diff --git a/get-started/sample-datasets/index.mdx b/get-started/sample-datasets/index.mdx
index 7e65f005e..d1447644d 100644
--- a/get-started/sample-datasets/index.mdx
+++ b/get-started/sample-datasets/index.mdx
@@ -7,6 +7,8 @@ title: 'Tutorials and example datasets'
 doc_type: 'landing-page'
 ---
 
+import { SampleDatasetExplorer } from '/snippets/components/SampleDatasetExplorer/SampleDatasetExplorer.jsx'
+
 <Tip>
 These tutorials work with any ClickHouse deployment, including [ClickHouse Cloud](/get-started/setup/cloud).
 </Tip>
@@ -20,39 +22,4 @@ In addition, the sample datasets provide a great experience on working with Clic
 learning important techniques and tricks, and seeing how to take advantage of the many powerful
 functions in ClickHouse. The sample datasets include:
 
-{/* The following table is automatically generated at build time 
-by https://github.com/ClickHouse/clickhouse-docs/blob/main/scripts/autogenerate-table-of-contents.sh */}
-
-{/*AUTOGENERATED_START*/}
-| Page | Description |
-|-----|-----|
-| [Amazon customer review](/get-started/sample-datasets/amazon-reviews) | Over 150M customer reviews of Amazon products |
-| [AMPLab Big Data Benchmark](/get-started/sample-datasets/amplab-benchmark) | A benchmark dataset used for comparing the performance of data warehousing solutions. |
-| [Analyzing Stack Overflow data with ClickHouse](/get-started/sample-datasets/stackoverflow) | Analyzing Stack Overflow data with ClickHouse |
-| [Anonymized web analytics](/get-started/sample-datasets/anon-web-analytics-metrica) | Dataset consisting of two tables containing anonymized web analytics data with hits and visits |
-| [Brown University Benchmark](/get-started/sample-datasets/brown-benchmark) | A new analytical benchmark for machine-generated log data |
-| [COVID-19 open data](/get-started/sample-datasets/covid19) | COVID-19 Open-Data is a large, open-source database of COVID-19 epidemiological data and related factors like demographics, economics, and government responses |
-| [dbpedia dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/dbpedia) | Dataset containing 1 million articles from Wikipedia and their vector embeddings |
-| [Environmental sensors data](/get-started/sample-datasets/environmental-sensors) | Over 20 billion records of data from Sensor.Community, a contributors-driven global sensor network that creates Open Environmental Data. |
-| [Foursquare places](/get-started/sample-datasets/foursquare-os-places) | Dataset with over 100 million records containing information about places on a map, such as shops, restaurants, parks, playgrounds, and monuments. |
-| [Geo data using the cell tower dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/cell-towers) | Learn how to load OpenCelliD data into ClickHouse, connect Apache Superset to ClickHouse and build a dashboard based on data |
-| [GitHub events dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/github-events) | Dataset containing all events on GitHub from 2011 to Dec 6 2020, with a size of 3.1 billion records. |
-| [Hacker News dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/hacker-news) | Dataset containing 28 million rows of hacker news data. |
-| [Hacker News vector search dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/hacker-news-vector-search) | Dataset containing 28+ million Hacker News postings & their vector embeddings |
-| [LAION 5B dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/laion5b) | Dataset containing 100 million vectors from the LAION 5B dataset |
-| [Laion-400M dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/laion) | Dataset containing 400 million images with English image captions |
-| [New York Public Library "What's on the Menu?" dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/menus) | Dataset containing 1.3 million records of historical data on the menus of hotels, restaurants and cafes with the dishes along with their prices. |
-| [New York taxi data](/get-started/sample-datasets/nyc-taxi) | Data for billions of taxi and for-hire vehicle (Uber, Lyft, etc.) trips originating in New York City since 2009 |
-| [NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network](/get-started/sample-datasets/noaa) | 2.5 billion rows of climate data for the last 120 yrs |
-| [NYPD complaint data](/get-started/sample-datasets/nypd-complaint-data) | Ingest and query Tab Separated Value data in 5 steps |
-| [OnTime](/get-started/sample-datasets/ontime) | Dataset containing the on-time performance of airline flights |
