You can't just take away the pre-built directives as they are a core module of "vanilla Angular" as stated on the front page of the API docs. From controllers (ngController), to models (ngModel), to looping (ngRepeat), to the actual app itself (ngApp), directives are fundamental to using Angular. Taking away core directives would be like taking away selectors from jQuery, or models from backbone; without them, the framework is pretty much useless.