---
title: "WeaviateDocumentStore"
id: weaviatedocumentstore
slug: "/weaviatedocumentstore"
description: ""
---

# WeaviateDocumentStore

<div className="key-value-table">

|               |                                                                                            |
| :------------ | :----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| API reference | [Weaviate](/reference/integrations-weaviate)                                                      |
| GitHub link   | https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack-core-integrations/tree/main/integrations/weaviate |

</div>

Weaviate is a multi-purpose vector DB that can store both embeddings and data objects, making it a good choice for multi-modality.

The `WeaviateDocumentStore` can connect to any Weaviate instance, whether it's running on Weaviate Cloud Services, Kubernetes, or a local Docker container.

## Installation

You can simply install the Weaviate Haystack integration with:

```shell
pip install weaviate-haystack
```

## Initialization

### Weaviate Embedded

To use `WeaviateDocumentStore` as a temporary instance, initialize it as ["Embedded"](https://weaviate.io/developers/weaviate/installation/embedded):

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate import WeaviateDocumentStore
from weaviate.embedded import EmbeddedOptions

document_store = WeaviateDocumentStore(embedded_options=EmbeddedOptions())
```

### Docker

You can use `WeaviateDocumentStore` in a local Docker container. This is what a minimal `docker-compose.yml` could look like:

```yaml
---
version: '3.4'
services:
  weaviate:
    command:
    - --host
    - 0.0.0.0
    - --port
    - '8080'
    - --scheme
    - http
    image: semitechnologies/weaviate:1.30.17
    ports:
    - 8080:8080
    - 50051:50051
    volumes:
    - weaviate_data:/var/lib/weaviate
    restart: 'no'
    environment:
      QUERY_DEFAULTS_LIMIT: 25
      AUTHENTICATION_ANONYMOUS_ACCESS_ENABLED: 'true'
      PERSISTENCE_DATA_PATH: '/var/lib/weaviate'
      DEFAULT_VECTORIZER_MODULE: 'none'
      ENABLE_MODULES: ''
      CLUSTER_HOSTNAME: 'node1'
volumes:
  weaviate_data:
...
```

:::warning
With this example, we explicitly enable access without authentication, so you don't need to set any username, password, or API key to connect to our local instance. That is strongly discouraged for production use. See the [authorization](#authorization) section for detailed information.

:::

Start your container with `docker compose up -d` and then initialize the Document Store with:

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate.document_store import WeaviateDocumentStore
from haystack import Document

document_store = WeaviateDocumentStore(url="http://localhost:8080")
document_store.write_documents([
    Document(content="This is first"),
    Document(content="This is second")
])
print(document_store.count_documents())
```

### Weaviate Cloud Service

To use the [Weaviate managed cloud service](https://weaviate.io/developers/wcs), first, create your Weaviate cluster.

Then, initialize the `WeaviateDocumentStore` using the API Key and URL found in your [Weaviate account](https://console.weaviate.cloud/):

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate import WeaviateDocumentStore, AuthApiKey
from haystack import Document

import os
os.environ["WEAVIATE_API_KEY"] = "YOUR-API-KEY"

auth_client_secret = AuthApiKey()

document_store = WeaviateDocumentStore(url="YOUR-WEAVIATE-URL",
    auth_client_secret=auth_client_secret)
```

## Authorization

We provide some utility classes in the `auth` package to handle authorization using different credentials. Every class stores distinct [secrets](../concepts/secret-management.mdx) and retrieves them from the environment variables when required.

The default environment variables for the classes are:

- **`AuthApiKey`**
  - `WEAVIATE_API_KEY`
- **`AuthBearerToken`**
  - `WEAVIATE_ACCESS_TOKEN`
  - `WEAVIATE_REFRESH_TOKEN`
- **`AuthClientCredentials`**
  - `WEAVIATE_CLIENT_SECRET`
  - `WEAVIATE_SCOPE`
- **`AuthClientPassword`**
  - `WEAVIATE_USERNAME`
  - `WEAVIATE_PASSWORD`
  - `WEAVIATE_SCOPE`

You can easily change environment variables if needed. In the following snippet, we instruct `AuthApiKey` to look for `MY_ENV_VAR`.

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate.auth import AuthApiKey
from haystack.utils.auth import Secret

AuthApiKey(api_key=Secret.from_env_var("MY_ENV_VAR"))
```

## Supported Retrievers

[`WeaviateBM25Retriever`](../pipeline-components/retrievers/weaviatebm25retriever.mdx): A keyword-based Retriever that fetches documents matching a query from the Document Store.

[`WeaviateEmbeddingRetriever`](../pipeline-components/retrievers/weaviateembeddingretriever.mdx): Compares the query and document embeddings and fetches the documents most relevant to the query.