-| [Star Schema Benchmark (SSB, 2009)](/get-started/sample-datasets/star-schema) | The Star Schema Benchmark (SSB) data set and queries |
-| [Taiwan historical weather datasets](/get-started/sample-datasets/tw-weather) | 131 million rows of weather observation data for the last 128 yrs |
-| [Terabyte click logs from Criteo](/get-started/sample-datasets/criteo) | A terabyte of click logs from Criteo |
-| [The UK property prices dataset](/get-started/sample-datasets/uk-price-paid) | Learn how to use projections to improve the performance of queries that you run frequently using the UK property dataset, which contains data about prices paid for real-estate property in England and Wales |
-| [TPC-DS (2012)](/get-started/sample-datasets/tpcds) | The TPC-DS benchmark data set and queries. |
-| [TPC-H (1999)](/get-started/sample-datasets/tpch) | The TPC-H benchmark data set and queries. |
-| [WikiStat](/get-started/sample-datasets/wikistat) | Explore the WikiStat dataset containing 0.5 trillion records. |
-| [Writing queries in ClickHouse using GitHub data](/get-started/sample-datasets/github) | Dataset containing all of the commits and changes for the ClickHouse repository |
-| [YouTube dataset of dislikes](/get-started/sample-datasets/youtube-dislikes) | A collection of dislikes of YouTube videos. |
-{/*AUTOGENERATED_END*/}
+<SampleDatasetExplorer />
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diff --git a/snippets/components/SampleDatasetExplorer/SampleDatasetExplorer.jsx b/snippets/components/SampleDatasetExplorer/SampleDatasetExplorer.jsx
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..0bde32521
--- /dev/null
+++ b/snippets/components/SampleDatasetExplorer/SampleDatasetExplorer.jsx
@@ -0,0 +1,273 @@
+// SampleDatasetExplorer
+// A 3x2 grid of sample-dataset *categories*. Clicking a category expands it into
+// a grid of cards for that category's child dataset pages, with an animated
+// (staggered fade/scale) transition between the two views.
+//
+// Child pages don't have their own images yet, so they render as icon Cards.
+//
+// NOTE: Mintlify eval's ONLY the exported component function, so every constant
+// (ACCENT, CATEGORIES) and helper MUST live inside the component body — module-level
+// declarations are not in scope at render time and throw "X is not defined".
+
+export const SampleDatasetExplorer = ({ categories }) => {
+  const ACCENT = '#FAFF69';
+
+  // Each category: id, title (also baked into the banner image), an icon used for
+  // its child cards, the two banner images, and the child dataset pages.
+  const CATEGORIES = [
+    {
+      id: 'benchmarks',
+      title: 'Benchmarks',
+      icon: 'gauge',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/benchmarks-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/benchmarks-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'AMPLab Big Data Benchmark', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/amplab-benchmark' },
+        { title: 'Brown University Benchmark', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/brown-benchmark' },
+        { title: 'Star Schema Benchmark (SSB)', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/star-schema' },
+        { title: 'TPC-DS', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/tpcds' },
+        { title: 'TPC-H', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/tpch' },
+      ],
+    },
+    {
+      id: 'geo-location',
+      title: 'Geo & location',
+      icon: 'map-pin',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/geo-location-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/geo-location-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'Cell towers (OpenCelliD)', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/cell-towers' },
+        { title: 'Foursquare places', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/foursquare-os-places' },
+        { title: 'New York taxi data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/nyc-taxi' },
+      ],
+    },
+    {
+      id: 'public-records',
+      title: 'Public records & open data',
+      icon: 'landmark',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/public-records-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/public-records-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'COVID-19 open data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/covid19' },
+        { title: 'NYPD complaint data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/nypd-complaint-data' },
