WSIheaders

To use a Vulkan extension supporting a platform-specific window system, header files for that window system must be included at compile time, or platform-specific types must be forward-declared. The Vulkan header files are unable to determine whether or not an external header is available at compile time, so platform-specific extensions are provided in separate headers from the core API and platform-independent extensions, allowing applications to decide which ones they need to be defined and how the external headers are included.

Extensions dependent on particular sets of platform headers, or that forward-declare platform-specific types, are declared in a header named for that platform. Before including these platform-specific Vulkan headers, applications must include both vulkan_core.h and any external native headers the platform extensions depend on.

As a convenience for applications that do not need the flexibility of separate platform-specific Vulkan headers, vulkan.h includes vulkan_core.h, and then conditionally includes platform-specific Vulkan headers and the external headers they depend on. Applications control which platform-specific headers are included by #defining macros before including vulkan.h.

The correspondence between platform-specific extensions, external headers they require, the platform-specific header which declares them, and the preprocessor macros which enable inclusion by vulkan.h are shown in the following table.

Table 1. Window System Extensions and Headers
Extension Name	Window System Name	Platform-specific Header	Required External Headers	Controlling vulkan.h Macro
VK_KHR_android_surface	Android	vulkan_android.h	None	VK_USE_PLATFORM_ANDROID_KHR
VK_KHR_wayland_surface	Wayland	vulkan_wayland.h	<wayland-client.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_WAYLAND_KHR
VK_KHR_win32_surface, VK_KHR_external_memory_win32, VK_KHR_win32_keyed_mutex, VK_KHR_external_semaphore_win32, VK_KHR_external_fence_win32, VK_NV_external_memory_win32, VK_NV_win32_keyed_mutex	Microsoft Windows	vulkan_win32.h	<windows.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_WIN32_KHR
VK_KHR_xcb_surface	X11 Xcb	vulkan_xcb.h	<xcb/xcb.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_XCB_KHR
VK_KHR_xlib_surface	X11 Xlib	vulkan_xlib.h	<X11/Xlib.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_XLIB_KHR
VK_EXT_directfb_surface	DirectFB	vulkan_directfb.h	<directfb/directfb.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_DIRECTFB_EXT
VK_EXT_acquire_xlib_display	X11 XRAndR	vulkan_xlib_xrandr.h	<X11/Xlib.h>, <X11/extensions/Xrandr.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_XLIB_XRANDR_EXT
VK_GGP_stream_descriptor_surface, VK_GGP_frame_token	Google Games Platform	vulkan_ggp.h	<ggp_c/vulkan_types.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_GGP
VK_MVK_ios_surface	iOS	vulkan_ios.h	None	VK_USE_PLATFORM_IOS_MVK
VK_MVK_macos_surface	macOS	vulkan_macos.h	None	VK_USE_PLATFORM_MACOS_MVK
VK_NN_vi_surface	VI	vulkan_vi.h	None	VK_USE_PLATFORM_VI_NN
VK_FUCHSIA_imagepipe_surface	Fuchsia	vulkan_fuchsia.h	<zircon/types.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_FUCHSIA
VK_EXT_metal_surface	Metal on CoreAnimation	vulkan_metal.h	None	VK_USE_PLATFORM_METAL_EXT
VK_QNX_screen_surface	QNX Screen	vulkan_screen.h	<screen/screen.h>	VK_USE_PLATFORM_SCREEN_QNX

This section describes the purpose of the headers independently of the specific underlying functionality of the window system extensions themselves. Each extension name will only link to a description of that extension when viewing a specification built with that extension included.