Platform documentation map

This page maps the NetBox Labs platform's capabilities to the documentation, so you can find the right docs for the layer you are working in. For the platform itself - what it is and how the pieces fit together - see the NetBox Labs platform on netboxlabs.com.

The foundation: NetBox

Every product and capability builds on NetBox's data model: IPAM, DCIM, circuits and providers, virtualization, and the plugin framework.

• NetBox documentation - the data model, installation, configuration, and APIs
• Deployment options: NetBox Community (open source, free forever), NetBox Cloud (fully managed), and NetBox Enterprise (self-managed, including air-gapped)

Model

• Core data model - facilities, devices, IPAM, circuits, virtualization
• REST API and GraphQL API - every object and relationship, programmatically
• NetBox Custom Objects - model anything without writing a plugin
• NetBox Asset Lifecycle - procurement, deployment, and retirement modeling
• NetBox Data Exchange - curated catalog of device types with lifecycle, thermal, operational, and observability metadata
• Customization - custom fields, export templates, and the plugin framework

See

• NetBox Discovery - agent-based discovery of devices and IP space
• Discovery Agent reference - backends, configuration, and deployment
• Diode - streaming ingestion that normalizes data from any source into NetBox
• NetBox Assurance - operational drift detection and remediation workflows
• NetBox Validation - compliance coverage with 90+ built-in checks

Act

• NetBox Copilot - natural-language querying and AI-assisted changes you review before they execute
• Platform MCP Server - connect external AI agents to NetBox data, with writes routed through governance
• Ansible Collection - inventory and automation driven from NetBox
• Custom scripts - automate workflows inside NetBox
• Configuration rendering - turn canonical intent into device-ready configs
• Webhooks and event rules - push-based triggers for downstream systems
• SDKs - pynetbox and the Diode SDKs for Python and Go

Govern

• NetBox Branching - stage change sets in isolated branches and review them as diffs before merge
• NetBox Changes - explicit change records with configurable, role-aware approval workflows
• NetBox Validation - pre-change checks that block unsafe changes before they merge
• Change logging and journaling - the audit record of every action
• Authentication and permissions - SSO, RBAC, and object-level permissions

Where to go next

• New to NetBox? Start with the learning paths.
• Evaluating deployment options? Compare NetBox Cloud and NetBox Enterprise.
• Building integrations? See Discovery Integrations and the SDKs.