trustgraph/docs/tech-specs/extraction-flows.md

layout	title	parent
default	Extraction Flows	Tech Specs

Extraction Flows

This document describes how data flows through the TrustGraph extraction pipeline, from document submission through to storage in knowledge stores.

Overview

┌──────────┐     ┌─────────────┐     ┌─────────┐     ┌────────────────────┐
│ Librarian│────▶│ PDF Decoder │────▶│ Chunker │────▶│ Knowledge          │
│          │     │ (PDF only)  │     │         │     │ Extraction         │
│          │────────────────────────▶│         │     │                    │
└──────────┘     └─────────────┘     └─────────┘     └────────────────────┘
                                          │                    │
                                          │                    ├──▶ Triples
                                          │                    ├──▶ Entity Contexts
                                          │                    └──▶ Rows
                                          │
                                          └──▶ Document Embeddings

Content Storage

Blob Storage (S3/Minio)

Document content is stored in S3-compatible blob storage:

• Path format: doc/{object_id} where object_id is a UUID
• All document types stored here: source documents, pages, chunks

Metadata Storage (Cassandra)

Document metadata stored in Cassandra includes:

• Document ID, title, kind (MIME type)
• object_id reference to blob storage
• parent_id for child documents (pages, chunks)
• document_type: "source", "page", "chunk", "answer"

Inline vs Streaming Threshold

Content transmission uses a size-based strategy:

• < 2MB: Content included inline in message (base64-encoded)
• ≥ 2MB: Only document_id sent; processor fetches via librarian API

Stage 1: Document Submission (Librarian)

Entry Point

Documents enter the system via librarian's add-document operation:

1. Content uploaded to blob storage
2. Metadata record created in Cassandra
3. Returns document ID

Triggering Extraction

The add-processing operation triggers extraction:

• Specifies document_id, flow (pipeline ID), collection (target store)
• Librarian's load_document() fetches content and publishes to flow input queue

Schema: Document

Document
├── metadata: Metadata
│   ├── id: str              # Document identifier
│   ├── user: str            # Tenant/user ID
│   ├── collection: str      # Target collection
│   └── metadata: list[Triple]  # (largely unused, historical)
├── data: bytes              # PDF content (base64, if inline)
└── document_id: str         # Librarian reference (if streaming)

Routing: Based on kind field:

• application/pdf → document-load queue → PDF Decoder
• text/plain → text-load queue → Chunker

Stage 2: PDF Decoder

Converts PDF documents into text pages.

Process

1. Fetch content (inline data or via document_id from librarian)
2. Extract pages using PyPDF
3. For each page:
   • Save as child document in librarian ({doc_id}/p{page_num})
   • Emit provenance triples (page derived from document)
   • Forward to chunker

Schema: TextDocument

TextDocument
├── metadata: Metadata
│   ├── id: str              # Page URI (e.g., https://trustgraph.ai/doc/xxx/p1)
│   ├── user: str
│   ├── collection: str
│   └── metadata: list[Triple]
├── text: bytes              # Page text content (if inline)
└── document_id: str         # Librarian reference (e.g., "doc123/p1")

Stage 3: Chunker

Splits text into chunks at configured size.

Parameters (flow-configurable)

• chunk_size: Target chunk size in characters (default: 2000)
• chunk_overlap: Overlap between chunks (default: 100)

Process

1. Fetch text content (inline or via librarian)
2. Split using recursive character splitter
3. For each chunk:
   • Save as child document in librarian ({parent_id}/c{index})
   • Emit provenance triples (chunk derived from page/document)
   • Forward to extraction processors

Schema: Chunk

Chunk
├── metadata: Metadata
│   ├── id: str              # Chunk URI
│   ├── user: str
│   ├── collection: str
│   └── metadata: list[Triple]
├── chunk: bytes             # Chunk text content
└── document_id: str         # Librarian chunk ID (e.g., "doc123/p1/c3")

Document ID Hierarchy

Child documents encode their lineage in the ID:

• Source: doc123
• Page: doc123/p5
• Chunk from page: doc123/p5/c2
• Chunk from text: doc123/c2

Stage 4: Knowledge Extraction

Multiple extraction patterns available, selected by flow configuration.

