loader component

The load_document component reads a file, URL, or directory into structured Document objects - plain text plus metadata - and optionally splits them into chunks. It is the ingestion step of a RAG pipeline: load, then feed the output into the vector_store or embedding component for indexing. It is a kdeps component from the components asset set: call it with a component: resource, no install step. Its call is the kdeps API's load_document tool, which runs the native loader executor. A workflow that uses loader: directly - primary or in a before:/after: step - is rejected.

It works in both modes: as a DAG step in workflow mode, and as the load_document built-in tool in agent mode.

direction: right
call: "component: load_document" {shape: oval}
api: "POST /tools/load_document/call"
pick: "type?" {shape: diamond}
text: "text / csv\nread file"
pdf: "pdf\nextract page text"
web: "html\nfetch URL, extract text"
dir: "directory / notion\nevery file, one Document each"
chunk: "chunkSize > 0?\nrecursive | token | markdown"
out: "documents + count" {shape: oval}
call -> api
api -> pick
pick -> text: "text | csv"
pick -> pdf: "pdf"
pick -> web: "html"
pick -> dir: "directory | notion"
text -> chunk
pdf -> chunk
web -> chunk
dir -> chunk
chunk -> out

Basic usage

# resources/load.yaml
actionId: load
name: Load Report
component:
  name: load_document       # from the components asset set; a components/load_document/ of your own wins
  with:
    type: pdf               # text (default), pdf, html, csv, directory, notion
    source: /data/quarterly-report.pdf

# resources/loadAndChunk.yaml
actionId: loadAndChunk
name: Load and Chunk for RAG
component:
  name: load_document
  with:
    type: text
    source: /data/handbook.txt
    chunkSize: 500          # split into chunks of 500 characters
    chunkOverlap: 50        # 50 characters shared by consecutive chunks
    chunkSplitter: recursive  # recursive (default), token, or markdown

Inputs

Input	Type	Required	Description
source	string	yes	File path, URL (for html), or directory path
type	string	no	text (default), pdf, html, csv, directory, notion. Omitted types follow the file extension
columns	array	no	CSV only - column filter; empty loads all columns
password	string	no	PDF only - decryption password for encrypted PDFs
chunkSize	number	no	When > 0, splits each loaded document into chunks of this size
chunkOverlap	number	no	Characters of overlap between consecutive chunks
chunkSplitter	string	no	Splitting strategy: recursive (default), token, or markdown

Loader types

type	Reads
text	Plain text file
pdf	PDF file, page text extracted
html	A URL - fetches and extracts readable text
csv	CSV file, one Document per row (or per columns filter)
directory	Every file in a directory, one Document per file

Output

{
  "documents": [
    { "content": "...", "metadata": { "source": "/data/handbook.txt", "chunk": 0 } }
  ],
  "count": 3
}

documents is directly usable as the documents: input to the vector_store component's add_documents operation - each content/metadata pair maps onto a VectorStoreDocument. The component returns the tool's body as a string, so read it with fromJSON.

Size limit

Every loader type reads its source fully into memory before returning - fine for a report or a handbook, but a workflow doing bulk ingestion (a large CSV, a directory of documents) risks an OS-level, no-core-dump SIGKILL once that content gets copied again downstream (chunkSize splitting, json.Marshal in the result, a vector_store step embedding it). Any single file over 256 MiB is rejected with a clear error instead - type: directory/notion skip an oversized file and keep loading the rest (a batch load should not abort over one large file); every other type fails that one load outright, the same way an explicit --file/stdin over its own 256 MiB default already does (see Input sources).

Raise or lower it with KDEPS_LOADER_MAX_BYTES (bytes; 0 disables the check):

KDEPS_LOADER_MAX_BYTES=1073741824 kdeps run workflow.yaml  # 1 GiB, for a workflow that loads bulk data

RAG pipeline example

# resources/load.yaml
actionId: load
component:
  name: load_document
  with:
    type: pdf
    source: "{{ get('filePath') }}"
    chunkSize: 500
    chunkOverlap: 50

# resources/index.yaml
actionId: index
requires: [load]
component:
  name: vector_store
  with:
    operation: add_documents
    provider: qdrant
    url: http://localhost:6333
    collection: docs
    embedModel: text-embedding-3-small  # embedding model for the document contents
    documents: "{{ fromJSON(output('load')).documents }}"  # load_document's Document list

See also

• Component resource - how component: calls pass with: inputs
• Vector store component - index and search the loaded documents
• Embedding component - lightweight keyword-based alternative for local, API-key-free RAG
• Resources overview - all resource types