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

# Architecture

> How Poindexter is built — pipelines, plugins, modules, retrieval.

Poindexter is built as a **kernel** — the shared substrate of plugin registry,
DI container, pipeline engine, and settings — that **business modules** (content,
finance) rent, composing **capability** plugins (LLM, image, video, audio, TTS) on
top. Each component runs as an independent process or container and they
communicate exclusively through shared PostgreSQL tables — no direct imports across
those boundaries. The result is a system you can monitor, restart, and reason
about one piece at a time.

For the full mastery-grade walk-through (components, data flow, technology
choices, principles, and the request lifecycle), start with the
[architecture overview](./overview). The cards below jump straight to the
topic you need.

## Core concepts

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="System overview" icon="diagram-project" href="/docs/architecture/overview">
    The full architecture end-to-end. Components, data flow, technology
    choices, and the principles each subsystem upholds.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Multi-agent pipeline" icon="robot" href="/docs/architecture/multi-agent-pipeline">
    Retired redirect — how the writer / critic / gate-reviewer model
    evolved into the `qa.*` rail atoms on the LangGraph `canonical_blog`
    graph\_def.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Anti-hallucination layers" icon="shield-check" href="/docs/architecture/anti-hallucination">
    Three independent layers — prompts, LLM QA, programmatic validator — and
    the six OSS rails (DeepEval ×3, guardrails ×2, Ragas).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Plugin architecture" icon="puzzle-piece" href="/docs/architecture/plugin-architecture">
    Twenty plugin entry-point groups (Tap, Probe, Job, Stage, LLMProvider,
    PublishAdapter, Module, and more) and how they compose.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Retrieval and routing

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="RAG retrieval stack" icon="magnifying-glass" href="/docs/architecture/rag-retrieval-stack">
    LlamaIndex `BaseRetriever` over the existing pgvector embeddings table.
    Hybrid (BM25 + vector + RRF) plus cross-encoder rerank.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Niches and RAG modes" icon="layer-group" href="/docs/architecture/niches-and-rag-modes">
    Per-niche writer modes — TOPIC\_ONLY, CITATION\_BUDGET, STORY\_SPINE,
    TWO\_PASS — and when each is appropriate.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Model selection" icon="dollar-sign" href="/docs/architecture/cost-tier-routing">
    Per-step `*_model` pins. Operators tune the model for each pipeline
    step instead of hardcoding names in code.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Prompt management" icon="file-pen" href="/docs/architecture/prompt-management">
    UnifiedPromptManager — Langfuse-first, then YAML defaults. Every
    production prompt lives in the DB and traces through Langfuse.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Data and infrastructure

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Database schema" icon="database" href="/docs/architecture/database-schema">
    Every table, the modular database service layer, and the migration system.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Module v1" icon="cube" href="/docs/architecture/module-v1">
    Business modules (ContentModule, FinanceModule overlay) — the orthogonal
    axis to capability plugins.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Static export pipeline" icon="cloud-arrow-up" href="/docs/architecture/static-export-pipeline">
    Push-only JSON export to any S3-compatible storage (R2, S3, B2, MinIO).
  </Card>

  <Card title="Worker container filesystem" icon="folder-tree" href="/docs/architecture/worker-container-filesystem">
    Layout inside the worker container — bind mounts, generated assets,
    secret hygiene.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## Specialized topics

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="URL scraper SSRF guard" icon="lock" href="/docs/architecture/url-scraper-ssrf-guard">
    SSRF protection on outbound HTTP — what's blocked and why.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Poindexter as engine" icon="gear" href="/docs/architecture/poindexter-as-engine">
    The "engine plus employees" mental model and where it diverges from a
    classic agent framework.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>