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+# Catalog provider — picker discoverability for sandbox-only customs
+
+> **Current design (2026-06-05, plan-translation-forwarding Phase A).** Core
+> exposes a **display-only** catalog hook so a custom integration whose code
+> lives only in a sandbox — never on main's `<config>/custom_components` disk —
+> can be listed and named in the add-integration picker **without spawning a
+> sandbox**. HACS (or any distribution mechanism) fills it. The hook is
+> deliberately separate from the security-critical integration-source resolver.
+
+## The gap
+
+The add-integration picker is built from `integration/descriptions`
+(`async_get_integration_descriptions`, `homeassistant/loader.py`), whose custom
+half is a scan of `<config>/custom_components` on **main's** disk. Under the
+stateless-sandbox model a custom integration's code is fetched at `entry_setup`
+into the sandbox and is **never on main's disk**, so:
+
+- it has **no picker row** (the disk scan never sees it), and
+- even if a row existed, the `title` translation category has nothing to load —
+  the `integration.name` fallback in
+  `_async_get_component_strings` (`homeassistant/helpers/translation.py`) needs a
+  loaded `Integration`, which main cannot build for code it doesn't have.
+
+This is a **discoverability** gap, of which `title` is a subset. Closing it
+needs only a tiny static descriptor per domain — not a sandbox spawn (the picker
+never loads `config`/`selector`, only `title`; those load per-flow once the user
+starts adding the integration, where the Phase B live RPC handles them).
+
+## The hook
+
+```python
+from homeassistant.components.sandbox.catalog import (
+    SandboxIntegrationDescriptor,
+    async_register_sandbox_catalog_provider,
+)
+
+def _catalog() -> list[SandboxIntegrationDescriptor]:
+    return [
+        {
+            "domain": "my_custom",
+            "name": "My Custom Integration",   # load-bearing
+            "config_flow": True,
+            "integration_type": "integration",  # or "helper"
+            "iot_class": "cloud_polling",
+            "single_config_entry": False,
+            # optional; absent -> picker degrades to `name`
+            "title_translations": {"en": "My Custom Integration"},
+        }
+    ]
+
+unregister = async_register_sandbox_catalog_provider(hass, _catalog)
+```
+
+`async_register_sandbox_catalog_provider` is re-exported from the sandbox
+component (parallel to `async_register_sandbox_source_resolver` in
+`sandbox/sources.py`) for a single HACS-facing namespace; the registry itself
+lives in `homeassistant.loader` because core — not the sandbox component —
+consumes it (`async_get_integration_descriptions` and the translation `title`
+fallback). Providers are consulted in registration order; the first to claim a
+domain wins. The returned callback unregisters.
+
+## Contract
+
+- **Separate from the source resolver.** The source resolver
+  (`IntegrationSourceDict`, `sandbox/sources.py`) is lazy, per-domain, and
+  **security-critical**: it pins `ref` to an exact commit sha and core does no
+  network I/O, so it trusts that pin. The catalog is **eager, enumerable, and
+  cosmetic**. Fusing them would drag display strings through the sha-validation
+  path and force the security-critical resolver to also be a full listing API.
+
+- **`name` is load-bearing.** It feeds both the picker row
+  (`integration.name || domainToName(...)` in the frontend) and the `title`
+  fallback. A descriptor without a usable `name` falls back to a prettified
+  domain — acceptable, but worse UX.
+
+- **`title_translations` is optional.** HACS reliably knows the manifest `name`
+  (it parses `manifest.json` to validate installs) but may **not** have the
+  integration's `translations/<lang>.json` indexed — those live in the repo
+  tarball, fetched only at `entry_setup`. When `title_translations[lang]` is
+  absent the picker degrades to `name` (the same fallback chain main already
+  uses). A localized title is a nice-to-have, not a requirement.
+
+- **No validation.** Unlike `ref` (sha-pinned, security-critical), a wrong or
+  missing `name` is cosmetic, so core does **no** strict validation of catalog
+  descriptors. A domain that an on-disk scan also finds keeps the on-disk
+  metadata — the disk scan wins a collision.
+
+- **Display-only scope.** The catalog carries picker metadata, nothing more. It
+  is intentionally **not** the broader "stateless-custom discovery" feature
+  (config-flow allow-listing, schema, etc.); those remain out of scope.
+
+## Relationship to the live path (Phase B)
+
+Phase B already forwards a *running* sandboxed integration's strings over the
+`sandbox/get_translations` RPC, routed by `entry.sandbox` / the in-progress
+`SandboxFlowProxy`. The catalog covers the **cold** picker case where there is
+no entry and no running flow — so no group to route to — and the live RPC would
+return nothing. The two are complementary: catalog for the cold list + name,
+RPC for everything once a flow starts or an entry is loaded.