Parse-only workflow

A parse-only workflow is one Parse node and no edges. It returns the document as markdown plus one block per region, each with a position and a confidence, and it runs no extraction. Use it to preview a document before you write fields, to feed your own model or search index, or to see how a document reads.

The document

INVOICE

→

What comes back

markdown

parse_conf

p1_b0

p1_b5

extractions

NodesParseCredits25 per pageYou get

To parse one document on the Fast tier without creating a workflow, call POST /v3/parse/ (or POST /v3/parse/from-url/) with the file. It runs against a parse workflow that anyformat keeps for your organization and returns a run you poll like any other.

The graph

{
  "name": "Document parser",
  "nodes": [{ "id": "parse_1", "type": "parse", "mode": "standard" }],
  "edges": []
}

import os
from anyformat.sdk import Client

client = Client(api_key=os.environ["ANYFORMAT_API_KEY"])

workflow = client.workflow("Document parser").parse(mode="standard").create()

import { Anyformat } from "@anyformat/sdk";

const af = new Anyformat({ apiKey: process.env.ANYFORMAT_API_KEY! });

const workflow = await af.workflow("Document parser").parse({ mode: "standard" }).create();

mode selects the tier. Nothing else in the graph changes.

Pick a tier

Each row is what came back for the same one-page invoice.

Tier	`mode`	What runs	What you get back
Flash	`flash`	The PDF’s own text layer plus layout grounding. No model call. A page without a text layer is OCR’d (`scanned_pages`).	Plain text per block, tables as markdown pipe tables, `parse_confidence` of 100 on a born-digital PDF. Done in about 12 s.
Fast	`lite`	One OCR pass, no LLM correction.	One block per text line, tables as bare HTML `<table>`, `parse_confidence` and `layout_confidence` are `null`. Done in about 14 s.
Standard	`standard`	Page-by-page parsing with reading-order correction. The default.	Merged blocks with headings marked, HTML tables with a `data-cell-id` per cell, `parse_confidence` of 89. Done in about 28 s.
Agentic	`agentic`	Adaptive, multi-step parsing that works hardest on dense tables. `effort` sets the preset.	The Standard shape, with the most work spent on tables. Done in about 37 s. See Agentic parse to markdown.

Start on Standard. Move a document type down to Fast or Flash when its output holds up, and up to Agentic only where Standard falls short. The Parse node page lists the credits per page for each tier.

Run and read

# Upload one file and start a run
curl -X POST "https://api.anyformat.ai/v3/workflows/$WORKFLOW_ID/upload/run/" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ANYFORMAT_API_KEY" \
  -F 'files=@document.pdf'
# -> 202 {"run_id": "...", "document_packet_id": "...", "status": "queued"}

# Read the run. Repeat until "status" is "processed".
curl "https://api.anyformat.ai/v3/runs/$RUN_ID/" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $ANYFORMAT_API_KEY"

result = workflow.run("document.pdf").wait()

print(result.parse.parse_confidence)
print(result.parse.markdown[:500])
for block in result.parse.blocks:
    print(block.id, block.type, block.page, block.parse_confidence)

import { readFile } from "node:fs/promises";

const file = new File([await readFile("document.pdf")], "document.pdf", { type: "application/pdf" });
const run = await workflow.run(file);
const result = await run.wait();

console.log(result.parse?.parseConfidence);
console.log(result.parse?.markdown?.slice(0, 500));
for (const block of result.parse?.blocks ?? []) {
  console.log(block.id, block.type, block.page, block.parse_confidence);
}

What comes back

The Standard tier on a one-page invoice, trimmed to the two blocks worth looking at. classifications, splits, extractions and edits are all empty, because only Parse ran.

Response

{
  "results": {
    "parse": {
      "markdown": "…",
      "text": "INVOICE\nInvoice #: INV-2026-9001 …",
      "parse_confidence": 89.1,
      "blocks": [
        { "id": "p1_b0", "type": "title", "page": 1, "parse_confidence": 100.0, "layout_confidence": 0.846, "content": "# INVOICE", "bbox": { "x0": 0.115, "y0": 0.066, "x1": 0.269, "y1": 0.096 } },
        { "id": "p1_b5", "type": "table", "page": 1, "parse_confidence": 85.9, "rows": [[{ "cell_id": "r0c0", "text": "Description" }, { "cell_id": "r0c1", "text": "Qty" }]] }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Runs and results has the full envelope, section by section.

Each <a id="p1_b0"> anchor in markdown names the block with the same id in blocks. That is how you map a passage back to its bbox (page fractions, 0 to 1) and its confidences: parse_confidence is 0 to 100, layout_confidence is 0 to 1.
A table block also carries rows, the cells as a grid, so you do not have to parse the HTML.
Block ids carry the page: p2_b0 is the first block on page 2. Every page is parsed.

When it goes wrong

Your confidence gate never fires. The Fast tier makes no model call, so parse_confidence and layout_confidence come back null. A gate written as “below 80” never trips on a null. Read the tier before you read the number, or stay on Standard, where the number is real. A scanned page comes back as text you did not expect. Flash reads the PDF’s own text layer. A page with no words in that layer is OCR’d instead, silently, because scanned_pages defaults to ocr. Set it to skip to serve that page blank and flagged, or to fail to raise an error naming the page numbers. A table arrives with no addressable cells. Fast returns bare HTML <table> and one block per text line. Standard merges the blocks, marks headings, gives every cell a data-cell-id, and fills rows with the cells as a grid. Move the node to Standard when you need to point at a cell. You fixed the source file and got the old parse back. Parse caches per file, tier and settings, and a hit skips the parse and its cost. Set "cache": false on the node to force a fresh parse of the same file. You are about to create a second parse-only workflow. Nothing in a Parse node depends on the kind of document, so one workflow reads them all. Create another only when a document type needs a different mode.

Next steps

Parse node

Every knob on the node, and the credits per tier

Agentic parse to markdown

The Agentic tier and its effort presets

Get run

The full run envelope

Quickstart

Add an Extract node and get fields back

Examples

Read the page

Messy piles

Money and compliance

At scale

Parse-only workflow

The graph

Pick a tier

Run and read

What comes back

When it goes wrong

Next steps

Parse node

Agentic parse to markdown

Get run

Quickstart

​The graph

​Pick a tier

​Run and read

​What comes back

​When it goes wrong

​Next steps

Parse node

Agentic parse to markdown

Get run

Quickstart

The graph

Pick a tier

Run and read

What comes back

When it goes wrong

Next steps