Retriever Service

Retriever provides indexing and search for job-scoped retrieval and cross-job retrieval. It enrolls crawl results, runs full-text and vector searches, obtains embeddings from a configurable HTTP service, and tracks each job’s enrollment state.

Release image: webdatasource/retriever:v3.0.0

Configuration

Name Required Default Meaning
MONGODB_CONNECTION_STRING Yes None MongoDB connection string for Retriever state. Include a database name unless MONGODB_DATABASE_NAME is set.
MONGODB_DATABASE_NAME No Database from the connection string Overrides the primary MongoDB database name.
IDEALER_ORIGIN Yes None Origin of Idealer; Retriever appends port 8082 for gRPC-Web.
SEARCH_MODE No FullText Search behavior: FullText, Vector, or FullTextAndVector.
SEARCH_DB_CONNECTION_STRING No Primary MongoDB connection Selects a dedicated MongoDB Atlas Search database.
SEARCH_DB_DATABASE_NAME No Database from the search connection string Overrides the dedicated search database name.
EMBEDDING_SERVICE_URL For vector modes None HTTP endpoint used to create embeddings.
EMBEDDING_SERVICE_API_KEY No None Bearer token sent to the embedding service.
EMBEDDING_SERVICE_REQUEST_TEMPLATE No {'model':'embeddinggemma','input':null} JSON request template sent to the embedding service.
EMBEDDING_SERVICE_CONTENT_JSON_PATH No $.input JSONPath whose value is replaced with the input array.
EMBEDDING_SERVICE_RESULT_JSON_PATH No $.embeddings JSONPath used to extract the returned embeddings array.
EMBEDDING_VECTORS_LENGTH No 768 Number of dimensions stored in the MongoDB Atlas vector index.
LICENSE_KEY Yes None WDS license key with the Retrieval feature. See Plans.
HEALTH_PROBE_LOG_LEVEL No Debug Log level used for /health and /ready request messages.
MIN_LOG_LEVEL No Info Minimum application log level.

Endpoints and dependencies

Port 8080 serves /health and /ready. Port 8082 serves Retriever gRPC-Web over HTTP/1.1. Retriever uses its primary MongoDB database, connects to Idealer, and optionally connects to a separate MongoDB Atlas Search database and an HTTP embedding service.

Search database

Retriever currently uses MongoDB Atlas Search for full-text and vector indexes. If SEARCH_DB_CONNECTION_STRING is omitted, the primary MongoDB deployment must support the selected Atlas Search mode. Vector modes also require a reachable embedding service and matching EMBEDDING_VECTORS_LENGTH.

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