Knowledge and RAG
Upload documents
Add PDFs up to 50 MB to an agent's knowledge, what each page costs, and how to replace or remove a document.
Guide2 min readUpdated 23 October 2026
Documents are the quickest way to give an agent a lot of knowledge. In the app you upload PDFs; through the ingest API you can also send plain-text formats.
Before you start
- A PDF with real text in it (if you can select the text in a PDF reader, it will index). Up to 50 MB.
- Enough credits: 5 per page. A 40-page manual costs 200 credits.
Steps
- 1
Open the agent's Knowledge tab
Go to Agents, open the agent and choose Knowledge, then Documents.
- 2
Upload the PDF
Choose the file. SentientOne reads it, counts the pages and charges 5 credits per page before it embeds anything.
- 3
Wait for Ready
Text extraction, chunking and embedding usually take seconds to a minute depending on length. The document shows its status when it's done.
- 4
Test it
Ask a question in the Playground that only the document can answer. The reply's sources should list the file.
You're done when
The document is Ready and a test question returns an answer with the file name in its sources.
File types
| Where | Accepted |
|---|---|
| The app's Documents section | |
POST /v1/ingest/document | PDF, plus .txt, .md, .markdown, .csv, .json, .log, .rst, .html, .htm and any text/* file (a text file counts as one page). Other types get 415 UNSUPPORTED_MEDIA_TYPE. |
Updating a document
Documents can't be re-indexed in place. Delete the old one and upload the new version. The new upload is charged; the deleted one isn't refunded.
If something goes wrong
"No indexable text found in this document"
The PDF is scanned (images of pages) or has no extractable text. Run it through OCR first, or paste the text into the ingest API as a text document.
"Not enough credits: this document has N pages"
The upload needs 5 credits per page and your balance is lower. Buy credits and upload it again. See Buy credits.
The file is rejected as too large
The limit is 50 MB per file. Split the PDF or compress its images.
The agent still doesn't use it
Still stuck?
Email us with what you tried and any request id. A person replies.