Skip to main content

RagTool

Description

The RagTool is designed to answer questions by leveraging the power of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) through CrewAI’s native RAG system. It provides a dynamic knowledge base that can be queried to retrieve relevant information from various data sources. This tool is particularly useful for applications that require access to a vast array of information and need to provide contextually relevant answers.

Example

The following example demonstrates how to initialize the tool and use it with different data sources:
Code

Supported Data Sources

The RagTool can be used with a wide variety of data sources, including:
  • 📰 PDF files
  • 📊 CSV files
  • 📃 JSON files
  • 📝 Text
  • 📁 Directories/Folders
  • 🌐 HTML Web pages
  • 📽️ YouTube Channels
  • 📺 YouTube Videos
  • 📚 Documentation websites
  • 📝 MDX files
  • 📄 DOCX files
  • 🧾 XML files
  • 📬 Gmail
  • 📝 GitHub repositories
  • 🐘 PostgreSQL databases
  • 🐬 MySQL databases
  • 🤖 Slack conversations
  • 💬 Discord messages
  • 🗨️ Discourse forums
  • 📝 Substack newsletters
  • 🐝 Beehiiv content
  • 💾 Dropbox files
  • 🖼️ Images
  • ⚙️ Custom data sources

Parameters

The RagTool accepts the following parameters:
  • summarize: Optional. Whether to summarize the retrieved content. Default is False.
  • adapter: Optional. A custom adapter for the knowledge base. If not provided, a CrewAIRagAdapter will be used.
  • config: Optional. Configuration for the underlying CrewAI RAG system. Accepts a RagToolConfig TypedDict with optional embedding_model (ProviderSpec) and vectordb (VectorDbConfig) keys. All configuration values provided programmatically take precedence over environment variables.

Adding Content

You can add content to the knowledge base using the add method:
Code

Agent Integration Example

Here’s how to integrate the RagTool with a CrewAI agent:
Code

Advanced Configuration

You can customize the behavior of the RagTool by providing a configuration dictionary:
Code

Embedding Model Configuration

The embedding_model parameter accepts a crewai.rag.embeddings.types.ProviderSpec dictionary with the structure:

