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Unstructured Foundation is an Early Access product. Unstructured must accept you into the Early Access program before you can begin using Foundation. Add your name to the Early Access interest list.Unstructured is currently accepting a limited number of participants into the Early Access program at its discretion, with plans to expand access to a more general audience in the future.The following information is being provided to give you an advance preview of possible future functionality. Unstructured makes no express claims as to what extent this information will reflect the state of the product upon initial general availability.

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What a source is

A source is a configured connection between Foundation and a file source location. Foundation uses sources to discover, ingest, and index your files. Once a source is set up, Foundation keeps its index current as files change in the source.

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What you can do with sources

Sources are how you tell Foundation which files to index. With sources you can:
  • Connect a source. Foundation indexes all files it can access through the source. Your files then become queryable by your AI tools through the Foundation MCP server.
  • Add sources at any time. Connect Foundation to new sources after initial setup, not only during onboarding.
  • Query source status. Ask your AI tool which sources are active and how many files each has ingested and indexed.
  • Remove a source. Delete a source so its files’ content no longer appears in query results.

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What sources cannot do

Sources are read-only connections: Foundation reads from your sources but never writes to them.
  • No unauthorized access. A source only ingests and indexes files that are accessible to the authorized account.
  • No editable content. The ingest pipeline generates named entities, topics, and summaries. You cannot edit them manually.
  • No source file changes. Connecting, re-authorizing, or removing a source does not affect the files in the source location.
  • No per-file deletion. You can delete all indexed data for a source when you remove it, but you cannot delete individual files from the index.

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Connect to a source

After you connect to your files’ source location, Foundation can begin ingesting and indexing the source’s files. You can then begin interacting with your files’ content through your AI tool.
  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:connect
    • For all other users: Generate a link to connect Unstructured Foundation to a new source.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io/connect
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page does not appear, then click the New Source button to show a page with similar functionality.
  5. Click one of the available sources, and then click Connect.
  6. Follow the on-screen directions to finish connecting to your source.

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Get an email whenever a file ingestion and indexing job changes state

  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:manage.
    • For all other users: Generate a link to manage my Unstructured Foundation sources.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page appears, then click the Return to Foundation link to show the main page instead.
  5. On the sidebar, click Notifications.
  6. Make sure that the box titled Send me updates via email is checked.

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Check a source’s ingestion and indexing job status

  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:manage.
    • For all other users: Show me the status of my Unstructured Foundation jobs.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page appears, then click the Return to Foundation link to show the main page instead.
  5. On the sidebar, click Summary.
  6. Your sources’ ingestion and index job statuses appear.

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Change a source’s settings

To change an existing source’s settings, you must remove the existing source and then create a new, replacement source with your desired settings. You cannot change an existing source’s settings directly after it was initially created.
The following procedure describes removing a source from Foundation.Removing a source from Foundation only removes Foundation’s information that it has stored about that source. Removing a source from Foundation does not delete any files from the original source.Removing Foundation’s information that it has stored about a source is a permanent operation. This information cannot be recovered from Foundation or restored to Foundation after it has been removed. You can re-build Foundation’s information for a source by creating a new, replacement source, as also described in the the following procedure.
  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:manage.
    • For all other users: Generate a link to manage my Unstructured Foundation sources.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page appears, then click the Return to Foundation link to show the main page instead.
  5. On the sidebar, click Summary.
  6. Click the tile that matches the source you want to change.
  7. In the side pane, next to the source’s name, click the ellipsis icon (three dots).
  8. Click Remove source.
  9. Click OK. The source is removed.
  10. Click New Source.
  11. Click the source type that matches the source you just removed.
  12. Click Connect, and follow the on-screen directions to create the new, replacement source with your desired settings.

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Pause or resume indexing a source

Foundation periodically runs an automatic process to check whether any of your source files’ contents have changed. Foundation will then re-ingest and re-index each source file that it determines has changed since its last check. To pause or resume this periodic automatic process, do the following:
  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:manage.
    • For all other users: Generate a link to manage my Unstructured Foundation sources.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page appears, then click the Return to Foundation link to show the main page instead.
  5. On the sidebar, click Summary.
  6. Click the tile that matches the source you want to change.
  7. In the side pane, next to the source’s name, click the ellipsis icon (three dots).
  8. Click Pause indexing or Resume indexing.

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Remove a source

Removing a source from Foundation only removes Foundation’s information that it has stored about that source. Removing a source from Foundation does not delete any files from the original source.
Removing Foundation’s information that it has stored about a source is a permanent operation. This information cannot be recovered from Foundation or restored to Foundation after it has been removed.To have Foundation re-ingest and re-index files from the beginning for a previously removed source, connect to the source again and make sure it matches the settings of the previously removed one.
  1. From your AI tool, prompt with the following:
    • For Claude Code; and for Claude Desktop for Pro, Max, Team, and Enterprise users: /foundation:manage.
    • For all other users: Generate a link to manage my Unstructured Foundation sources.
  2. Click the link that appears in the response. If the link does not appear, go to the following link in your web browser instead: https://foundation.unstructured.io
  3. If prompted, log in to Foundation.
  4. If the Connect sources to use Foundation page appears, then click the Return to Foundation link to show the main page instead.
  5. On the sidebar, click Summary.
  6. Click the tile that matches the source you want to remove.
  7. In the side pane, next to the source’s name, click the ellipsis icon (three dots).
  8. Click Remove source.
  9. Click OK. The source is removed.

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Next steps