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So looking at the rules its says that gladius strike force is a detachment. Other say its a formation, and some are saying that the core is a detachment while the auxiliary if a formation. So from the DAKKA DAKKA group that should know more than them WHAT SAY YOU????

A Gladius Strike Force is a Detachment.

It is unusual (compared to 6th edition army construction) in that it is a Detachment made up of both other Formations (such as the Demi-Company or Suppression Force), and some non-formation choices (such as the Strike Force Command choices).

It has a explicit written exception to the rule that a model / unit may only belong to one Detachment (remember that a Formation is a type of Detachment), meaning that, for example, a unit can belong to both a Demi-Company and the GSF that Demi- is part of.

Quanar I am not sure I get your point. are the core and auxiliary a formation or detachment in a GSF?

Some of the choices for a gladius are formations (the ones that have their own datasheets). The other choices are not formations.

The gladius is a detachment composed of choices. Some of those choices are formations. Note that formations are a special type of detachment.

The following choices of a GSF are Formations:
Battle Demi-Company, Reclusium Command Squad, Librarius Conclave, Armoured Task Force, 1st Company Task Force, Anti-air Defence Force, 10th Company Task Force, Storm Wing, Suppression Force, Centurion Siegebreaker Cohort, Land Raider Spearhead.
They all have their own Formation data sheet, and can be taken as a stand-alone Formation if you don't want to take a full Gladius.

If you take a Gladius, you must take a Battle Demi-Company, plus at least one auxiliary choice. The Demi- retains it's Formation special rules (Objective Secured, Tactical Flexibility), but does not share those rules with any other part of the Gladius. But it also benefits from the Gladius special rules (Codex Astartes, Company Support), meaning that a unit in the Demi- is still part of the Demi- and also part of the Gladius Detachment.

Any sort of organizational structure in which you bring your army is a Detachment (except unbound). Formations are just a type of detachment as are the faction specific things like the Ork Horde Detachment or Nemesis Strike Force. The Decurion and other such composite detachments like the Gladius Strike Force are basically a Detachment that contains multiple other Detachments inside of it.

Now some of the entries in things like the Gladius Strike Force are not actually stand alone "formations" (detachments) such as the Strike Force Command as they do not have their own dataslate. They generally require you to take one unit.

This is how it works:

The Gladius is a Detachment, like the Combined Arms Detachment. It has Choices, which are Functionally (but not identical) to the "slots" in a Combined Arms Detachment.

Some Choices are Formations, which retain their rules and gain that of the Gladius when chosen as a Choice in the Gladius. An example of this would be the 1st Company Taskforce, which retains it's own formation's rules of giving it's models Fearless as well as giving them the Gladius's benefit of being affected by the "Codex Astartes" rule, which they otherwise would not be.

Some Choices are not formations; these choices simply list units that you can take. These exist solely so you can select certain units within the Gladius, as it would otherwise not be able to without making the entire army unbound. Note that the Gladius itself is not a formation; going unbound would make you lose it's command benefits as well. One example is the "Strikeforce Command" Choice. This choice is neither a formation nor a detachment and you cannot field it on it's own (although because it grants no bonuses, it's no different than just running unbound with a bunch of random characters)

Finally, any choices taken in a Gladius, regardless of whether they were originally formations or not, all count as part of the single Gladius Detachment. This means that any special rules that affect "the detachment" affects them all. So for example if Pedro Kantor is part of your Gladius, your Sternguards from the 1st Company Taskforce would have Objective Secured. This would NOT be the case if you have a CAD led by Kantor and field the 1st Company Taskforce (either as part of another Gladius or just on it's own as a formation).

Also note that I don't see any specific rule saying that Formations are no longer detachments under the Gladius, just that they count towards both. Non-formation choices, however, are only part of the Gladius for Detachment purposes because they do not exist as any other detachment.

I was under the impression that a Formation and a Detachment are functionally the same thing? Is there any mechanical difference beyond Formations having stricter requirements/giving more powerful benefits?

(In one sense a Gladius Strike Force or similar meta-detachments are closer to Detachments than Formations since they've got a lot of flexibility in what specific choices you take, but in another they've also got significantly bigger benefits than unique detachments usually do)

Functionally there is one major difference: Formations retain their special rules in Unbound while Detachments don't. This is the biggest one as Meta-Detachments/Decurions will lose their benefits if you go unbound in any way, while formations generally don't care. This is pretty big for The Green Tide, which is a formation that greatly benefits from an unbound Painboy added into the mix.

So I just went back and double-checked, the rules are very unambiguous on this front. A meta-detachment is a detachment, not a formation and thus can't be used in Unbound armies.