# What is Mintlify? (/what-is-mintlify)

<!-- agent-signals: reading_time_min: 2 · est_tokens: 1036 · updated: 2026-07-30 -->
Related: [Introduction](/index.md), [Quickstart](/quickstart.md), [AI-native documentation](/ai-native.md), [Credit pricing](/credits.md), [Product updates](/changelog.md), [Migrate to Mintlify](/migration.md)

Mintlify hosts your content as a website. Your content lives in a Git repository as MDX files, and Mintlify builds and deploys your site automatically when you push a change.

## The three parts of a Mintlify project [#the-three-parts-of-a-mintlify-project]

**Your repository** is the source of truth for your documentation. It contains an MDX file for every page and a `docs.json` file that configures your site's navigation, theme, and settings. You can use your own GitHub or GitLab repository, or let Mintlify create one for you during onboarding.

**The Mintlify dashboard** connects to your repository and lets you manage your site. Use it to monitor deployments, configure settings, manage your team, and edit content directly in the browser.

**Your site**, powered by Mintlify. Mintlify builds your site from your repository and deploys it at a `.mintlify.site` URL by default. When you're ready, you can point a custom domain to your site.

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    WE["Web editor"] --> Repo[("Git repository")]
    Local["Local editor"] --> Repo
    Repo -- "Webhook" --> Build["Mintlify build"]
    Build --> Site["Live site"]
```

## Editing content [#editing-content]

There are two ways to edit your content, and you can switch between them freely.

* **Web editor**: Edit and publish pages in your browser. The editor commits changes back to your Git repository automatically.
* **CLI and local editor**: Clone your repository, run `mint dev` to preview your site locally, then push changes to deploy.

Multiple team members can work in either workflow at the same time, using Git branches to manage parallel changes. Anyone who can push to your repository can update your content.

## AI features [#ai-features]

Built-in AI features help people and AI find and understand your content, and help you maintain your content.

The **assistant** lets your users ask questions and get cited answers from your content.

The **agent** helps your team create and maintain content by generating updates from scheduled automations, pull requests merging in your feature repository, or Slack threads.

See [AI-native documentation](/ai-native) for an overview of all AI features.

## Next steps [#next-steps]

<Card title="Quickstart" icon="<svg xmlns=&#x22;http://www.w3.org/2000/svg&#x22; viewBox=&#x22;0 0 24 24&#x22; fill=&#x22;none&#x22;><path d=&#x22;M8 10.1667L12.1232 6.04344C13.2481 4.91858 13.8105 4.35614 14.4312 3.90314C15.7047 2.9737 17.1818 2.36187 18.7395 2.11858C19.4988 2 20.2942 2 21.885 2C21.9681 2 22 2.03812 22 2.11504C22 3.70584 22 4.50125 21.8814 5.26046C21.6381 6.81818 21.0263 8.29527 20.0969 9.56878C19.6439 10.1895 19.0814 10.7519 17.9566 11.8768L13.8333 16&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linecap=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-linejoin=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/><path d=&#x22;M10.341 8.09838C8.63808 8.09838 6.49778 7.73765 4.9043 8.39769C3.73671 8.88132 2.87754 10.0012 2 10.8787L5.30597 12.2955C6.18208 12.671 5.64651 13.7766 5.50147 14.5018C5.33985 15.3099 5.34886 15.3397 5.93158 15.9224L8.07758 18.0684C8.6603 18.6511 8.69008 18.6602 9.49816 18.4985C10.2234 18.3535 11.329 17.8179 11.7044 18.694L13.1213 22C13.9988 21.1225 15.1187 20.2633 15.6023 19.0957C16.2624 17.5022 15.9016 15.3619 15.9016 13.659&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linejoin=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/><path d=&#x22;M12 20L11 21&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linecap=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-linejoin=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/><path d=&#x22;M4 12L3 13&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linecap=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-linejoin=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/><path d=&#x22;M15 4.07996C16.2 4.25996 17.46 4.73996 18.1614 5.45996C19.0576 6.25211 19.68 7.31996 19.92 8.99996&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linecap=&#x22;square&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/><path d=&#x22;M17.94 6.06006L16.5 7.50006&#x22; stroke=&#x22;currentColor&#x22; stroke-linecap=&#x22;round&#x22; stroke-width=&#x22;1.5&#x22;/></svg>" href="/quickstart">
  Deploy your first documentation site in minutes.
</Card>