---
title: Knowledge bases
description: Add documents and websites to a knowledge base, and have agents search them and cite their sources.
updated: 2026-10-29
---

> All VIABLE docs, for people and their agents: https://developers.viablelab.org/llms.txt

# Knowledge bases

A knowledge base holds documents and websites your agents search and cite. Use one when answers must come from your own material, such as a syllabus or a library's guides.

Knowledge bases live in [Build → Knowledge](/dashboard/knowledge). Agents search only knowledge bases in their own project.

::: figure stage-knowledge

## Add documents and websites

::: steps
1. **Make it.** Click **New knowledge base**, name it, and choose how it searches (below).
2. **Add files.** On **Files**, drop files or a folder, up to 15 MB each. **Paste text** adds notes or an FAQ.
3. **Add websites.** On **Websites**, choose **Specific pages**, **A whole website** or **Pages linked from one page**.
4. **Choose how often to re-check.** **Check for changes** runs from **Daily** to **Yearly**, or **Only when I sync**. The default is **Monthly**.
:::

Files can be PDF, Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Markdown, text, CSV, HTML, JSON or images. **Specific pages** and **A whole website** take up to 20,000 pages per import. **Pages linked from one page** takes up to 1,000.

> [!TIP]
> For LibGuides, use **A whole website** with **Also add each page's sub-pages** on. Its sitemap lists only each guide's first page.

Indexing runs in the background, and **Retry failed** tries failures again. Pages are fetched without JavaScript. Scanned PDFs without a text layer, and pages that need JavaScript, produce no text.

## Choose how it searches

| Search | How it works | Best for |
| --- | --- | --- |
| **Hybrid** | Keywords plus meaning, reranked | Paraphrased questions, and questions in other languages |
| **Keyword only** | Keywords, with no AI calls | Predictable results on consistent terms |

## Settings that change answers

In the knowledge base's **Settings**:

- **Passage size**: Short, Standard or Long (about 600, 1,200 or 2,400 characters).
- **Leave out text a website repeats on its pages**: drops navigation and footers from passages.
- **Let readers open cited files**: cited uploaded files link to the file for 7 days. Leave it off for internal or licensed files, and readers see only their names. Web pages always link.

## How agents search

Two steps search, and they suit different questions.

- A **Knowledge** step searches once and passes on numbered passages, 5 by default and up to 20. Put `{{search.context}}` in an LLM step's instructions. Tell it to answer only from those sources and cite them as [n]. Branch on `{{search.count}}`, which is 0 when nothing matched. The **Answer from my documents** template works this way.
- An **Agent** step with **Use knowledge** searches as often as it needs and reads whole sections. Use it for lists, comparisons and questions that span several sources.

## Citations

Citations are numbered in the order a reply mentions them, one per page or file. On a chat page, each reply shows its sources.

**Test search** shows exactly which passages an agent would receive for a question. **Build an agent with it** starts the agent designer with this knowledge base chosen.

::: cards
- [Steps](/docs/build/steps): the Knowledge, LLM and Agent steps in context.
- [VETTING](/docs/build/vetting): have a reviewer check replies against your sources.
- [Chat pages for websites](/docs/build/chat-pages): what visitors see of your sources.
:::