Supported Providers

main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): OpenAI API key
  • model_name (str): Model to use. Default: text-embedding-ada-002. Options: text-embedding-3-small, text-embedding-3-large, text-embedding-ada-002
  • dimensions (int): Number of dimensions for the embedding
  • organization_id (str): OpenAI organization ID
  • api_base (str): Custom API base URL
  • api_version (str): API version
  • default_headers (dict): Custom headers for API requests
Environment Variables:
  • OPENAI_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_KEY: api_key
  • OPENAI_ORGANIZATION_ID or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_ORGANIZATION_ID: organization_id
  • OPENAI_MODEL_NAME or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • OPENAI_API_BASE or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_BASE: api_base
  • OPENAI_API_VERSION or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_API_VERSION: api_version
  • OPENAI_DIMENSIONS or EMBEDDINGS_OPENAI_DIMENSIONS: dimensions
main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): Cohere API key
  • model_name (str): Model to use. Default: large. Options: embed-english-v3.0, embed-multilingual-v3.0, large, small
Environment Variables:
  • COHERE_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_API_KEY: api_key
  • EMBEDDINGS_COHERE_MODEL_NAME: model_name
main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): VoyageAI API key
  • model (str): Model to use. Default: voyage-2. Options: voyage-3, voyage-3-lite, voyage-code-3, voyage-large-2
  • input_type (str): Type of input. Options: document (for storage), query (for search)
  • truncation (bool): Whether to truncate inputs that exceed max length. Default: True
  • output_dtype (str): Output data type
  • output_dimension (int): Dimension of output embeddings
  • max_retries (int): Maximum number of retry attempts. Default: 0
  • timeout (float): Request timeout in seconds
Environment Variables:
  • VOYAGEAI_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_API_KEY: api_key
  • VOYAGEAI_MODEL or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_MODEL: model
  • VOYAGEAI_INPUT_TYPE or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_INPUT_TYPE: input_type
  • VOYAGEAI_TRUNCATION or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_TRUNCATION: truncation
  • VOYAGEAI_OUTPUT_DTYPE or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_OUTPUT_DTYPE: output_dtype
  • VOYAGEAI_OUTPUT_DIMENSION or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_OUTPUT_DIMENSION: output_dimension
  • VOYAGEAI_MAX_RETRIES or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_MAX_RETRIES: max_retries
  • VOYAGEAI_TIMEOUT or EMBEDDINGS_VOYAGEAI_TIMEOUT: timeout
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): Ollama model name (e.g., llama2, mistral, nomic-embed-text)
  • url (str): Ollama API endpoint URL. Default: http://localhost:11434/api/embeddings
Environment Variables:
  • OLLAMA_MODEL or EMBEDDINGS_OLLAMA_MODEL: model_name
  • OLLAMA_URL or EMBEDDINGS_OLLAMA_URL: url
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): Bedrock model ID. Default: amazon.titan-embed-text-v1. Options: amazon.titan-embed-text-v1, amazon.titan-embed-text-v2:0, cohere.embed-english-v3, cohere.embed-multilingual-v3
  • session (Any): Boto3 session object for AWS authentication
Environment Variables:
  • AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID: AWS access key
  • AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY: AWS secret key
  • AWS_REGION: AWS region (e.g., us-east-1)
main.py
Config Options:
  • deployment_id (str): Required - Azure OpenAI deployment ID
  • api_key (str): Azure OpenAI API key
  • api_base (str): Azure OpenAI resource endpoint
  • api_version (str): API version. Example: 2024-02-01
  • model_name (str): Model name. Default: text-embedding-ada-002
  • api_type (str): API type. Default: azure
  • dimensions (int): Output dimensions
  • default_headers (dict): Custom headers
Environment Variables:
  • AZURE_OPENAI_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_API_KEY: api_key
  • AZURE_OPENAI_ENDPOINT or EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_API_BASE: api_base
  • EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_DEPLOYMENT_ID: deployment_id
  • EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_API_VERSION: api_version
  • EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_API_TYPE: api_type
  • EMBEDDINGS_AZURE_DIMENSIONS: dimensions
main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): Google AI API key
  • model_name (str): Model name. Default: gemini-embedding-001. Options: gemini-embedding-001, text-embedding-005, text-multilingual-embedding-002
  • task_type (str): Task type for embeddings. Default: RETRIEVAL_DOCUMENT. Options: RETRIEVAL_DOCUMENT, RETRIEVAL_QUERY
Environment Variables:
  • GOOGLE_API_KEY, GEMINI_API_KEY, or EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_API_KEY: api_key
  • EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_GENERATIVE_AI_TASK_TYPE: task_type
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): Model name. Default: textembedding-gecko. Options: text-embedding-004, textembedding-gecko, textembedding-gecko-multilingual
  • project_id (str): Google Cloud project ID. Default: cloud-large-language-models
  • region (str): Google Cloud region. Default: us-central1
  • api_key (str): API key for authentication
Environment Variables:
  • GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS: Path to service account JSON file
  • GOOGLE_CLOUD_PROJECT or EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_VERTEX_PROJECT_ID: project_id
  • EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_VERTEX_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_VERTEX_REGION: region
  • EMBEDDINGS_GOOGLE_VERTEX_API_KEY: api_key
main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): Jina AI API key
  • model_name (str): Model name. Default: jina-embeddings-v2-base-en. Options: jina-embeddings-v3, jina-embeddings-v2-base-en, jina-embeddings-v2-small-en
Environment Variables:
  • JINA_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_JINA_API_KEY: api_key
  • EMBEDDINGS_JINA_MODEL_NAME: model_name
main.py
Config Options:
  • url (str): Full URL to HuggingFace inference API endpoint
Environment Variables:
  • HUGGINGFACE_URL or EMBEDDINGS_HUGGINGFACE_URL: url
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): HuggingFace model ID. Default: hkunlp/instructor-base. Options: hkunlp/instructor-xl, hkunlp/instructor-large, hkunlp/instructor-base
  • device (str): Device to run on. Default: cpu. Options: cpu, cuda, mps
  • instruction (str): Instruction prefix for embeddings
Environment Variables:
  • EMBEDDINGS_INSTRUCTOR_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_INSTRUCTOR_DEVICE: device
  • EMBEDDINGS_INSTRUCTOR_INSTRUCTION: instruction
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): Sentence Transformers model name. Default: all-MiniLM-L6-v2. Options: all-mpnet-base-v2, all-MiniLM-L6-v2, paraphrase-multilingual-MiniLM-L12-v2
  • device (str): Device to run on. Default: cpu. Options: cpu, cuda, mps
  • normalize_embeddings (bool): Whether to normalize embeddings. Default: False
Environment Variables:
  • EMBEDDINGS_SENTENCE_TRANSFORMER_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_SENTENCE_TRANSFORMER_DEVICE: device
  • EMBEDDINGS_SENTENCE_TRANSFORMER_NORMALIZE_EMBEDDINGS: normalize_embeddings
main.py
Config Options:
  • preferred_providers (list[str]): List of ONNX execution providers in order of preference
Environment Variables:
  • EMBEDDINGS_ONNX_PREFERRED_PROVIDERS: preferred_providers (comma-separated list)
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): OpenCLIP model architecture. Default: ViT-B-32. Options: ViT-B-32, ViT-B-16, ViT-L-14
  • checkpoint (str): Pretrained checkpoint name. Default: laion2b_s34b_b79k. Options: laion2b_s34b_b79k, laion400m_e32, openai
  • device (str): Device to run on. Default: cpu. Options: cpu, cuda
Environment Variables:
  • EMBEDDINGS_OPENCLIP_MODEL_NAME: model_name
  • EMBEDDINGS_OPENCLIP_CHECKPOINT: checkpoint
  • EMBEDDINGS_OPENCLIP_DEVICE: device
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_name (str): Text2Vec model name from HuggingFace. Default: shibing624/text2vec-base-chinese. Options: shibing624/text2vec-base-multilingual, shibing624/text2vec-base-chinese
Environment Variables:
  • EMBEDDINGS_TEXT2VEC_MODEL_NAME: model_name
main.py
Config Options:
  • api_key (str): Roboflow API key. Default: "" (empty string)
  • api_url (str): Roboflow inference API URL. Default: https://infer.roboflow.com
Environment Variables:
  • ROBOFLOW_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_ROBOFLOW_API_KEY: api_key
  • ROBOFLOW_API_URL or EMBEDDINGS_ROBOFLOW_API_URL: api_url
main.py
Config Options:
  • model_id (str): WatsonX model identifier
  • url (str): WatsonX API endpoint
  • api_key (str): IBM Cloud API key
  • project_id (str): WatsonX project ID
  • space_id (str): WatsonX space ID (alternative to project_id)
  • batch_size (int): Batch size for embeddings. Default: 100
  • concurrency_limit (int): Maximum concurrent requests. Default: 10
  • persistent_connection (bool): Use persistent connections. Default: True
  • Plus 20+ additional authentication and configuration options
Environment Variables:
  • WATSONX_API_KEY or EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_API_KEY: api_key
  • WATSONX_URL or EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_URL: url
  • WATSONX_PROJECT_ID or EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_PROJECT_ID: project_id
  • EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_MODEL_ID: model_id
  • EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_SPACE_ID: space_id
  • EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_BATCH_SIZE: batch_size
  • EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_CONCURRENCY_LIMIT: concurrency_limit
  • EMBEDDINGS_WATSONX_PERSISTENT_CONNECTION: persistent_connection
main.py
Config Options:
  • embedding_callable (type[EmbeddingFunction]): Custom embedding function class
Note: Custom embedding functions must implement the EmbeddingFunction protocol defined in crewai.rag.core.base_embeddings_callable. The __call__ method should accept input data and return embeddings as a list of numpy arrays (or compatible format that will be normalized). The returned embeddings are automatically normalized and validated.

Notes

  • All config fields are optional unless marked as Required
  • API keys can typically be provided via environment variables instead of config
  • Default values are shown where applicable

Conclusion

The RagTool provides a powerful way to create and query knowledge bases from various data sources. By leveraging Retrieval-Augmented Generation, it enables agents to access and retrieve relevant information efficiently, enhancing their ability to provide accurate and contextually appropriate responses.