## What is Lightning CMP?

Lightning CMP is a privacy-first, edge-hosted **Consent Management Platform**: a
cookie-consent banner and a consent engine that wire your third-party tags to
the visitor's decision. You install **one snippet**; the correct behaviour per
visitor — which regulation applies, which categories are pre-granted, whether a
banner even shows — is resolved for you at the edge.

What sets it apart is the **"bridge, then block"** model. Most CMPs only *block*
a tag until consent, which throws away measurement you're allowed to keep.
Lightning first tries to **bridge** consent to vendors that support a
consent-aware mode, so they keep sending privacy-safe, cookieless signals under
denied consent instead of going dark.

### Bridge, then block

Vendors that support it (Google, HubSpot, Adobe, Pardot) self-throttle to
cookieless signals under denial. Everything else is hard-blocked until
granted. [How it works →](/how-it-works/)

### 100/100 Lighthouse

\~12 KB gzipped, loaded `async`, never render-blocking. The banner runs
without costing you a point. [Performance →](/guides/performance/)

### One call to init

`lightning("init", { … })`. Only `siteId` is required, and the license key
usually supplies even that. [Config reference →](/api/config-reference/)

### WCAG 2.1 AAA

Shadow-DOM isolation, full focus trap, live-region announcements, AAA
contrast — accessible out of the box. [Verifying →](/guides/verifying/)

## Start here

There are a few valid ways to install Lightning. Choose the one that matches
how your tags are managed **before** copying the base snippet:

[I use Google Tag Manager](/install/choose-setup/#google-tag-manager) — Use the Google bridge to load your GTM container in the correct consent order, then manage tag consent inside GTM.

[I use GA4 or Ads directly](/install/choose-setup/#google-tags-without-gtm) — Use the Google bridge with your G- or AW- ID so Consent Mode stays connected without GTM.

[I use other vendors](/install/choose-setup/#other-vendors) — Bridge supported vendors, and use the script blocker only for tools with no consent-aware mode.

[Open the configurator](https://demo.lightning-consent.io/) — Walk through your stack and produce a configuration tailored to your site.

Once you have chosen a path, continue to the [60-second install](/quickstart/).

[Quickstart](/quickstart/) — Install the snippet for the setup you chose in about 60 seconds.

[How it works](/how-it-works/) — The mental model: categories, bridges, blocking, and edge-resolved regulation.

[Built-in bridges](/integrations/bridges/) — Wire Google, HubSpot, Adobe and Pardot to consent with one config flag each.

[Custom bridges](/integrations/custom-bridges/) — Bring your own vendor: host a small bridge file and the CMP drives it like a native one.

{/* CSP-TEST: remove after verifying report-only violations reach the endpoint. Off-origin img with no matching directive → blocked by default-src 'self'. */}

## The mental model in one line

Four consent categories — `necessary`, `preferences`, `statistics`,
`marketing` — drive every tag on your page. `necessary` is always on. The other
three are granted or denied by the visitor (or pre-decided by their region's
law), and the CMP forwards that decision to your vendors live. That's it — the
rest of these docs is progressive detail on top of that idea.