Batch extraction

Use this when processing a directory or glob of documents in one pass.
xberg batch shares one extraction config across every file, runs
extractions concurrently, and returns a JSON envelope — failures on
individual files do not abort the run.

Basic usage

# Glob expands to many paths; results come back in a JSON envelope (default)
xberg batch *.pdf

# Mixed formats, markdown content for LLM ingestion
xberg batch docs/*.docx --content-format markdown

# Recurse with the shell, then extract
xberg batch $(find ./corpus -name '*.pdf')

batch defaults to --format json (vs --format text for single
extract). The envelope contains results, total_ms, per_file_ms and, when failures
occur, errors. Each results entry is a full extracted document. One input may produce
multiple documents, so do not pair results with inputs by position. per_file_ms is
aligned with inputs; inspect errors for per-input failures.

xberg batch reports/*.pdf \
  | jq '.results[] | {chars: (.content | length), mime: .mime_type}'

Parallelism

--max-concurrent caps how many files extract at once. When omitted, the scheduler derives document concurrency from the total thread budget. Lower it on memory-constrained hosts or when OCR/ML
models are active, since each in-flight extraction holds its own buffers.
Layout-heavy batches are further limited (1 concurrent extraction for
all-PDF-layout batches, 2 for mixed layout):

# Cap at 4 concurrent extractions
xberg batch scans/*.pdf --ocr true --max-concurrent 4

--max-threads additionally caps total internal threads (Rayon, ONNX
intra-op, the batch semaphore) for tightly constrained environments:

xberg batch *.pdf --max-concurrent 2 --max-threads 4

Per-file config overrides

A single shared config does not always fit. --file-configs points at a
JSON file mapping each path to its own override object, merged on top of
the shared config for that file only:

{
  "scan.pdf": { "force_ocr": true },
  "report.pdf": { "output_format": "markdown" },
  "data.xlsx": { "output_format": "json" }
}

xberg batch scan.pdf report.pdf data.xlsx --file-configs overrides.json

Keys are file paths (matching the paths passed on the command line);
values are per-file extraction config objects in snake_case, the same
shape as a config file.

Output layout

For text/toon output with image extraction, --output-dir controls where
referenced image files (e.g. image_0.png) are written; the directory
must already exist. JSON output embeds image bytes inline and ignores
--output-dir.

mkdir -p out/images
xberg batch slides/*.pptx --extract-images true --output-dir out/images --format text

Error recovery

Batch extraction is fault-tolerant per file: one unreadable or corrupt
document does not stop the rest. Inspect results for partial content and
surfaced errors rather than relying on the process exit code alone. Pair
with --max-concurrent to avoid exhausting memory when a few large files
sit in a big batch.

Shared config

Every extract flag also applies to batch (OCR, chunking, layout,
content format, etc.) and is shared across all files unless a
--file-configs entry overrides it:

xberg batch invoices/*.pdf \
  --layout --layout-table-model slanet_wireless \
  --content-format markdown --max-concurrent 8

A config file works too and auto-discovers from the cwd upward:

output_format = "markdown"

[ocr]
backend = "tesseract"
language = "eng"

xberg batch corpus/*.pdf --config xberg.toml

Programmatic access

From Python, extract_batch takes a list of ExtractInputs and returns one
envelope whose results array holds a document per input:

from xberg import ExtractInput, extract_batch, ExtractionConfig

config = ExtractionConfig(output_format="markdown")

inputs = [ExtractInput(uri=p) for p in ["a.pdf", "b.docx", "c.xlsx"]]
output = await extract_batch(inputs, config)

for doc in output.results:
    print(len(doc.content))

Per-input overrides go on ExtractInput.config (a FileExtractionConfig).
Node.js mirrors this with extractBatch; Rust uses extract_batch(inputs, &config).
See references/python-api.md, references/nodejs-api.md, and
references/rust-api.md.

MCP

When the xberg MCP server is registered, prefer the
extract_batch tool over shelling out — it takes an array of input objects
and a config object and returns structured results directly.

Common pitfalls

• Default format differs — batch defaults to --format json,

extract to --format text. Set --format explicitly if a script
depends on one shape.

• --output-dir must exist — the CLI does not create it.
• Memory blowups — large batches with OCR/layout active may need an explicit

--max-concurrent ceiling.

• --file-configs path keys — must match the paths as passed on the

command line, not absolute-resolved variants.

See references/cli-reference.md for the full batch flag set.