I can’t find the plugins{} in project api but only apply(). why can i use plugins{} in build script?
Because build scripts are a DSL.
One with more available than is mentioned in a generated documentation, as much is handled dynamically and con only be descibed in prose documentation.
If you are writing a binary plugin and want to use the plugins block there, don’t, you add the plugin to the classpath as dependency of the plugin project and apply it using apply.
If you just want to see what is available to add in writing build scripts, I strongly advice to use the Kotlin DSL instead. With it you will immediately get type-safe build scripts, much more helpful error message if you mess up the syntax, and amazingly better IDE support if you use a proper IDE like IntelliJ.
And btw. the object you configure in the plugins { ... } block is a PluginDependenciesSpec, there you can find things like the id and alias methods.