# Routing in Umbraco

*This section describes what the Umbraco Request Pipeline is. It explains how Umbraco matches a document to a given request and how it generates a URL for a document.*

## Request pipeline

### What is the pipeline

The request pipeline is the process of building up the URL for a node and resolving a request to a specified node. It ensures that the right content is sent back.

![what is the pipeline](/files/2gP0O2ZnWNI77oW4FJto)

### Outbound vs Inbound

The pipeline works bidirectional: [**inbound**](/umbraco-cms/18.latest/develop-with-umbraco/application-code/backend-and-custom-logic/routing/request-pipeline/inbound-pipeline.md) and [**outbound**](/umbraco-cms/18.latest/develop-with-umbraco/application-code/backend-and-custom-logic/routing/request-pipeline/outbound-pipeline.md).

[**Outbound**](/umbraco-cms/18.latest/develop-with-umbraco/application-code/backend-and-custom-logic/routing/request-pipeline/outbound-pipeline.md) is the process of building up a URL for a requested node. [**Inbound**](/umbraco-cms/18.latest/develop-with-umbraco/application-code/backend-and-custom-logic/routing/request-pipeline/inbound-pipeline.md) is every request received by the web server and handled by Umbraco.

### Customizing the pipeline

This section will describe the components that you can use to modify Umbraco's request pipeline: [**IContentFinder**](/umbraco-cms/18.latest/develop-with-umbraco/application-code/backend-and-custom-logic/routing/request-pipeline/icontentfinder.md) & `IUrlProvider`


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