Manage files

Each Robility flow server has a file management system where you can store files that you want to use in your flows.

Files uploaded to Robility flow file management are stored locally to your Robility flow server, and they are available to all your flows.

Uploading files to Robility flow file management keeps your files in a central location and allows you to reuse files across flows without repeated manual uploads.

Use the file management UI

You can use the file management to upload files from your local machine to your own Robility flow server. You can also manage all files that have been uploaded to your Robility flow server.

1. Navigate to Robility flow:

a. In Robility flow, on the Projects page, click any of the project.
b. Click on the “Menu” option on the top and choose the “File Manager” option. 

2. On the Files wizard, click Upload.
3. Select one or more files to upload.

After uploading files, you can rename, download, copy, or delete files within the file management UI:

a. To delete a file, hover over a file’s icon, select it, and then click Delete. You can delete multiple files in a single action. 
b. To download a file, hover over a file’s icon, select it, and then click Download. If you download multiple files in a single action, they are saved together in a zip file.

Upload and manage files with the Robility flow API

With the Robility flow API, you can upload and manage files in Robility flow file management, and you can send files to flows programmatically at runtime.

For more information and examples, see Files Endpoints and Create a chatbot that can ingest files.

Use files in a flow

To use files in your Robility flow file management system in a flow, add a component that accepts file input to your flow, such as the Read File component from the Robility File System.

For example, add a File component to your flow, click Select files, and then select files from the My Files list.

This list includes all files in your server’s file management system, but you can only select file types that are supported by the File component. If you need another file type, you must use a different component that supports that file type, or you need to convert it to a supported type before uploading it.

For more information about the Robility File System component and other data loading components, see Data components.

Load files at runtime

You can use preloaded files in your flows, and you can load files at runtime, if your flow accepts file input. To enable file input in your flow, do the following:

1. Add a File component to your flow. 
2. Click Share, select API access, and then click Input Schema to add tweaks to the request payload in the flow’s automatically generated code snippets. 
3. Expand the File section, find the Files row, and then enable Expose Input to allow the parameter to be set at runtime through the Robility flow API. 
4. Close the Input Schema pane to return to the API access pane. The payload in each code snippet now includes tweaks, your File component’s ID, and the path key that you enabled in Input Schema:

“tweaks”: {

    “File-qYD5w”: {

                   “path”: []

    }

}

1. When you run this flow programmatically, your script must upload a file to Robility flow  file management, and then pass the returned file_path to the path tweak in the /run request:

“tweaks”: {

    “FILE_COMPONENT_ID”: {

        “path”: [ “file_path” ]

    }

}

For a complete example see Create a chatbot that can ingest files and Files endpoints.

If you want to upload multiple files, you can pass multiple file_path values in the path array, such as [ “path1”, “path2” ].

Upload images

Robility flow supports base64 images in the following formats:

• PNG
• JPG/JPEG
• GIF
• BMP
• WebP

You can upload images to the Playground chat interface and as runtime input with the Robility flow  API.

• In the Playground, you can drag-and-drop images into the chat input area, or you can click the Attach image icon to select an image to upload.
• When you trigger a flow with the /api/v1/run/$FLOW_ID endpoint, you can use the files parameter to attach image data as a base64-encoded string:

curl -X POST “http://$ROBILITY FLOW _SERVER_ADDRESS/api/v1/run/$FLOW_ID” \

-H “Content-Type: application/json” \

-H “x-api-key: $ROBILITY FLOW _API_KEY” \

-d ‘{

   “session_id”: “custom_session_123”,

   “input_value”: “What is in this image?”,

   “input_type”: “chat”,

   “output_type”: “chat”,

   “files”: [“data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAA…”]

}’

For more specialized image processing, browse third-party bundles or create your own components.

Work with video files

For videos, see the Twelve Labs and YouTube bundles in the Robility flow Components menu.

Set the maximum file size

By default, the maximum file size is 100 MB. To modify this value, change the –max-file-size-upload environment variable.