+        { title: 'OnTime (airline flights)', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/ontime' },
+        { title: 'UK property prices', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/uk-price-paid' },
+        { title: "What's on the Menu? (NYPL)", href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/menus' },
+      ],
+    },
+    {
+      id: 'time-series-sensors',
+      title: 'Time series & sensors',
+      icon: 'activity',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/time-series-sensors-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/time-series-sensors-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'Environmental sensors data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/environmental-sensors' },
+        { title: 'NOAA Global Historical Climatology Network', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/noaa' },
+        { title: 'Taiwan historical weather', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/tw-weather' },
+      ],
+    },
+    {
+      id: 'vector-search',
+      title: 'Vector search and embeddings',
+      icon: 'search',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/vector-search-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/vector-search-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'dbpedia dataset', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/dbpedia' },
+        { title: 'Hacker News vector search', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/hacker-news-vector-search' },
+        { title: 'LAION 5B dataset', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/laion5b' },
+        { title: 'Laion-400M dataset', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/laion' },
+      ],
+    },
+    {
+      id: 'web-social',
+      title: 'Web and social analytics',
+      icon: 'globe',
+      imgLight: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/web-social-analytics-light.jpg',
+      imgDark: '/images/sample-datasets-grid/web-social-analytics-dark.jpg',
+      datasets: [
+        { title: 'Amazon customer reviews', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/amazon-reviews' },
+        { title: 'Analyzing Stack Overflow data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/stackoverflow' },
+        { title: 'Anonymized web analytics', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/anon-web-analytics-metrica' },
+        { title: 'Criteo terabyte click logs', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/criteo' },
+        { title: 'GitHub events dataset', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/github-events' },
+        { title: 'Hacker News dataset', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/hacker-news' },
+        { title: 'Querying GitHub data', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/github' },
+        { title: 'WikiStat', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/wikistat' },
+        { title: 'YouTube dataset of dislikes', href: '/get-started/sample-datasets/youtube-dislikes' },
+      ],
+    },
+  ];
+
+  const cats = categories || CATEGORIES;
+
+  const [selectedId, setSelectedId] = useState(null);
+  const selected = cats.find((c) => c.id === selectedId) || null;
+
+  // Theme visibility is handled by explicit `.dark` descendant selectors in the
+  // <style> block below (Mintlify's class strategy — same approach as
+  // IntegrationGrid). Tailwind `dark:` utilities are NOT reliable here: they
+  // compile against the OS media query, so they'd ignore the in-app light/dark
+  // toggle. Note the reversed-colour scheme: light mode shows the *dark* (black)
+  // banner art, dark mode shows the *light* (yellow) art.
+  const Banner = ({ cat, className }) => (
+    <>
+      <img className={`sde-img-dark ${className || ''}`} src={cat.imgDark} alt={cat.title} />
+      <img className={`sde-img-light ${className || ''}`} src={cat.imgLight} alt={cat.title} />
+    </>
+  );
+
+  return (
+    <div className="sde-root my-8">
+      <style dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{ __html: `
+        @keyframes sde-pop {
+          from { opacity: 0; transform: translateY(14px) scale(0.96); }
+          to   { opacity: 1; transform: translateY(0) scale(1); }
+        }
+        @keyframes sde-fade {
+          from { opacity: 0; }
+          to   { opacity: 1; }
+        }
+        .sde-view { animation: sde-fade 0.25s ease both; }
+        /* Reversed scheme: dark (black) art in light mode, light (yellow) art in dark mode.
