Unstructured Serverless API

This page describes how to get started with the Unstructured Serverless API. Learn how to obtain an API key to use with the Unstructured Serverless API, and get started in no time.

Get started

To call the Unstructured Serverless API, you need an API key and API URL:

1

Sign up

Go to the For Developers page and enter your information.

By signing up through the For Developers page, your Unstructured account will run within the context of the Unstructured Platform on Unstructured’s own hosted cloud resources. Also, after your first 14 days of usage or more than 1000 processed pages per day, whichever comes first, your account is then billed at Unstructured’s standard service usage rates. You can always start a prepaid subscription in exchange for usage rate discounts. To switch your account from a pay-as-you-go plan to a prepaid subscription, contact Unstructured Sales at [e-mail].

If you would rather run the Unstructured Platform within the context of your own virtual private cloud (VPC), or you want to make a long-term billing commitment in exchange for deeply discounted service usage rates, stop here and sign up through the For Enterprise page instead.

2

Sign in

1. After you have signed up through the For Developers page, the Unstructured Platform sign-in page appears.

   If you signed up through the For Enterprise page instead, your sign-in process will be different. For enterprise sign-in guidance, contact Unstructured Sales at [e-mail].

2. Click Google or GitHub to sign in with the Google or GitHub account that you signed up with through the For Developers page. Or, enter the email address that you signed up with, and then click Sign In.

3. If you entered your email address, check your email inbox for a message from Unstructured. In that email, click the Sign In link.

4. The first time you sign in, read the terms and conditions, and then click Accept.

After you have signed in through the For Developers page for the first time, you can sign in the second time and beyond by going to the Unstructured home page at https://unstructured.io and clicking Login.

For enterprise sign-in guidance, contact Unstructured Sales at [e-mail].

3

Get your API key and API URL

1. At the bottom of the sidebar, click your user icon, and then click Account Settings.
2. On the account settings sidebar, click API Keys, if it is not already selected.
3. To get your API key, click the copy icon in the Actions column for your API key, and then click Key Only. Store your copied API key in a secure location. Do not share it with others.
4. To get your API URL, click the copy icon next to the URL next to API URL. Store your copied API URL in a secure location. Do not share it with others.

Unstructured Serverless API keys do not work with the Free Unstructured API. If you try to use an Unstructured Serverless API key with a Free Unstructured API URL, the call will fail. Use your Unstructured Serverless API URL instead.

Try the quickstart.

Set up billing

Once you sign up for the Unstructured Serverless API through the For Developers page, you can enjoy a free 14-day trial with usage capped at 1000 pages per day.

If you signed up through the For Enterprise page instead, your billing setup and terms will be different. For enterprise billing guidance, contact Unstructured Sales at [e-mail].

The free 14-day trial for the Unstructured Serverless API is different than the Free Unstructured API.

At the end of the 14-day free trial, or if you need to go past the trial’s page processing limits during the 14-day free trial, you must set up your billing information to keep using the Unstructured Serverless API:

1. Sign in to the Unstructured Platform.
2. At the bottom of the sidebar, click your user icon, and then click Account Settings.
3. On the account settings sidebar, click Billing.
4. Click Manage Payment Method, follow the on-screen instructions to enter your payment details through Stripe, and then click Save card.

Your card is billed monthly based on your usage. The Billing page shows a billing overview for the current month and a list of your billing invoices.

You can always start a prepaid subscription in exchange for usage rate discounts. To switch your account from a pay-as-you-go plan to a prepaid subscription, contact Unstructured Sales at [e-mail].

We calculate a page as follows:

• For these file types, a page is a page, slide, or image: .pdf, .pptx, and .tiff.
• For .docx files that have page metadata, we calculate the number of pages based on that metadata.
• For all other file types, we calculate the number of pages as the file’s size divided by 100 KB.
• For non-file data, we calculate a page as 100 KB of incoming data to be processed.

Quickstart

These examples use your local machine. They send source (input) files from your local machine to the Unstructured Serverless API which delivers the processed data to a destination (output) location, also on your local machine. Data is processed on Unstructured-hosted compute resources.

Unstructured Ingest CLI

To work with the Unstructured Serverless API by using the Unstructured Ingest CLI, you will need to:

• Install Python, and then install the CLI package:

  pip install unstructured-ingest
  

• Set the following environment variables:

  • Set UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY to your API key.
  • Set UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL to your API URL.