Pattern A: Basic GraphRAG

Two parallel processors:

kg-extract-definitions

• Input: Chunk
• Output: Triples (entity definitions), EntityContexts
• Extracts: entity labels, definitions

kg-extract-relationships

• Input: Chunk
• Output: Triples (relationships), EntityContexts
• Extracts: subject-predicate-object relationships

Pattern B: Ontology-Driven (kg-extract-ontology)

• Input: Chunk
• Output: Triples, EntityContexts
• Uses configured ontology to guide extraction

Pattern C: Agent-Based (kg-extract-agent)

• Input: Chunk
• Output: Triples, EntityContexts
• Uses agent framework for extraction

Pattern D: Row Extraction (kg-extract-rows)

• Input: Chunk
• Output: Rows (structured data, not triples)
• Uses schema definition to extract structured records

Schema: Triples

Triples
├── metadata: Metadata
│   ├── id: str
│   ├── user: str
│   ├── collection: str
│   └── metadata: list[Triple]  # (set to [] by extractors)
└── triples: list[Triple]
    └── Triple
        ├── s: Term              # Subject
        ├── p: Term              # Predicate
        ├── o: Term              # Object
        └── g: str | None        # Named graph

Schema: EntityContexts

EntityContexts
├── metadata: Metadata
└── entities: list[EntityContext]
    └── EntityContext
        ├── entity: Term         # Entity identifier (IRI)
        ├── context: str         # Textual description for embedding
        └── chunk_id: str        # Source chunk ID (provenance)

Schema: Rows

Rows
├── metadata: Metadata
├── row_schema: RowSchema
│   ├── name: str
│   ├── description: str
│   └── fields: list[Field]
└── rows: list[dict[str, str]]   # Extracted records

Stage 5: Embeddings Generation

Graph Embeddings

Converts entity contexts into vector embeddings.

Process:

1. Receive EntityContexts
2. Call embeddings service with context text
3. Output GraphEmbeddings (entity → vector mapping)

Schema: GraphEmbeddings

GraphEmbeddings
├── metadata: Metadata
└── entities: list[EntityEmbeddings]
    └── EntityEmbeddings
        ├── entity: Term         # Entity identifier
        ├── vector: list[float]  # Embedding vector
        └── chunk_id: str        # Source chunk (provenance)

Document Embeddings

Converts chunk text directly into vector embeddings.

Process:

1. Receive Chunk
2. Call embeddings service with chunk text
3. Output DocumentEmbeddings

Schema: DocumentEmbeddings

DocumentEmbeddings
├── metadata: Metadata
└── chunks: list[ChunkEmbeddings]
    └── ChunkEmbeddings
        ├── chunk_id: str        # Chunk identifier
        └── vector: list[float]  # Embedding vector

Row Embeddings

Converts row index fields into vector embeddings.

Process:

1. Receive Rows
2. Embed configured index fields
3. Output to row vector store

Stage 6: Storage

Triple Store

• Receives: Triples
• Storage: Cassandra (entity-centric tables)
• Named graphs separate core knowledge from provenance:
  • "" (default): Core knowledge facts
  • urn:graph:source: Extraction provenance
  • urn:graph:retrieval: Query-time explainability

Vector Store (Graph Embeddings)

• Receives: GraphEmbeddings
• Storage: Qdrant, Milvus, or Pinecone
• Indexed by: entity IRI
• Metadata: chunk_id for provenance

Vector Store (Document Embeddings)

• Receives: DocumentEmbeddings
• Storage: Qdrant, Milvus, or Pinecone
• Indexed by: chunk_id

Row Store

• Receives: Rows
• Storage: Cassandra
• Schema-driven table structure

Row Vector Store

• Receives: Row embeddings
• Storage: Vector DB
• Indexed by: row index fields

Metadata Field Analysis

Actively Used Fields

Field	Usage
metadata.id	Document/chunk identifier, logging, provenance
metadata.user	Multi-tenancy, storage routing
metadata.collection	Target collection selection
document_id	Librarian reference, provenance linking
chunk_id	Provenance tracking through pipeline

<<<<<<< HEAD

Potentially Redundant Fields

Field	Status
metadata.metadata	Set to [] by all extractors; document-level metadata now handled by librarian at submission time

=======

Removed Fields

Field	Status
metadata.metadata	Removed from Metadata class. Document-level metadata triples are now emitted directly by librarian to triple store at submission time, not carried through the extraction pipeline.

e3bcbf73 (The metadata field (list of triples) in the pipeline Metadata class)

Bytes Fields Pattern

All content fields (data, text, chunk) are bytes but immediately decoded to UTF-8 strings by all processors. No processor uses raw bytes.

Flow Configuration

Flows are defined externally and provided to librarian via config service. Each flow specifies:

• Input queues (text-load, document-load)
• Processor chain
• Parameters (chunk size, extraction method, etc.)

Example flow patterns:

• pdf-graphrag: PDF → Decoder → Chunker → Definitions + Relationships → Embeddings
• text-graphrag: Text → Chunker → Definitions + Relationships → Embeddings
• pdf-ontology: PDF → Decoder → Chunker → Ontology Extraction → Embeddings
• text-rows: Text → Chunker → Row Extraction → Row Store