+           Use explicit .dark selectors — Tailwind dark: utilities follow the OS here. */
+        .sde-root .sde-img-dark { display: block; }
+        .sde-root .sde-img-light { display: none; }
+        .dark .sde-root .sde-img-dark { display: none; }
+        .dark .sde-root .sde-img-light { display: block; }
+        .sde-tile {
+          position: relative;
+          display: block;
+          width: 100%;
+          padding: 0;
+          border: none;
+          background: transparent;
+          border-radius: 0.9rem;
+          overflow: hidden;
+          cursor: pointer;
+          animation: sde-pop 0.4s cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1) both;
+          transition: transform 0.25s cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1), box-shadow 0.25s ease;
+          box-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.12);
+        }
+        .sde-tile:hover {
+          transform: translateY(-4px) scale(1.015);
+          box-shadow: 0 12px 28px rgba(0,0,0,0.22);
+        }
+        .sde-tile:active { transform: translateY(-1px) scale(0.995); }
+        .sde-tile img {
+          width: 100%;
+          height: 100%;
+          object-fit: cover;
+          margin: 0;
+          transition: transform 0.4s cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1);
+        }
+        .sde-tile:hover img { transform: scale(1.04); }
+        /* hover hint overlay */
+        .sde-tile-hint {
+          position: absolute;
+          inset: 0;
+          display: flex;
+          align-items: flex-end;
+          justify-content: space-between;
+          gap: 8px;
+          padding: 12px 14px;
+          background: linear-gradient(to top, rgba(0,0,0,0.55), rgba(0,0,0,0) 55%);
+          opacity: 0;
+          transition: opacity 0.25s ease;
+          pointer-events: none;
+        }
+        .sde-tile:hover .sde-tile-hint { opacity: 1; }
+        .sde-count {
+          font-size: 0.78rem;
+          font-weight: 600;
+          color: #fff;
+        }
+        .sde-explore {
+          font-size: 0.78rem;
+          font-weight: 700;
+          color: ${ACCENT};
+          display: inline-flex;
+          align-items: center;
+          gap: 4px;
+        }
+        .sde-child { animation: sde-pop 0.45s cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1) both; }
+        .sde-back {
+          display: inline-flex;
+          align-items: center;
+          gap: 6px;
+          font-size: 0.875rem;
+          font-weight: 600;
+          padding: 6px 12px;
+          border-radius: 9999px;
+          cursor: pointer;
+          background: transparent;
+          border: 1px solid rgba(156,163,175,0.5);
+          color: inherit;
+          transition: all 0.2s ease;
+        }
+        .sde-back:hover { border-color: ${ACCENT}; }
+        .sde-detail-banner {
+          width: 100%;
+          max-height: 220px;
+          object-fit: cover;
+          border-radius: 0.9rem;
+          margin: 0 0 1.5rem 0;
+          box-shadow: 0 8px 24px rgba(0,0,0,0.18);
+          animation: sde-pop 0.4s cubic-bezier(0.22, 1, 0.36, 1) both;
+        }
+      `}} />
+
+      {!selected ? (
+        <div className="sde-view">
+          <div className="grid grid-cols-1 sm:grid-cols-2 lg:grid-cols-3 gap-6">
+            {cats.map((cat, i) => (
+              <button
+                key={cat.id}
+                type="button"
+                className="sde-tile"
+                style={{ animationDelay: `${i * 60}ms`, aspectRatio: '4 / 3' }}
+                onClick={() => setSelectedId(cat.id)}
+                aria-label={`Explore ${cat.title} datasets`}
+              >
+                <Banner cat={cat} />
+                <span className="sde-tile-hint">
+                  <span className="sde-count">
+                    {cat.datasets.length} dataset{cat.datasets.length === 1 ? '' : 's'}
+                  </span>
+                  <span className="sde-explore">
+                    Explore
+                    <svg width="14" height="14" viewBox="0 0 16 16" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
+                      <path d="M6 4l4 4-4 4" stroke="currentColor" strokeWidth="1.6" strokeLinecap="round" strokeLinejoin="round" />
+                    </svg>
+                  </span>
+                </span>
+              </button>
+            ))}
+          </div>
+        </div>
+      ) : (
+        <div className="sde-view" key={selected.id}>
+          <div className="mb-6">
+            <button type="button" className="sde-back" onClick={() => setSelectedId(null)}>
+              <svg width="14" height="14" viewBox="0 0 16 16" fill="none" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg">
+                <path d="M10 4L6 8l4 4" stroke="currentColor" strokeWidth="1.6" strokeLinecap="round" strokeLinejoin="round" />
+              </svg>
+              All categories
+            </button>
+          </div>
+
+          <Banner cat={selected} className="sde-detail-banner" />
+
+          <div className="grid grid-cols-1 sm:grid-cols-2 lg:grid-cols-3 gap-6">
+            {selected.datasets.map((ds, i) => (
+              <div className="sde-child" key={ds.href} style={{ animationDelay: `${i * 50}ms` }}>
+                <Card title={ds.title} icon={selected.icon} href={ds.href} />
+              </div>
+            ))}
+          </div>
+        </div>
+      )}
+    </div>
+  );
+};
\ No newline at end of file