Extensions
Built-In Extensions
DuckDB's binary distribution comes standard with a few built-in extensions. They are statically linked into the binary and can be used as is.
For example, to use the built-in [`json` extension](#docs:data:json:overview) to read a JSON file:  
```sql
SELECT *
FROM 'test.json';
```  
To make the DuckDB distribution lightweight, only a few essential extensions are built-in, varying slightly per distribution. Which extension is built-in on which platform is documented in the [list of core extensions](#docs:extensions:core_extensions::default-extensions).