vectorless 0.1.5

A hierarchical, reasoning-native document intelligence engine.

Replace your vector database with LLM-powered tree navigation. No embeddings. No vector search. Just reasoning.

Why Vectorless?

Traditional RAG systems have a fundamental problem: they lose document structure.

When you chunk a document into vectors, you lose:

• The hierarchical relationship between sections
• The context of where information lives
• The ability to navigate based on reasoning

Vectorless takes a different approach:

It preserves your document's tree structure and uses an LLM to navigate it — just like a human would skim a table of contents, then drill into relevant sections.

Result: More accurate retrieval with zero infrastructure complexity.

How It Works

Vectorless preserves your document's hierarchical structure and uses an LLM to navigate it step by step:

1. Index — Parse documents into a tree structure (chapters, sections, subsections)
2. Navigate — LLM walks the tree, asking "which branch contains the answer?"
3. Retrieve — Return the relevant section with its context

This mimics how humans navigate documentation: skim the TOC, drill into relevant sections.

Comparison

Installation

Add to your Cargo.toml:

[dependencies]
vectorless = "0.1"

Quick Start

Create a configuration file vectorless.toml in your project root:

cp config.example.toml vectorless.toml

Basic usage:

use vectorless::client::{Vectorless, VectorlessBuilder};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> vectorless::core::Result<()> {
    // Create client
    let mut client = VectorlessBuilder::new()
        .with_workspace("./workspace")
        .build()?;

    // Index a document
    let doc_id = client.index("./document.md").await?;

    // Query
    let result = client.query(&doc_id, "What is this about?").await?;
    println!("{}", result.content);

    Ok(())
}

Examples

Document Q&A

use vectorless::client::{Vectorless, VectorlessBuilder};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> vectorless::core::Result<()> {
    let mut client = VectorlessBuilder::new()
        .with_workspace("./workspace")
        .build()?;

    // Index a technical manual
    let doc_id = client.index("./manual.md").await?;

    // Ask questions - LLM navigates the tree structure
    let answer = client.query(&doc_id, "How do I configure authentication?").await?;
    println!("Answer: {}", answer.content);

    Ok(())
}

Multi-Document Workspace

use vectorless::client::{Vectorless, VectorlessBuilder};

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> vectorless::core::Result<()> {
    let mut client = VectorlessBuilder::new()
        .with_workspace("./docs_workspace")
        .build()?;

    // Index multiple documents
    let doc1 = client.index("./docs/api.md").await?;
    let doc2 = client.index("./docs/tutorial.md").await?;
    let doc3 = client.index("./docs/reference.md").await?;

    // List all indexed documents
    let docs = client.list_documents().await?;
    for doc in docs {
        println!("{}: {} ({} pages)", doc.id, doc.name, doc.page_count);
    }

    Ok(())
}

Custom Configuration

use vectorless::client::{Vectorless, VectorlessBuilder};
use vectorless::config::Config;
use vectorless::llm::LlmPool;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() -> vectorless::core::Result<()> {
    // Load configuration from file
    let config = Config::load("./vectorless.toml")?;

    let client = VectorlessBuilder::new()
        .with_workspace("./workspace")
        .with_config(config)
        .build()?;

    // Use the client...

    Ok(())
}

Architecture

src/
├── core/           # Core types: DocumentTree, TreeNode, NodeId
├── client/         # High-level API: Vectorless, VectorlessBuilder
├── document/       # Document parsing: Markdown, PDF, TOC detection
├── indexer/        # Index building: Tree construction, thinning
├── retriever/      # Retrieval strategies: LLM navigate, beam search
├── llm/            # LLM client: Retry, fallback, concurrency
├── storage/        # Persistence: Workspace, LRU cache
├── config/         # Configuration management
└── token/          # Token estimation (tiktoken)

Key Components

• DocumentTree — Hierarchical structure preserving document organization
• TreeBuilder — Converts raw nodes to optimized tree with thinning
• LlmNavigator — LLM-powered tree traversal for retrieval
• Workspace — Persistent storage with lazy loading and LRU caching
• ConcurrencyController — Rate limiting and request throttling

Configuration

# vectorless.toml

[summary]
model = "gpt-4o-mini"
endpoint = "https://api.openai.com/v1"
max_tokens = 200

[retrieval]
model = "gpt-4o"
retriever_type = "llm_navigate"
top_k = 3

[concurrency]
max_concurrent_requests = 10
requests_per_minute = 500

[fallback]
enabled = true
models = ["gpt-4o-mini", "glm-4-flash"]
on_rate_limit = "retry_then_fallback"

Roadmap

• Tree-based document indexing
• LLM-powered navigation
• Workspace persistence with LRU cache
• Markdown parser with TOC detection
• Rate limiting and concurrency control
• Fallback and retry logic
• DOCX parser
• Enhanced PDF with TOC extraction
• Beam search retriever
• Sled storage backend for scale
• Python bindings

Contributing

Contributions are welcome!

If you find this project useful, please consider giving it a star on GitHub — it helps others discover it and supports ongoing development.

License

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See LICENSE for details.