External Knowledge API

Endpoint

POST <your-endpoint>/retrieval

Header

This API is used to connect to a knowledge base that is independent of the Dify and maintained by developers. For more details, please refer to Connecting to an External Knowledge Base. You can use API-Key in the Authorization HTTP Header to verify permissions. The authentication logic is defined by you in the retrieval API, as shown below:

Authorization: Bearer {API_KEY}

Request Body Elements

The request accepts the following data in JSON format.

Property	Required	Type	Description	Example value
knowledge_id	TRUE	string	Your knowledge’s unique ID	AAA-BBB-CCC
query	TRUE	string	User’s query	What is Dify?
retrieval_setting	TRUE	object	Knowledge’s retrieval parameters	See below
metadata_condition	FALSE	Object	Original array filtering	See below

The retrieval_setting property is an object containing the following keys:

Property	Required	Type	Description	Example value
top_k	TRUE	int	Maximum number of retrieved results	5
score_threshold	TRUE	float	The score limit of relevance of the result to the query, scope: 0~1	0.5

The metadata_condition property is an object containing the following keys:

Attribute	Required	Type	Description	Example Value
logical_operator	No	String	Logical operator, values can be and or or, default is and	and
conditions	Yes	Array (Object)	List of conditions	See below

Each object in the conditions array contains the following keys:

Attribute	Required	Type	Description	Example Value
name	Yes	Array (String)	Names of the metadata to filter	["category", "tag"]
comparison_operator	Yes	String	Comparison operator	contains
value	No	String	Comparison value, can be omitted when the operator is empty, not empty, null, or not null	"AI"

Supported comparison_operator operators:

• contains: Contains a certain value
• not contains: Does not contain a certain value
• start with: Starts with a certain value
• end with: Ends with a certain value
• is: Equals a certain value
• is not: Does not equal a certain value
• empty: Is empty
• not empty: Is not empty
• =: Equals
• ≠: Not equal
• >: Greater than
• <: Less than
• ≥: Greater than or equal to
• ≤: Less than or equal to
• before: Before a certain date
• after: After a certain date

Request Syntax

POST <your-endpoint>/retrieval HTTP/1.1
-- header
Content-Type: application/json
Authorization: Bearer your-api-key
-- data
{
    "knowledge_id": "your-knowledge-id",
    "query": "your question",
    "retrieval_setting":{
        "top_k": 2,
        "score_threshold": 0.5
    }
}

Response Elements

If the action is successful, the service sends back an HTTP 200 response.

The following data is returned in JSON format by the service.

Property	Required	Type	Description	Example value
records	TRUE	List[Object]	A list of records from querying the knowledge base.	See below

The records property is a list object containing the following keys:

Property	Required	Type	Description	Example value
content	TRUE	string	Contains a chunk of text from a data source in the knowledge base.	Dify:The Innovation Engine for GenAI Applications
score	TRUE	float	The score of relevance of the result to the query, scope: 0~1	0.5
title	TRUE	string	Document title	Dify Introduction
metadata	FALSE	json	Contains metadata attributes and their values for the document in the data source.	See example

Response Syntax

HTTP/1.1 200
Content-type: application/json
{
    "records": [{
                    "metadata": {
                            "path": "s3://dify/knowledge.txt",
                            "description": "dify knowledge document"
                    },
                    "score": 0.98,
                    "title": "knowledge.txt",
                    "content": "This is the document for external knowledge."
            },
            {
                    "metadata": {
                            "path": "s3://dify/introduce.txt",
                            "description": "dify introduce"
                    },
                    "score": 0.66,
                    "title": "introduce.txt",
                    "content": "The Innovation Engine for GenAI Applications"
            }
    ]
}

Errors

If the action fails, the service sends back the following error information in JSON format:

Property	Required	Type	Description	Example value
error_code	TRUE	int	Error code	1001
error_msg	TRUE	string	The description of API exception	Invalid Authorization header format. Expected ‘Bearer <api-key>’ format.

The error_code property has the following types:

Code	Description
1001	Invalid Authorization header format.
1002	Authorization failed
2001	The knowledge does not exist

HTTP Status Codes

AccessDeniedException The request is denied because of missing access permissions. Check your permissions and retry your request. HTTP Status Code: 403

InternalServerException An internal server error occurred. Retry your request. HTTP Status Code: 500

Development Example

You can learn how to develop external knowledge base plugins through the following video tutorial using LlamaCloud as an example:

For more information about how it works, please refer to the plugin’s GitHub repository.

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