registration and sidecar service registration, including differences in how registering works.
definition](/docs/discovery/services), just like you would register any other service with Consul. This section outlines your options for registering Connect proxies, either using independent registrations, or in nested sidecar registrations.
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](/docs/connect/registration/service-registration).