  Get your API key and API URL.

• Have some compatible files on your local machine to be processed. See the list of supported file types. If you do not have any files available, you can download some from the example-docs folder in the Unstructured repo on GitHub.

Now, use the CLI to call the API, replacing:

• <path/to/input> with the source (input) path to the directory on your local machine that contains the compatible files for Unstructured to process on its hosted compute resources.
• <path/to/output> with the destination (output) path to the directory on your local machine that will contain the processed data that Unstructured returns from its hosted compute resources.

CLI

unstructured-ingest \
  local \
    --input-path <path/to/input> \
    --output-dir <path/to/output> \
    --partition-by-api \
    --api-key $UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY \
    --partition-endpoint $UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL \
    --strategy hi_res \
    --additional-partition-args="{\"split_pdf_page\":\"true\", \"split_pdf_allow_failed\":\"true\", \"split_pdf_concurrency_level\": 15}"

After the command successfully runs, see the results in the specified output path on your local machine.

Unstructured Ingest Python library

To work with the Unstructured Serverless API by using the Unstructured Python library, you will need to:

• Install Python, and then install the CLI package:

  pip install unstructured-ingest
  

• Set the following environment variables:

  • Set UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY to your API key.
  • Set UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL to your API URL.

  Get your API key and API URL.

• Have some compatible files on your local machine to be processed. See the list of supported file types. If you do not have any files available, you can download some from the example-docs folder in the Unstructured repo on GitHub.

Now, use the CLI to call the API, replacing:

• <path/to/input> with the source (input) path to the directory on your local machine that contains the compatible files for Unstructured to process on its hosted compute resources.
• <path/to/output> with the destination (output) path to the directory on your local machine that will contain the processed data that Unstructured returns from its hosted compute resources.

Python Ingest v2

import os

from unstructured_ingest.v2.pipeline.pipeline import Pipeline
from unstructured_ingest.v2.interfaces import ProcessorConfig
from unstructured_ingest.v2.processes.connectors.local import (
    LocalIndexerConfig,
    LocalDownloaderConfig,
    LocalConnectionConfig,
    LocalUploaderConfig
)
from unstructured_ingest.v2.processes.partitioner import PartitionerConfig

if __name__ == "__main__":
    Pipeline.from_configs(
        context=ProcessorConfig(),
        indexer_config=LocalIndexerConfig(input_path=os.getenv("LOCAL_FILE_INPUT_DIR")),
        downloader_config=LocalDownloaderConfig(),
        source_connection_config=LocalConnectionConfig(),
        partitioner_config=PartitionerConfig(
            partition_by_api=True,
            api_key=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_KEY"),
            partition_endpoint=os.getenv("UNSTRUCTURED_API_URL"),
            strategy="hi_res",
            additional_partition_args={
                "split_pdf_page": True,
                "split_pdf_allow_failed": True,
                "split_pdf_concurrency_level": 15
            }
        ),
        uploader_config=LocalUploaderConfig(output_dir=os.getenv("LOCAL_FILE_OUTPUT_DIR"))
    ).run()

After the command successfully runs, see the results in the specified output path on your local machine.

Manage your account

To manage your account:

1. Sign in to the Unstructured Platform.
2. At the bottom of the sidebar, click your user icon, and then click Account Settings.

To manage your API keys:

• On the account settings sidebar, click API Keys.
• To create a key, click Generate New Key, and follow the on-screen instructions.
• To enable or disable a key, switch On/Off in the column for that key to on or off.
• To delete a key, click the trash can in the Actions column for that key.

To view your usage: On the account settings sidebar, click Usage.

To view your billing costs and invoices and to manage your payment method: On the account settings sidebar, click Billing.

To log out of your account: On the account settings sidebar, click your email address, and then click Logout.

To get help: Our support team is just a text or email away:

• On the account settings sidebar, click Message Us, or…
• Email us at [e-mail].

Telemetry

We’ve partnered with Scarf to collect anonymized user statistics to understand which features our community is using and how to prioritize product decision-making in the future.

To learn more about how we collect and use this data, please read our Privacy Policy.

To opt out of this data collection, you can set the environment variable SCARF_NO_ANALYTICS=true before running any commands that call Unstructured Serverless API services.