Granite

Structuring the Unstructured - Cedric Clyburn, Red Hat

Jun 28, 2026 · 20:41

Cedric Clyburn (Red Hat) demonstrates how Docling, an open-source tool from the Linux Foundation, converts unstructured documents like PDFs, tables, and images into structured formats (Markdown/JSON) for AI workflows. He shows that naive PDF parsers lose table structure and image content, while proprietary VLMs are expensive and non-deterministic. Docling uses OCR and layout analysis to preserve context, achieving 50x cost savings compared to VLMs on CPU. The demo covers extracting tables and images from an 8-page PDF, using a local Granite vision model for image annotation, and implementing chunkless RAG where an LLM queries a Docling document outline directly. Scaling is addressed via Docling Serve (REST API) and Docling MCP server for agentic document processing with tools like Claude Code.

OpenRAG: An open-source stack for RAG — Phil Nash

Apr 8, 2026 · 15:52

Phil Nash introduces OpenRAG, an open-source RAG stack from IBM combining Docling, OpenSearch, and Langflow, arguing that RAG remains hard and custom despite claims it's dead — every business has unique data requiring more than simple vector search. Docling parses PDFs, audio, and more with specialized pipelines, outputting hierarchically chunked text. OpenSearch provides hybrid vector and keyword search using JVector for live indexing and disk-based ANN. Langflow enables visual agentic retrieval where the LLM decides searches with tools like a calculator and MCP servers. The stack supports local models via Ollama, cloud connectors for Google Drive and SharePoint, and an API. Nash demonstrates adding guardrails in Langflow and invites contributions to the open project.