---
title: Two Planes
description: The Knowledge plane and Capability plane — what each one does and why they are separate.
canonical_url: https://next-ai-ready.vercel.app/en/docs/concepts/two-planes
url: https://next-ai-ready.vercel.app/en/docs/concepts/two-planes
last_updated: 2026-06-02
updated: 2026-06-02
author: next-ai-ready team
summary: The Knowledge plane and Capability plane — what each one does and why they are separate.
topics: [architecture, knowledge-plane, capability-plane]
---

# Two Planes

`next-ai-ready` organizes AI-readiness into two distinct planes. Understanding the split is key to using the framework effectively.

## Knowledge Plane

The Knowledge Plane makes your **content** readable by AI. It takes your MDX files and produces artifacts that LLMs, AI search engines, and RAG pipelines can consume:

- `llms.txt` — a site-wide index following the [llmstxt.org](https://llmstxt.org) proposal.
- `/<route>.md` — clean Markdown for each page (JSX stripped).
- `/<route>.ai.json` — structured JSON with title, summary, topics, FAQ, entities, and chunks.
- JSON-LD — `Article`, `FAQPage`, `WebPage`, and `BreadcrumbList` blocks for search engines.

The pipeline is **deterministic**: same input files plus same config produce byte-identical output. No LLM calls, no API keys, no randomness.

See [Knowledge Plane](/docs/concepts/knowledge-plane) for details.

## Capability Plane

The Capability Plane makes your **features** callable by AI agents. It takes your `defineAction()` definitions and produces:

- `/openapi.json` — OpenAPI 3.1 spec for all public actions.
- `/tools.json` — tool definitions in OpenAI function-calling format.
- `/.well-known/ai-plugin.json` — plugin manifest for AI gateways.
- `POST /api/actions/<name>` — HTTP endpoint for each action.
- `/api/mcp` — MCP server (HTTP + stdio) for Claude Desktop, Cursor, and other MCP clients.

Each action has a Zod schema for input validation, explicit visibility control (`public: true` required), and optional auth hooks.

See [Capability Plane](/docs/concepts/capability-plane) for details.

## Why two planes?

The split reflects two fundamentally different problems:

1. **Content is read-only.** AI consumers ingest your docs; they do not modify them. The pipeline is static, cacheable, and deterministic.
2. **Features are interactive.** AI agents call your actions on behalf of users; the result depends on runtime state. The pipeline needs validation, auth, and error handling.

Keeping them separate means you can adopt one without the other. A docs-only site uses just the Knowledge Plane. An API-only site uses just the Capability Plane. Most sites use both.