Walk through a Playground or project diagram, follow the evidence, and choose the next question to investigate.
AI Guide pairs a guided explanation with your project diagram. Start with the whole architecture, then investigate a resource or relationship without losing the map.
1
Open a project
Open Playground to explore a sample, or open your own project. Wait for the diagram to load in Preview.
2
Choose AI Guide
Select AI Guide beside AI Chat, or select Guide this view with AI in the diagram toolbar.
3
Choose your starting point
Select Complete architecture tour for an overview. Choose Explore a specific question for a focused investigation; the available questions depend on the project’s evidence.
4
Follow the evidence
Read the answer, inspect the highlighted resources, then use Next or the chapter selector. Open the evidence details before acting on a claim.
You are onboarding to a project or preparing an architecture walkthrough.
Follow the eight chapters in order, then revisit the areas relevant to your review.
A chapter within the tour
You already know the project and want to revisit one topic.
Use the chapter selector or chapter progress control. Check that chapter’s coverage before drawing conclusions.
Explore a specific question
You want to investigate a particular relationship, resource, or concern.
Choose an available topic and, when asked, an evidenced focal resource. The choices depend on the loaded project.
A chapter is a topic within the overall guide. Its explanation can contain several steps; narration progress describes the current audio, not completion of the entire guide. Moving between chapters and listening to a chapter are separate controls.
Start here for resource groups, nested boundaries, and the broad shape of the project. A resource appearing inside a group shows containment; it does not establish the team that owns it.
The AI Guide entry point beside the Playground Architecture view. Local product capture; the tour has not started.
Use this view to inspect the relationships recorded between resources. Follow edge direction and relationship type rather than treating nearby nodes as connected.
The same Playground in Dependency view, with AI Guide available for a focused investigation. Local product capture.
A dependency diagram describes the relationships available in the project. It does not prove that traffic is flowing, that a service is healthy, or that a failure will propagate along every edge.
The opening chapter identifies the load balancer and virtual machine. Match the evidence names in the panel to the highlighted resources; dimmed nodes remain context.
Purpose and scope in a running local Playground tour: the load balancer is the current focus.
Open the persona menu to choose the emphasis for your audience. The selected persona does not change the underlying project evidence.
The persona menu offers Executive, Architect, Security, and Operations.
Expand Chapters and evidence to see the full tour and each topic’s coverage. Use this to decide where to investigate next.
All eight chapters remain visible, including topics with partial or unavailable evidence.
Open a citation to see the specific claim it supports. This example is general provider documentation, rather than proof of the project’s runtime behavior.
A documentation citation shows its source, supported claim, and review date.
What evidence describes entry points and request paths?
Compute and application roles
Which resources run the workload?
Data and state
Where is durable state represented?
Network and security
Which network boundaries and controls are evidenced?
Resilience and operations
What supports availability and operational recovery?
Cost, risks, and actions
What should you review or verify next?
The complete tour keeps these topics visible even when evidence is missing. Supported, Partial, and Unavailable describe coverage for a chapter—not a health score for your infrastructure.Choose Executive, Architect, Security, or Operations to change the emphasis. A persona does not add facts that are absent from the project.
The guide frames relevant resources as the explanation progresses. A broad view establishes context; a closer view helps you inspect the resources being discussed. Highlights distinguish the current focus from surrounding context.
What you see
How to read it
A wider frame
Use the surrounding groups and resources to orient yourself.
A closer frame and highlighted resources
Match the explanation’s evidence resource names to the diagram.
Dimmed surrounding resources
They remain context; dimming does not mean deleted, unhealthy, or irrelevant to every question.
A focused Dependency view
Follow the recorded relationships. The guide holds the dependency layout steady while you inspect it.
You remain in control. Pan, zoom, or inspect a resource when you need more detail; diagram interaction pauses automatic advancement. Continue with the available playback control or Next when ready. Use Reset View if you lose your place, and close the guide to return to the starting view.Camera focus changes the presentation, not your cloud configuration. A visually clear frame does not establish that a relationship carries live traffic or that a resource is healthy.
Each chapter connects a question and answer to resources or other available evidence. Read Why it matters for the implication, and Next check for the verification to perform outside the explanation. Expand the evidence section when you need the supporting detail.Distinguish three things:
Project evidence: resources, properties, and relationships present in the loaded project.
Documentation: general provider behavior that helps explain a service; it does not prove your deployment has that behavior configured.
Missing evidence: something the guide cannot establish from the available source.
For example, seeing an availability set does not prove the application can survive every failure. Check its configuration and the application’s recovery behavior before making that claim.
Question: what this chapter is trying to establish.
Answer: the explanation supported by the available context.
Evidence: the named resources and applicable documentation behind the explanation.
Why it matters: the implication for your review.
Next check: the configuration, source, or operational evidence to verify next.
For the Playground, a useful sequence is to identify the load balancer and virtual machines, inspect their resource boundaries, then switch to Dependency view to investigate recorded relationships. A follow-up check might be to inspect the load-balancing rule and backend configuration in the source. Do not conclude that requests succeed merely because those resources appear in the diagram.
Use Back and Next to move at your own pace. Playback and listening controls let you follow the explanation hands-free where narration is available. Interacting with the map can pause the guide so you can inspect a resource.If browser voice is used, its sound quality can differ and timing may be estimated. You can still read the guide without narration. Closing the guide restores the starting diagram view; the guide does not change your cloud resources.
Browser narration playing in the local Playground tour, with Why it matters and Next check visible. The audio progress sits above the playback controls.
The next check in this example asks you to confirm the workload’s purpose and scope with its owner. It gives you an action to take after listening; the diagram alone cannot establish that business context.
Navigate among topics in the full tour. Previewing a position on the progress control is not the same as starting that chapter.
Back / Next
Step through the explanation manually.
Playback controls
Start or continue automatic progression, and pause when you want to inspect the map.
Listen / Stop
Use the available narration controls for the explanation. You can review the written guide without audio.
Narration progress
Track the current audio. Browser-voice timing may be estimated.
Narration is intended to accompany the chapter explanation while you watch the map. It is not a screen reader for every button, citation field, or collapsed technical detail. Open evidence details when you need the exact supporting information.
Overall purpose, implications, and decisions that need follow-up.
Architect
Resource boundaries, relationships, and design questions.
Security
Evidenced controls, exposure questions, and verification gaps.
Operations
Availability, recovery, and operational checks.
Changing the persona changes the explanation’s emphasis, not the infrastructure, evidence coverage, or available facts. Treat a guide as a starting point for a review—not a replacement for workload-owner knowledge or operational testing.
