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

# What is Rancher Oracle?

> A hosted RAG service purpose-built for Kubernetes troubleshooting, powered by 48K+ real issue resolutions.

Rancher Oracle is a **hosted RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) service** purpose-built for Kubernetes troubleshooting. It is the AI backend that powers Pastures AI's grounded diagnostics.

## How Oracle works

<Steps>
  <Step title="User asks a question">
    A query is submitted through the Pastures AI drawer (e.g., "Why is my etcd cluster degraded?").
  </Step>

  <Step title="Semantic search">
    Oracle embeds the query and performs semantic search across a corpus of 48,000+ real issue resolutions from 13 open-source repositories.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Context retrieval">
    The top-k matching issues, pull requests, and discussions are retrieved from the vector database.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Grounded generation">
    The retrieved context is passed to the LLM, which generates a response grounded in real resolutions — not generic knowledge.
  </Step>

  <Step title="Response with citations">
    The response is returned with source citations linking to the actual GitHub issues that informed the answer.
  </Step>
</Steps>

## Key differentiators

<CardGroup cols={2}>
  <Card title="Source citations" icon="link">
    Every response cites actual GitHub issues — not hallucinated references. Users can click through to verify the source.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Fleet correlation" icon="server">
    Oracle detects when the same issue is active across multiple clusters, surfacing fleet-wide patterns automatically.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Confidence scoring" icon="gauge">
    Each response includes a confidence score reflecting how well the query matches known resolutions in the corpus.
  </Card>

  <Card title="Fix verification" icon="circle-check">
    After a fix is applied, Oracle can monitor the cluster and verify the issue is resolved.
  </Card>
</CardGroup>

## What Oracle is not

* **Oracle is not the extension.** The Pastures extension is fully open source (Apache 2.0) and works without Oracle by connecting to any OpenAI-compatible model.
* **Oracle is not a general-purpose LLM.** It is specifically tuned for Kubernetes and Rancher ecosystem troubleshooting.
* **Oracle is not required.** You can use Pastures in demo mode or with your own model. Oracle is the optional paid service that adds grounded responses, citations, and fleet intelligence.

## Architecture

```
┌─────────────────┐     POST /api/diagnose     ┌──────────────────┐
│  Pastures AI     │ ──────────────────────────► │  Pastures Engine │
│  (Rancher ext)   │ ◄────────────────────────── │  (Oracle)        │
└─────────────────┘     diagnosis + citations    └──────┬───────────┘
                                                        │
                                                 ┌──────▼───────────┐
                                                 │  Vector DB        │
                                                 │  48K+ resolutions │
                                                 └──────────────────┘
```

The extension sends queries to the Engine via `POST /api/diagnose`. The Engine performs RAG against the corpus and returns a structured diagnosis with source citations. See the [API Reference](/rancher-oracle/api-reference) for full endpoint documentation.