> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://www.mintlify.com/docs/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Index

> Give coding agents current technical context from publisher-maintained documentation and the web through one MCP server or REST API.

Mintlify Index gives coding agents one search layer for technical knowledge. It routes questions about indexed products to publisher-maintained documentation hosted on Mintlify and uses web search for questions outside that corpus.

Use Index through the public MCP server or the access-controlled REST API.

* **MCP server**: Connect an AI tool and let it retrieve source-cited context while you work. Publicly available. Does not require an API key.
* **REST API**: Search for ranked sources, assemble context within a token budget, or retrieve the contents of selected results. Access-controlled. Requires an Index API key.

## Get started

<CardGroup cols={3}>
  <Card title="Connect your coding agent" icon="plug-zap" href="/docs/search-index/connect">
    Add Index to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, and other coding agents.
  </Card>

  <Card title="MCP reference" icon="book-open" href="/docs/search-index/mcp">
    Review the `context` tool, input fields, output, and rate limits.
  </Card>

  <Card title="REST API" icon="file-braces" href="/docs/api/search-index/introduction">
    Use `search`, `context`, and `contents` in an application or agent.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## How Index retrieves context

<Steps>
  <Step title="Route the question">
    Index identifies whether the question concerns a product in its documentation corpus or requires broader web results.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Retrieve relevant sources">
    Product-specific questions search current documentation from the publisher. Other questions search the web.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Return agent-ready context">
    Index ranks the results and returns source URLs with the relevant content. The MCP `context` tool and REST `context` endpoint assemble that content within a token budget.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Choose a retrieval operation

* **[`context`](/docs/api/search-index/context)**: Use this for most agent tasks. It returns a compact set of cited source material in one request.
* **[`search`](/docs/api/search-index/search)**: Use this when your application needs ranked results and controls which sources to read. Available through the REST API.
* **[`contents`](/docs/api/search-index/contents)**: Use this after `search` to retrieve content for selected Mintlify result IDs or result URLs. Available through the REST API.


## Related topics

- [Mintlify REST API introduction](/docs/api/introduction.md)
- [Assistant](/docs/assistant/index.md)
- [skill.md](/docs/ai/skillmd.md)