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At a glance

  • Availability: Experimental (how to enable).
  • Authentication: API key.
  • Connection: The key from UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY is sent as the unstructured-api-key header.
  • Provider documentation: Authentication reference.

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Credentials

Set these per environment. See Connect an integration.

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Setup

  1. Create an Unstructured account: Sign up at https://platform.unstructured.io - new accounts include a free trial of the serverless API, enough for testing without billing.
  2. Get an API key: In the Unstructured UI, open the API Keys section, create a key, and copy it.
  3. Store the key: Add UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY=… to your .env file. Requests authenticate with the unstructured-api-key header (no Bearer prefix).
  4. Verify access: Run the Partition Document tool with a small text or PDF file and strategy auto. A 401 means the key is wrong; a 422 usually means the files field is missing or unreadable.

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Provider notes

  • The Partition endpoint processes one local file per request and does not fetch remote URLs - download the file first and pass its content
  • Your account may be issued a dedicated API URL; the default https://api.unstructuredapp.io/general/v0/general works for standard serverless accounts
  • hi_res and vlm strategies are slower and cost more per page than fast/auto but handle complex layouts and tables much better
  • Use chunking_strategy by_title with max_characters tuned to your embedding model for RAG-ready chunks
Provider API reference.

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Tools

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Verify the connection

Call a read tool such as unstructured__partition_document with arguments for your account. Confirm that the result comes from the intended account or workspace before enabling write tools.