# Welcome to Spice.ai

The **Spice.ai Cloud Platform** is an AI application and agent cloud — an AI-backend-as-a-service with composable, ready-to-use building blocks including high-speed SQL query, LLM inference, vector search, and RAG, built on cloud-scale, managed [Spice.ai OSS](https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai).

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This documentation covers the **Spice.ai Cloud Platform**.

For the self-hostable **Spice.ai OSS** runtime, visit [**docs.spiceai.org**](https://docs.spiceai.org).
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<table data-view="cards"><thead><tr><th></th><th></th><th></th><th data-hidden data-card-target data-type="content-ref"></th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>🚀</strong></td><td><strong>Get Started</strong></td><td>Sign up and run your first query in minutes</td><td><a href="https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/README.md">https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/README.md</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>⚡</strong></td><td><strong>Federated SQL Query</strong></td><td>Query across any data source with one SQL interface</td><td><a href="../features/federated-sql-query">federated-sql-query</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>🤖</strong></td><td><strong>AI Gateway</strong></td><td>OpenAI-compatible API for LLM inference</td><td><a href="../features/ai-gateway">ai-gateway</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>🔍</strong></td><td><strong>Search &#x26; Retrieval</strong></td><td>Vector and hybrid search for RAG workflows</td><td><a href="../features/search-and-retrieval">search-and-retrieval</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>🔌</strong></td><td><strong>Data Connectors</strong></td><td>Connect to 30+ databases, warehouses, and lakes</td><td><a href="../building-blocks/data-connectors">data-connectors</a></td></tr><tr><td><strong>📊</strong></td><td><strong>Monitoring</strong></td><td>Observe performance with Grafana, Datadog, and more</td><td><a href="https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/monitoring/README.md">https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/monitoring/README.md</a></td></tr></tbody></table>

## What You Can Do

With the **Spice.ai Cloud Platform** you can:

* **Query and accelerate data** — Run high-performance SQL queries across multiple data sources with results optimized for AI applications and agents.
* **Use AI models** — Perform LLM inference with OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, and more for chat, completion, and generative AI workflows.
* **Build agentic AI apps** — Combine data, models, search, and tools into production-grade AI agent backends.
* **Collaborate on Spicepods** — Share, fork, and manage datasets, models, embeddings, evals, and tools in a collaborative hub indexed by [spicerack.org](https://spicerack.org).

## Use Cases

| Use Case                                                               | Description                                                |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------- |
| [Agentic AI Apps](https://docs.spice.ai/use-cases/agentic-ai-apps)     | Build AI agent backends with unified data and model access |
| [Database CDN](https://docs.spice.ai/use-cases/database-cdn)           | Cache and accelerate hot data for low-latency applications |
| [Data Lakehouse](https://docs.spice.ai/use-cases/data-lakehouse)       | Federated queries across warehouses, lakes, and databases  |
| [Enterprise Search](https://docs.spice.ai/use-cases/enterprise-search) | Semantic search across enterprise data sources             |
| [Enterprise RAG](https://docs.spice.ai/use-cases/enterprise-rag)       | Retrieval-augmented generation with your own data          |

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**Quick Start**

Get up and running in minutes:

1. [Sign in with GitHub](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/portal-login.md)
2. [Create a Spice app](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/getting-started/portal-login-1.md)
3. [Add a dataset and query data](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/step-2-add-dataset-and-query-data.md)
4. [Add an AI model and chat](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/step-3-add-ai-model-and-chat-with-your-app.md)

<a href="https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/getting-started/get-started/README.md" class="button primary" data-icon="rocket-launch">Get started</a> <a href="https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/api/sql-query/README.md" class="button secondary" data-icon="terminal">API reference</a>
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{% code title="query.py" overflow="wrap" %}

```python
from spicepy import Client

client = Client("YOUR_API_KEY")
reader = client.query(
    "SELECT * FROM my_table LIMIT 10"
)
df = reader.read_pandas()
print(df)
```

{% endcode %}
{% endcolumn %}
{% endcolumns %}

## Community & Support

* **Slack** — Ask questions and get help from the team at [spice.ai/slack](https://spice.ai/slack).
* **GitHub** — File issues and contribute at [github.com/spiceai/spiceai](https://github.com/spiceai/spiceai).
* **Enterprise support** — [Paid plans](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/pricing/plans.md) include priority support with an SLA.
* **Help Center** — Browse the [Help Center](https://github.com/spicehq/docs/blob/trunk/help/README.md) for troubleshooting, guides, and FAQs.


---

# Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation

If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question.

Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter:

```
GET https://docs.spice.ai/getting-started/readme.md?ask=<question>
```

The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language.
The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation.

Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.