Think of the 3800 as the end of a funnel. The specific types of credits are under their own regulations, and funnel to the 3800 as required for reporting.

For instance, there is an older Employee Retention Tax Credit for disasters, but there was a recent Employee Retention Credit from covid-19. The ERTC is reported on 3800. The ERC is not reported on 3800. ERTC is applied against tax. ERC is applied as part of Payroll (to simplify it).