---
title: "WeaviateBM25Retriever"
id: weaviatebm25retriever
slug: "/weaviatebm25retriever"
description: "This is a keyword-based Retriever that fetches Documents matching a query from the Weaviate Document Store."
---

# WeaviateBM25Retriever

This is a keyword-based Retriever that fetches Documents matching a query from the Weaviate Document Store.

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

|  |  |
| --- | --- |
| **Most common position in a pipeline** | 1. Before a [`PromptBuilder`](../builders/promptbuilder.mdx)   in a RAG pipeline 2. The last component in the semantic search pipeline 3. Before an [`ExtractiveReader`](../readers/extractivereader.mdx)   in an extractive QA pipeline |
| **Mandatory init variables**           | `document_store`: An instance of a [WeaviateDocumentStore](../../document-stores/weaviatedocumentstore.mdx)                                                                                                                                 |
| **Mandatory run variables**            | `query`: A string                                                                                                                                                                                                     |
| **Output variables**                   | `documents`: A list of documents (matching the query)                                                                                                                                                                 |
| **API reference**                      | [Weaviate](/reference/integrations-weaviate)                                                                                                                                                                                 |
| **GitHub link**                        | https://github.com/deepset-ai/haystack-core-integrations/tree/main/integrations/weaviate                                                                                                                            |

</div>

## Overview

`WeaviateBM25Retriever` is a keyword-based Retriever that fetches Documents matching a query from [`WeaviateDocumentStore`](../../document-stores/weaviatedocumentstore.mdx). It determines the similarity between Documents and the query based on the BM25 algorithm, which computes a weighted word overlap between the
two strings.

Since the `WeaviateBM25Retriever` matches strings based on word overlap, it’s often used to find exact matches to names of persons or products, IDs, or well-defined error messages. The BM25 algorithm is very lightweight and simple. Beating it with more complex embedding-based approaches on out-of-domain data can be hard.

If you want a semantic match between a query and documents, use the [`WeaviateEmbeddingRetriever`](weaviateembeddingretriever.mdx), which uses vectors created by embedding models to retrieve relevant information.

### Parameters

In addition to the `query`, the `WeaviateBM25Retriever` accepts other optional parameters, including `top_k` (the maximum number of Documents to retrieve) and `filters` to narrow down the search space.

### Usage

### Installation

To start using Weaviate with Haystack, install the package with:

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

#### On its own

This Retriever needs an instance of `WeaviateDocumentStore` and indexed Documents to run.

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate.document_store import (
    WeaviateDocumentStore,
)
from haystack_integrations.components.retrievers.weaviate import WeaviateBM25Retriever

document_store = WeaviateDocumentStore(url="http://localhost:8080")

retriever = WeaviateBM25Retriever(document_store=document_store)

retriever.run(query="How to make a pizza", top_k=3)
```

#### In a Pipeline

```python
from haystack_integrations.document_stores.weaviate.document_store import (
    WeaviateDocumentStore,
)
from haystack_integrations.components.retrievers.weaviate import (
    WeaviateBM25Retriever,
)

from haystack import Document
from haystack import Pipeline
from haystack.components.builders.answer_builder import AnswerBuilder
from haystack.components.builders.prompt_builder import PromptBuilder
from haystack.components.generators import OpenAIGenerator
from haystack.document_stores.types import DuplicatePolicy

## Create a RAG query pipeline
prompt_template = """
    Given these documents, answer the question.\nDocuments:
    {% for doc in documents %}
        {{ doc.content }}
    {% endfor %}

    \nQuestion: {{question}}
    \nAnswer:
    """

document_store = WeaviateDocumentStore(url="http://localhost:8080")

## Add Documents
documents = [
    Document(content="There are over 7,000 languages spoken around the world today."),
    Document(
        content="Elephants have been observed to behave in a way that indicates a high level of self-awareness, such as recognizing themselves in mirrors.",
    ),
    Document(
        content="In certain parts of the world, like the Maldives, Puerto Rico, and San Diego, you can witness the phenomenon of bioluminescent waves.",
    ),
]

## DuplicatePolicy.SKIP param is optional, but useful to run the script multiple times without throwing errors
document_store.write_documents(documents=documents, policy=DuplicatePolicy.SKIP)

rag_pipeline = Pipeline()
rag_pipeline.add_component(
    name="retriever",
    instance=WeaviateBM25Retriever(document_store=document_store),
)
rag_pipeline.add_component(
    instance=PromptBuilder(template=prompt_template),
    name="prompt_builder",
)
rag_pipeline.add_component(instance=OpenAIGenerator(), name="llm")
rag_pipeline.add_component(instance=AnswerBuilder(), name="answer_builder")
rag_pipeline.connect("retriever", "prompt_builder.documents")
rag_pipeline.connect("prompt_builder", "llm")
rag_pipeline.connect("llm.replies", "answer_builder.replies")
rag_pipeline.connect("llm.metadata", "answer_builder.metadata")
rag_pipeline.connect("retriever", "answer_builder.documents")

question = "How many languages are spoken around the world today?"
result = rag_pipeline.run(
    {
        "retriever": {"query": question},
        "prompt_builder": {"question": question},
        "answer_builder": {"query": question},
    },
)
print(result["answer_builder"]["answers"][0])
```
