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@@ -35,3 +35,79 @@ Ensure that the following configuration variables are set in your environment pr
 
 
 For detailed explanation on how things work, check out [Nuxt.js docs](https://nuxtjs.org).
+
+## External dependencies:
+
+#### Sparc-api 
+**Source:** https://github.com/nih-sparc/sparc-api/  \
+**Summary:** Python backend  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Sparc-app's back end  \
+**Critical:** yes  
+
+#### Flatmaps
+**Source:** unknown  \
+**Summary:** Neural path map  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Displaying neruon maps  \
+**Critical:** Critcal to the /maps and /flatmap-viewer pages  
+
+#### Pennsieve Discover API
+**Source:** https://developer.pennsieve.io/api/index.html  \
+**Summary:** API endpoint for the Pennsieve Discover data management platform  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Retrieving dataset metadata   \
+**Critical:** yes  
+
+#### Pennsieve API
+**Source:** https://developer.pennsieve.io/api/index.html  \
+**Summary:** API endpoint for the Pennsieve  data management platform  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Retrieving dataset metadata and files  \
+**Critical:** yes  
+
+#### Zipit
+**Source:** unknown  \
+**Summary:** Zips files  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Zipping files  \
+**Critical:** Critical for mulitple file downloads  
+
+#### Contentful
+**Source:** https://www.contentful.com/  \
+**Summary:** Content management platfrom  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Contains a lot of content displayed on sparc-app. Allows changes to be made without having to modify the code  \
+**Critical:** yes  
+
+#### Algolia
+**Source:** https://www.algolia.com/  \
+**Summary:** Search service  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Stores scicrunch and discover data to make it quickly searchable. (Algolia searches come from the front end for sparc-app)  \
+**Critical:** yes  
+
+
+#### Biolucida 
+**Source:** https://www.mbfbioscience.com/biolucida  \
+**Summary:** Image viewer and image repository  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Displaying images and image metadata  \
+**Critical:** Critical for image display  
+
+#### pub.orcid.org 
+**Source:** https://pub.orcid.org/v3.0/ \
+**Summary:** -  \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Populating contributor info for datasets \
+**Critical:** yes
+
+#### DOI Citation Formatter
+**Source:** https://citation.crosscite.org/ \
+**Summary:** - Online tool for making citations from DOI's \
+**Used on sparc-app for:** generating dataset citations  \
+**Critical:** yes
+
+#### Readme.io
+**Source:** https://readme.io \
+**Summary:** - Documentation platform
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Populating search help results page on portal (probably more to come once we figure out what other pages we also want on the app that we will pull from readme)  \
+**Critical:** Likely not critical, but still being added to the site
+
+#### Amazon Cognito
+**Source:** https://aws.amazon.com/cognito/ \
+**Summary:** - Login and authentication API
+**Used on sparc-app for:** Login and authentication  \
+**Critical:** yes
+