# SWIRL Documentation > Official product documentation for SWIRL - a federated AI search and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) platform that queries 150+ enterprise sources in parallel without copying, ingesting, or indexing data. This site covers both SWIRL Community Edition (open source, Apache 2.0) and SWIRL Enterprise (self-hosted; current major release: SWIRL 5), including installation (Docker-first), configuration, connectors (SearchProviders), AI providers, RAG, the separately licensed Semantic Cache (version clustering, canonical election, pinning), workspaces, the built-in Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, security, monitoring, Kubernetes deployment, and developer reference. Documentation for SWIRL Enterprise 4.x is archived under /4x/. SWIRL's architecture has three layers: connectors (SearchProviders) that query each source with the user's permissions; a federation and re-ranking layer that normalizes and orders results; and an answer layer that optionally uses an LLM of the operator's choice to generate cited answers. No vector database is required. Most pages on this site exist in matched Community and Enterprise variants - pick the one that matches your edition. For the marketing site and product overview, see https://swirlaiconnect.com (llms.txt: https://swirlaiconnect.com/llms.txt). ## Start here - [Docs Home - SWIRL Overview](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/): What SWIRL is, how it works without ingesting data, what it integrates with, edition differences, architecture, deployment, security, and history. - [Glossary](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/glossary): Definitions for SWIRL-specific terms (SearchProvider, AIProvider, federation, re-ranking, RAG, MCP, etc.). ## Quick start and installation - [SWIRL Plugin for Claude Code](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/claude-plugin): Free Apache-2.0 Claude Code plugin with guided workflows to install SWIRL, connect sources, configure RAG, migrate editions, troubleshoot, and connect SWIRL's MCP server to Claude. Includes a downloadable one-page PDF datasheet. - [Quick Start (Community)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/quick-start): Fastest path to a running SWIRL Community instance. - [Quick Start (Enterprise)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/quick-start-enterprise): Fastest path to a running SWIRL Enterprise instance. - [Installation (Community)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/installation-community): Detailed install for SWIRL Community Edition. - [Installation (Enterprise)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/installation): Detailed install for SWIRL Enterprise. - [Docker Build](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/docker_build): Building and running SWIRL via Docker. - [Kubernetes Deployment](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/kubernetes-guide): Deploying SWIRL on Kubernetes, including Helm and scaling guidance. ## User guides - [User Guide (Community)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/user-guide): Using SWIRL Community - search UI, providers, and basic operation. - [User Guide (Enterprise)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/user-guide-enterprise): Using SWIRL Enterprise - search, AI Search Assistant, citations, and result actions. - [AI Search Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/ai-search): AI Search - federated query, re-ranking, RAG, connecting to GAI/LLM providers. - [AI Search Assistant Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/ai-search-assistant): Conversational AI Search Assistant on top of SWIRL. ## Administration and configuration - [Admin Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/admin-guide): Administering SWIRL - users, AIProviders, workspaces and members, per-family prompt overrides, configuration, and operations. - [SearchProviders (SP) Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/sp-guide): Configuring SearchProviders - SWIRL's connector definitions for enterprise sources. - [RAG Configuration](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/rag-guide): Setting up Retrieval-Augmented Generation in SWIRL. - [Semantic Cache Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/cache-guide): SWIRL 5 Enterprise's separately licensed Semantic Cache - license fields `cache` and `cache_expiration` (a license without `cache` is NOT licensed for it), how documents are cached, version clustering (default similarity threshold 0.95), canonical version election, pinning, freshness/liveness checks, admin settings, and troubleshooting. - [Keycloak Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/keycloak-guide): Keycloak (OIDC) login for SWIRL Enterprise, including brokered access to Microsoft 365 sources. - [Security Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/security-guide): Authentication, authorization, encryption, network, and compliance considerations. - [Monitoring Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/monitoring-guide): Observability, metrics, logs, and health checks. - [Troubleshooting](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/troubleshooting): Common problems and how to resolve them. ## Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, SharePoint - [Microsoft 365 Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/m365-guide): Connecting SWIRL to Microsoft 365 (mail, files, Teams, SharePoint). - [Google Workspace Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/googleworkspace-guide): Connecting SWIRL to Google Workspace (Drive, Gmail, Calendar). - (SharePoint coverage is included within the M365 Guide and the SearchProviders Guide.) ## MCP (Model Context Protocol) - [MCP Server (Community)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/mcp-guide): swirl-mcp-server - Model Context Protocol server for SWIRL Community. Federated search and RAG for Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, and other MCP clients. - [MCP Server (Enterprise)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/mcp-guide-enterprise): SWIRL 5 Enterprise's built-in MCP server (swirl_mcp) - 8 tools (search, search_rag, chat, read_document, score_document, and more), read-only swirl:// resources, stdio and streamable HTTP transports (default port 8675), static-token and OIDC passthrough authentication, license inheritance (no separate MCP license flag). ## Developer - [Developer Guide](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/developer-guide): Architecture, extending SWIRL, building connectors, and integrating SWIRL into other products. - [Developer Reference](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/developer-reference): API and code reference. - [Tutorials - Extending SWIRL](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/tutorials): Step-by-step tutorials for customizing SWIRL. - [Contributions](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/contributions): How to contribute to SWIRL. ## Release notes - [Release Notes (Community)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/release-notes): Latest Community Edition release notes. - [Release Notes (Enterprise)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/release-notes-enterprise): SWIRL 5 highlights and links to all 3.x/4.x release notes. ## Enterprise 4.x archive - [Enterprise 4.x Documentation hub](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/4x/): Archived guides for SWIRL Enterprise 4.x deployments (Quick Start, User Guide, AI Search, AI Search Assistant, MCP proxy, Admin Guide), plus a summary of what changed in SWIRL 5. ## Optional - [Per-release notes archive (4.x)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/release_notes/release-4_4_1): Most recent versioned release notes; siblings exist for 4.4.0, 4.3.0, 4.2.0, 4.1.0, 4.0.0, and the Community 4.3 build. - [Per-release notes archive (3.x)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/release_notes/release-3_9_0): Historical release notes for the 3.x line (3.1.0 through 3.9.0, plus 3.6.0.1 and the legacy release-3 page). - [Sitemap (XML)](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/sitemap.xml): Full URL list for the docs site. - [robots.txt](https://docs.swirlaiconnect.com/robots.txt): Crawl policy. - [SWIRL marketing site](https://swirlaiconnect.com/): Product overview, pricing, case studies, and blog.