Cyanogen announced a partnership with Microsoft last year to integrate the software giant’s consumer apps and services into the Cyanogen OS. Cortona, Microsoft’s digital assistant, will come pre-installed and "deeply integrated" on the next version of Cyanogen OS as a result. While Microsoft will be the first to offer such integration on Cyanogen OS, third-party app developers will soon have similar access.

Cyanogen is launching a new Mod platform today that lets third-party apps take advantage of the Cyanogen APIs to directly integrate into the OS. Most of the first-generation mods we’ll see initially will be offered by Microsoft, including the ability for Skype to be integrated directly into the dialer interface or OneNote integration in the browser, email client, and calendar. Truecaller is also launching a mod to control spam messages.

Cyanogen is hoping to push its new Mod platform with the help of OEMs and partners bundling this new functionality. The Mod platform itself will start rolling out next month, and will require Cyanogen OS 13 or higher.