> ## 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.

# AI Explorer

AI Explorer is a centralized marketplace for agent resources that make AI coding agents more effective across your organization. Instead of every team writing their own agent instructions from scratch, teams publish their expertise as reusable resources that others can discover and install.

## Why AI Explorer?

AI coding agents like Claude Code, Cursor, and Codex work best when they have context about your organization's standards, workflows, and tools. AI Explorer solves the distribution problem:

* **Discover** what's available by browsing a searchable marketplace of rules and skills
* **Install** resources through the Portal UI or your agent's plugin system
* **Contribute** your team's expertise so others can benefit from it
* **Certify** high-quality resources so developers know what to trust

## Key concepts

| Concept         | Description                                                                                             |
| --------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Rule**        | A short guideline that agents load into context — e.g. "always use design tokens for UI components"     |
| **Skill**       | A multi-file instruction set that teaches agents a specific workflow — e.g. "how to create a migration" |
| **Plugin**      | A package that wraps one or more skills so they can be shared and installed together                    |
| **Marketplace** | A catalog of plugins hosted in a Git repository. Users add a marketplace to browse and install plugins  |

See the individual pages for details on each:

* [Rules](./rules): guidelines and standards for AI agents
* [Skills](./skills): workflow instructions for AI agents
* [Marketplaces & Plugins](./marketplaces): grouping and distributing resources

## How it works

Resources live as files in your GitHub repositories. AI Explorer's entity providers scan configured GitHub organizations and automatically discover rule files and `SKILL.md` files using GitHub code search. The providers parse each file's frontmatter to build `AiContext` entities in the Backstage catalog — no `catalog-info.yaml` is required.

```
GitHub Repos (source of truth)
       ↓
Entity Providers (scan for rule files & SKILL.md)
       ↓
Backstage Catalog (AiContext entities)
       ↓
Portal UI (browse & search)
```

## Browsing resources

AI Explorer provides dedicated pages for browsing and searching resources. You can filter by:

* **Type** — rules, skills, or plugins
* **Discipline** — e.g. backend, web, android, data (rules only)
* **Category** — e.g. testing, code-review, architecture
* **Owner** — the team that maintains the resource
* **Certification status** — whether the resource has been reviewed and certified
* **Lifecycle** — experimental, production, deprecated

Each resource has a detail page showing its content, metadata, and install instructions.

## What's Next?

In the following sections, instructions will be provided that will guide you on how to:

1. Configure AI Explorer in the Config Manager
2. Write effective Skills and Rules
3. Install and use AI Explorer resources
4. Configure soundcheck for AI Explorer to ensure Skill Quality