Unstructured Pipelines operations overview

The Unstructured Pipelines workflow designer features a no-code user interface for transforming your unstructured data into data that is ready for retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). The Pipelines operations enable a full range of partitioning, chunking, embedding, and enrichment options for your files and data. It is designed to batch-process files and data in remote locations; send processed results to various storage, databases, and vector stores; and use the latest and highest-performing models. The Pipelines operations has built-in logic to deliver the highest quality results at the lowest cost. These operations automate pipelines and support documentation, reporting, and recovery.

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Getting started

Choose one of the following options to get started with the Pipelines operations:

• Local files quickstart: Uses the Pipelines operations to partition, chunk, embed, and enrich local files. It requires Python and the Unstructured Python SDK to be installed on your local machine.
• Remote files quickstart: Uses a Google Colab notebook with embedded Python to call the Pipelines operations, turning input files stored remotely in Dropbox into structured data, delivering the results to a remote Pinecone serverless index. It requires no locally installed software.

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Unstructured Python SDK

Learn how to install and set up the Unstructured Python SDK. Watch the following 4-minute video to learn how to use the Python SDK to call the Pipelines operations to create connectors. Watch the following 4-minute video to learn how to use the Python SDK to call the Pipelines operations to create workflows and jobs. Open the Dropbox-to-Pinecone notebook that covers many of the concepts that are shown in the preceding videos. The Pipelines operations enable you to work with connectors, workflows, and jobs in Unstructured Pipelines.

• A source connector ingests files or data into Unstructured from a source location.
• A destination connector sends the processed data from Unstructured to a destination location.
• A workflow defines how Unstructured will process the data.
• A job runs a workflow at a specific point in time.

For general information about these objects, see:

• Connectors
• Workflows
• Jobs

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REST endpoints

The Pipelines operations are callable from a set of Representational State Transfer (REST) endpoints, which you can call through standard REST-enabled utilities, tools, programming languages, packages, and libraries. The examples, shown later on this page and on related pages, describe how to call the Pipelines operations with curl and Postman. You can adapt this information as needed for your preferred programming languages and libraries, for example by using the requests library with Python. Learn how to get your Unstructured API URL and API key to call the REST endpoints.

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curl and Postman

Learn how to get your Unstructured API URL and API key to call the REST endpoints through curl and Postman. The following Postman examples use variables, which you can set as follows:

1. In Postman, on your workspace’s sidebar, click Environments.
2. Click Globals.
3. Create two global variables with the following settings:
   • Variable: UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL
   • Type: default
   • Initial value: Your Unstructured API URL value.
   • Current value: Your Unstructured API URL value.
   
   
   • Variable: UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY
   • Type: secret
   • Initial value: Your Unstructured API key value.
   • Current value: Your Unstructured API key value.
4. Click Save.

These variables enable you to more easily run the following examples in Postman and help prevent you from storing Postman collections that contain sensitive URLs and API keys in public source code repositories. Unstructured offers a Postman collection that you can import into Postman to make Pipelines operations requests through a graphical user interface.

1. Install Postman.
2. Sign in to Postman.
3. In your workspace, click Import.
4. In the Paste cURL, Raw text or URL box, enter the following URL, and then press Enter: For all Pipelines operations requests:
   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Unstructured-IO/docs-samples/main/postman/Unstructured-REST-API-Workflow-Endpoint.postman_collection.json
   
   For local-file processing job related operations only:
   https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Unstructured-IO/docs-samples/main/postman/Unstructured-REST-API-Local-File-Jobs.postman_collection.json
   
   Each local-file processing job is limited to 10 files, and each file is limited to 50 MB in size.If you need to launch a series of local-file processing jobs in rapid succession, you must wait at least one second between launch requests. Otherwise, you will receive a rate limit error.A maximum of five local-file processing jobs can be running in your Unstructured account. If you launch a new local-file processing job but 5 existing local-file processing jobs are still running, the new local-file processing job will remain in a scheduled state until one of the five existing local-file processing jobs is done running.
5. On the sidebar, click Collections.
6. Expand Unstructured REST API - Workflow Endpoints.
7. Select the request that you want to use.
8. As applicable, modify the URL as needed to specify any required resource IDs for the request.
9. On the Headers tab, next to unstructured-api-key, enter your Unstructured API key value in the Value column. As applicable, add, remove, or modify any other required headers for the request.
10. As applicable, on the Params tab, add, remove, or modify any required parameters for the request.
11. As applicable, on the Body tab, add, remove, or modify the required request body for the request.
12. Click Send.
13. To save the response, in the response area, click the ellipses, and then click Save response to file.

To get your Unstructured API key, do the following:

1. If you do not already have an Unstructured account, sign up for free. After you sign up, you are automatically signed in to your new Unstructured Let’s Go account, at https://platform.unstructured.io.
   To sign up for a Business account instead, contact Unstructured Sales, or learn more.
2. If you have an Unstructured Let’s Go, Pay-As-You-Go, or Business SaaS account and are not already signed in, sign in to your account at https://platform.unstructured.io.
   For other types of Business accounts, see your Unstructured account administrator for sign-in instructions, or request support.
3. Get your Unstructured API key:
   a. After you sign in to your Unstructured Let’s Go, Pay-As-You-Go, or Business account, click API Keys on the sidebar.
   
   For a Business account, before you click API Keys, make sure you have selected the organizational workspace you want to create an API key for. Each API key works with one and only one organizational workspace. Learn more.
   b. Click Generate API Key.
   c. Follow the on-screen instructions to finish generating the key.
   d. Click the Copy icon next to your new key to add the key to your system’s clipboard. If you lose this key, simply return and click the Copy icon again.
   

The Pipelines operations enable you to work with connectors, workflows, and jobs in Unstructured Pipelines.

• A source connector ingests files or data into Unstructured from a source location.
• A destination connector sends the processed data from Unstructured to a destination location.
• A workflow defines how Unstructured will process the data.
• A job runs a workflow at a specific point in time.

For general information about these objects, see:

• Connectors
• Workflows
• Jobs

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Restrictions

The following Unstructured SDKs, tools, and libraries do not work with the Pipelines operations:

• The Unstructured JavaScript/TypeScript SDK
• Local single-file POST requests to the legacy Unstructured Partition Endpoint
• The Unstructured open source Python library
• The Unstructured Ingest CLI
• The Unstructured Ingest Python library

The following Unstructured API URL is also not supported: https://api.unstructuredapp.io/general/v0/general (the default legacy Unstructured Partition Endpoint URL).

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Next steps