> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.polyvia.ai/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Polyvia
> Multimodal Document Retrieval API
**Polyvia: Multimodal Document Retrieval API.**
We're releasing **Polyvia 1**, as two products:
* **Polyvia API**: Multimodal Document Retrieval API (for developers of AI agents).
* **Polyvia Platform**: Search & Exploration over multimodal docs (for knowledge workers in enterprises).
Agentic, file-by-file search (e.g. Claude Code, Claude Cowork, Codex) works only
up to \~100 multimodal files — past that it's too slow. So at scale, when you're
connecting an enterprise's large internal datasets, you still need retrieval. And
the multimodal infra tools today stop at visual extractors / PDF parsers (e.g.
Reducto, LlamaIndex). We built Polyvia Engine — an end-to-end pipeline for multimodal document
retrieval: **VLM Visual Extractor → Multimodal Knowledge Ontology →
Self-Improving Retrieval Agent**.
We index your unstructured & visual & multimodal docs (PDFs, charts, slides, complex
tables, infographics, scans, handwriting, invoices, and more) into multimodal knowledge
ontology, and provide you with a retrieval endpoint.
## Start in 30 seconds
**Get your API key** in the **Polyvia Platform** — open **API** in the sidebar and
click **Create API Key**. It's shown only once, and all keys start with `poly_`.
```bash pip theme={null}
pip install polyvia
```
```bash npm theme={null}
npm install polyvia
```
Ingest a batch into a group, then ask one question across the whole corpus.
```python Python theme={null}
from polyvia import Polyvia
client = Polyvia(api_key="poly_")
# Ingest a batch into a group, then ask one question across all of it.
items = client.ingest.batch(
["q1.pdf", "q2.pdf", "q3.pdf", "q4.pdf"],
group="FY24 Earnings",
)
for item in items:
client.ingest.wait(item.task_id)
# Answers cite the exact page in each document.
print(client.query("How did revenue trend across the four quarters?",
group="FY24 Earnings").answer)
```
```ts TypeScript theme={null}
import { Polyvia } from "polyvia";
const client = new Polyvia({ apiKey: "poly_" });
// Ingest a batch into a group, then ask one question across all of it.
const items = await client.ingest.batch(
["q1.pdf", "q2.pdf", "q3.pdf", "q4.pdf"],
{ group: "FY24 Earnings" },
);
await Promise.all(items.map((i) => client.ingest.wait(i.task_id)));
// Answers cite the exact page in each document.
const answer = await client.query(
"How did revenue trend across the four quarters?",
{ group: "FY24 Earnings" },
);
console.log(answer.answer);
```
**See also**
Get a key, ingest a batch, scope queries to a group — in a couple of minutes.
Typed client with sync + async, MCP and agent-tools support.
## Polyvia 1
**Polyvia 1** ships as two products — the **Polyvia API** and the **Polyvia Platform**.
Multimodal Document Retrieval API, for developers of AI agents.
Search & Exploration over multimodal docs, for knowledge workers in enterprises.
**See also**
Faster ingestion, Office/Google formats, knowledge-graph view, and more — see what's shipped.
## Polyvia Engine
One pipeline turns scattered visual & multimodal files into a queryable knowledge
layer — then answers in sub-200ms, grounded in a visual citation.
Reads the hardest visual documents — charts, infographics, complex multi-page
tables, slides, scans, handwriting, pictures — into structured facts.
Disambiguates and connects every extracted fact into one semantic ontology
over your whole corpus — a single, queryable source of truth.
Agentic, multi-hop retrieval that self-improves over time. Every answer
grounded in a visual citation tied to the exact source page.
**See also**
Documents, groups, ingestion, querying and citations.
Every modality and file type Polyvia ingests.
Import from Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive, Notion, S3 and Slack.
## Build with Polyvia
Typed client with sync + async, MCP and agent-tools support.
Multimodal Document Retrieval API — for developers of AI agents. Ingest,
groups, query and usage.
Fully-typed ESM/CJS client for Node and modern JS.
Connect Polyvia to Claude, Cursor and other MCP tools.
Drop-in skills for Claude Code, Cursor and agent environments.
## Stay connected