Recursive Chunking

Hierarchical document splitting using customizable rules

Splits text hierarchically using multiple separators (paragraphs → sentences → words). Ideal for structured documents like markdown.

Quick Start

from praisonaiagents import Agent

agent = Agent(
    instructions="Answer questions from documentation.",
    knowledge={
        "sources": ["docs/"],
        "chunker": {
            "type": "recursive",
            "chunk_size": 512
        }
    }
)

response = agent.start("How do I configure the settings?")

from praisonaiagents.knowledge.chunking import Chunking

chunker = Chunking(
    chunker_type="recursive",
    chunk_size=512
)

markdown_doc = """
# Introduction
This is the intro paragraph.

## Section 1
Content for section 1.

## Section 2  
Content for section 2.
"""

chunks = chunker.chunk(markdown_doc)
for chunk in chunks:
    print(chunk.text)

When to Use

Parameters

Examples

Documentation

agent = Agent(
    instructions="Help users find answers in docs.",
    knowledge={
        "sources": ["README.md", "docs/"],
        "chunker": {
            "type": "recursive",
            "chunk_size": 512
        }
    }
)

Large Codebase

agent = Agent(
    instructions="Explain code and architecture.",
    knowledge={
        "sources": ["src/"],
        "chunker": {
            "type": "recursive",
            "chunk_size": 1024
        }
    }
)

How It Works

The recursive approach tries larger separators first (paragraphs), then falls back to smaller ones (sentences, words) only when needed.

Best Practices

1. Match chunk size to content density – Dense technical docs need smaller chunks
2. Use with markdown – Recursive chunking respects markdown structure well
3. Combine with semantic search – The hierarchical splits provide logical boundaries for retrieval