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Type: partition Subtype: vlm For more information about how the various partitioning strategies balance output quality, speed, and cost, see Partitioning.

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Usage guidance

Use the Auto strategy when source documents have unknown or varied characteristics; for example, documents containing a mix of forms, tables, scanned pages, and extractable text. Each page is independently evaluated and routed to VLM, High Res, or Fast partitioning. Pages with tables are routed to High Res to support downstream enrichment nodes such as Table to HTML. For uniformly image-heavy or visually complex documents, use the VLM strategy instead.

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Settings

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provider
string
VLM provider to use if Auto routing selects the VLM strategy. Allowed values: anthropic, auto, bedrock, openai, vertexai. Default: anthropic.
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provider_api_key
string
If specified, overrides the default API key used for VLM provider calls. Default: none (uses Unstructured’s internal default).
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model
string
VLM model to use if Auto routing selects the VLM strategy. Default: claude-sonnet-4-20250514.For a full list of the models available in Unstructured, see Available models.
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output_format
string
Format of the partitioner response. Allowed values: text/html, application/json. Default: text/html.
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format_html
boolean
If true, applies Beautiful Soup’s prettify method to any HTML generated by the VLM partitioner, adding indentation for readability. Default: true.
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unique_element_ids
boolean
If true, assigns UUIDs to element IDs, guaranteeing uniqueness (useful when used as database primary keys). If false, assigns a SHA-256 hash of the element’s text as its ID. Default: true.
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is_dynamic
boolean
required
Must be true to enable dynamic routing of pages to Fast, High Res, or VLM as needed for optimal performance and cost.
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allow_fast
boolean
required
Must be true to allow routing of pages to Fast partitioning for better performance and cost savings.
auto_partitioner_workflow_node = WorkflowNode(
    name="Partitioner",
    subtype="vlm",
    type="partition",
    settings={
        "provider": "<provider>",
        "provider_api_key": None,
        "model": "<model>",
        "output_format": "<output-format>",
        "format_html": <True|False>,
        "unique_element_ids": <True|False>,
        "is_dynamic": True,
        "allow_fast": True
    }
)

{
    "name": "Partitioner",
    "type": "partition",
    "subtype": "vlm",
    "settings": {
        "provider": "<provider>",
        "provider_api_key": null,
        "model": "<model>",
        "output_format": "<output-format>",
        "format_html": <true|false>,
        "unique_element_ids": <true|false>,
        "is_dynamic": true,
        "allow_fast": true
    }
}