Portal ships with the following built-in MCP tools, registered through the Actions Registry and automatically available to any connected AI agent.Documentation Index
Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://backstage.spotify.com/docs/llms.txt
Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
Built-in tools
| Tool | Description |
|---|---|
search | Search for information across company internal systems, documentation, and software catalogs. |
query-semantic-search-engine | Perform semantic (meaning-based) search across indexed knowledge sources. |
get-catalog-entity | Retrieve detailed information about a specific entity in the software catalog. |
get-datasets-by-registry-ids | Fetch datasets from the data registry using their IDs. |
get-dbt-project-by-registry-id | Fetch a dbt project from the data registry using its ID. |
get-entity-overlay | Retrieve overlay metadata for a given entity in the software catalog. |
How agents use these tools
When you ask an AI agent a question that requires Portal data, the agent automatically selects the appropriate tool. For example:- “What is the payments-gateway service?” — the agent calls
get-catalog-entityto retrieve entity details from the catalog. - “Find documentation about our authentication flow” — the agent calls
query-semantic-search-engineto search across indexed knowledge sources. - “What overlay metadata is set on the checkout service?” — the agent calls
get-entity-overlayto retrieve overlay data.
Configuring which tools are available
Navigate to App Settings > Actions > Plugin sources to configure the plugin sources for loading plugin actions.