Entities

​

What entities add to retrieval

Standard retrieval matches a user’s query against chunk embeddings. Entity-aware retrieval adds a second layer: named entities extracted from each item — people, organizations, products, standards, locations — are indexed separately and can be pinned or weighted in retrieval results. When an agent searches with entity awareness, it can identify key names or codes in the user’s question and surface items that mention those entities, even when the phrasing of the question does not closely match the chunk text.

​

The Entities tab

Inside a context workspace, click the Entities tab. The tab has two areas:

1. Extraction model — shows which LLM is used to extract entities from documents.
2. Entity types list — the named types the extractor is configured to recognize.

​

Extraction model

The model card shows:

• No model configured — entity extraction is skipped. “Entity extraction is skipped until a model is set. Pick one below, or define context.entities.model in code.”
• Using {model} · {source} — the model in use and where it was set: “set here” (via the UI), “defined in code” (via the backend SDK), or “from environment” (via an environment variable).

To set a model from the UI, use the model picker below the card and save. Click Reset to default to remove a UI-set model and fall back to the code or environment default.

​

Entity types

Entity types tell the extractor what to look for. Each type has:

• Name — the category label (for example, “Person”, “Company”, “Product number”).
• Description — plain-language guidance for the extractor: “What counts as this entity type?”. A clear description improves extraction accuracy.
• Active / Inactive — inactive types are retained in the schema but skipped during extraction runs.

​

Adding an entity type

Click Add type. The Add entity type dialog has:

• Name (required) — for example “Product” or “Error code”.
• Description — what the extractor should recognize. For example: “A specific product name or model number mentioned in the document.”
• Active — toggle to set the initial state.

Click Save. The type appears in the list immediately.

​

Editing and deactivating types

Use the ⋯ menu on any type row:

• Edit — rename or change the description.
• Activate / Deactivate — toggle without deleting.
• Delete — removes the type permanently. Existing entity links that used this type are removed on the next backfill.

​

Suggested types

When the extractor notices entity-like patterns in your content that are not yet configured as types, they appear in a Suggested types section at the bottom of the tab. Each suggestion has:

• Add — promotes the suggestion to an active entity type.
• Dismiss — removes it from the suggestions list.

​

Backfill

When you add a new entity type or change an existing one, already-processed items do not automatically have their entities re-extracted. The Backfill recommended banner appears showing how many items were processed before the current entity types. Click Backfill now to re-run extraction on those items. The confirmation dialog shows the item count and warns: “Each item runs an LLM extraction, so this can be slow and costly on large sets.” Click Re-run extraction to backfill every item in the context regardless of when it was processed. After backfill completes, a toast shows: “Processed {n} item(s)” and, if any were skipped due to a cap: ”· {n} skipped (cap reached)”.

​

Item entity view

Every item detail panel includes an Entities section showing the entities extracted for that specific item.

• No entities extracted for this item yet — with “Run extraction to find entities in this item.”
• {n} entities — listed by type and value.

From the item panel you can:

• Extract entities — run extraction on this item immediately (single-item, not bulk).
• Re-extract — re-run extraction to pick up type changes.
• Detach all — removes every entity link from this item. “Entities used only by this item are deleted. You can re-extract at any time.” Requires confirmation.

​

Next steps