# Learn about thermal interfaces

The thermal architecture includes the `sysfs`  interface, which reads the thermal zone configurations and applies cooling actions to the CPU. The user space clients use the `sysfs` interface to communicate with the cooling map interface.

For more information about `sysfs` interface, see [index:
kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git](https://git.kernel.org/pub/scm/linux/kernel/git/torvalds/linux.git/tree/Documentation/driver-api/thermal/sysfs-api.rst?h=v6.6).

Users can interact with the device through the following interfaces:

- [Customize a thermal zone](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70020-30/topic/thermalzone.html)
The thermal zone connects Tsens hardware information, temperature
thresholds, and mitigation actions. The thermal framework creates node
IDs for each thermal zone rule defined in the device tree.
- [Control heat dissipation with cooling devices](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70020-30/topic/coolingdevices.html)
The performance of some components can be adjusted to reduce heat dissipation. These components are considered as cooling devices. The CPU cores are cooling devices as their performance can be lowered to reduce heat dissipation.
- [Receive sensor temperature notifications](https://docs.qualcomm.com/doc/80-70020-30/topic/notificationtouserspace.html)
The thermal core framework uses the `Netlink` interface to provide
sensor temperature notifications to the user space.

Last Published: Jul 03, 2025

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