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Use Documents in Chats & Workflows

Once you have a Document Source (and its documents have been processed), you can use it to ground chats and workflow runs.

Chats​

Chat requests can reference a source via sourceId (the document source code). This tells the system which document collection to use as context.

Minimal example:

curl -X POST "https://app.noema.ai/api/chat/assistant/$ASSISTANT_ID" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "sourceId": "my-source",
    "messages": [
      {"role": "user", "content": "Summarize our handbook."}
    ]
  }'

Where to look:

  • API reference: /api/chat/assistant/{assistant_id}
  • The request body includes sourceId.

Workflows​

Workflow runs support attaching files directly.

Endpoint: POST /api/workflow/run

  • Request format is multipart/form-data
  • Attach files using the files field

When you attach files to a workflow run, the backend uploads them to a file-backed source for that run and triggers ingestion so they become available during execution.

Practical notes:

  • files can contain one or many uploaded files.
  • The platform creates a hidden, file-backed source (container keyed by the workflow run id) and ingests the uploaded documents.
  • During the run, the workflow can reference those ingested documents by name/parameter depending on the workflow’s inputs.
  1. Create a Document Source (for persistent knowledge): Document Sources
  2. Upload documents: Upload & Manage Documents
  3. Process/index documents: Ingestion & Processing
  4. Reference the source from chats/workflows via sourceId