Docling Studio

A visual document analysis studio powered by Docling. Upload a PDF, configure the extraction pipeline, and visualize the results — text, tables, images, formulas, bounding boxes — all from your browser.

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Features

• Home page with quick upload and recent documents
• PDF viewer with page navigation, bounding box overlay, and resizable results panel
• Configurable Docling pipeline — OCR, table extraction, code/formula enrichment, picture classification & description, image generation
• Bounding box visualization — color-coded element overlay directly on the PDF
• Per-page results — right panel syncs with the current PDF page
• Chunking — split extracted content into semantic chunks (hierarchical, hybrid, or page-based) with configurable token limits and inline editing
• Ingestion pipeline — Docling → chunking → embedding → OpenSearch vector indexing (one-click from Studio)
• Graph storage (Neo4j) — full DoclingDocument tree (sections, paragraphs, tables, pages, chunks) mirrored as a graph with PARENT_OF, NEXT, ON_PAGE, HAS_CHUNK, DERIVED_FROM relations, with an in-app graph view powered by Cytoscape.js
• Markdown & HTML export of extracted content
• Document management — upload, list, delete, search, filter by indexing status
• Analysis history — re-visit and open past analyses
• Upload limits — configurable max file size and max page count per document
• Rate limiting — configurable requests per minute per IP
• Dark / Light theme and FR / EN localization

Architecture

┌────────────┐         ┌──────────────────────┐
│  Frontend  │────────▶│   Document Parser    │
│  Vue 3     │  /api/* │ FastAPI + Docling    │
│  port 3000 │         │ SQLite + file storage│
└────────────┘         │   port 8000          │
                       └──────────────────────┘

Service	Stack	Role
frontend	Vue 3, TypeScript, Vite, Pinia	UI, PDF viewer, results display
document-parser	FastAPI, Docling, SQLite, pdf2image	REST API, document parsing, storage

Backend structure (hexagonal architecture — ports & adapters)

document-parser/
├── main.py                   # FastAPI app, CORS, lifespan
├── domain/                   # Pure domain — no HTTP, no DB
│   ├── models.py             # Document, AnalysisJob dataclasses
│   ├── ports.py              # Abstract protocols (converter, chunker)
│   └── value_objects.py      # ConversionResult, PageDetail, ChunkResult
├── api/                      # HTTP layer (FastAPI routers)
│   ├── schemas.py            # Pydantic DTOs (camelCase serialization)
│   ├── documents.py          # /api/documents endpoints
│   └── analyses.py           # /api/analyses endpoints
├── persistence/              # Data layer (SQLite via aiosqlite)
│   ├── database.py           # Connection management, schema init
│   ├── document_repo.py      # Document CRUD
│   └── analysis_repo.py      # AnalysisJob CRUD
├── services/                 # Use case orchestration
│   ├── document_service.py   # Upload, delete, preview
│   └── analysis_service.py   # Async Docling processing
└── tests/                    # 377 tests (pytest)

Frontend structure (feature-based)

frontend/src/
├── app/                      # App shell, router, global styles
├── pages/                    # Route-level pages
│   ├── HomePage.vue          # Landing page with upload & stats
│   ├── StudioPage.vue        # PDF viewer + config + results
│   ├── DocumentsPage.vue     # Document management
│   ├── HistoryPage.vue       # Past analyses
│   └── SettingsPage.vue      # Theme, language, API URL
├── features/                 # Feature modules
│   ├── analysis/             # Analysis store, API, bbox, UI components
│   ├── document/             # Document store, API, upload, list
│   ├── history/              # History store, API, navigation
│   └── settings/             # Settings store
└── shared/                   # Shared utilities (types, i18n, http, format)

Quick Start

One command, nothing else to install:

docker run -p 3000:3000 ghcr.io/scub-france/docling-studio:latest-local

Open http://localhost:3000, upload a PDF, and get results. That's it.

Note: The first analysis takes longer as Docling downloads its ML models (~400 MB). Subsequent runs are fast.

Image variants

Variant	Image tag	Size	Description
local	latest-local	~1.9 GB	Full — runs Docling in-process, CPU-only
remote	latest-remote	~270 MB	Lightweight — delegates to an external Docling Serve instance

For remote mode:

docker run -p 3000:3000 \
  -e DOCLING_SERVE_URL=http://your-docling-serve:5001 \
  ghcr.io/scub-france/docling-studio:latest-remote

Docker Compose

git clone https://github.com/scub-france/Docling-Studio.git
cd Docling-Studio

# Simple mode (backend + frontend only)
docker compose up --build

# With ingestion pipeline (OpenSearch + embeddings)
docker compose --profile ingestion -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.ingestion.yml up --build

Local Development

Backend (Python 3.12+):

cd document-parser
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate

# Remote mode (lightweight)
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Local mode (with Docling)
pip install -r requirements-local.txt

uvicorn main:app --reload --port 8000

Frontend (Node 20+):

cd frontend
npm install
npm run dev

Running Tests

# Backend (377 tests)
cd document-parser
pip install pytest pytest-asyncio httpx
pytest tests/ -v

# Frontend (156 tests)
cd frontend
npm run test:run

Pipeline Options

These options map directly to Docling's PdfPipelineOptions. See the Docling documentation for details on each feature.

Option	Default	Description
do_ocr	true	OCR for scanned pages and embedded images
do_table_structure	true	Table detection and row/column reconstruction
table_mode	accurate	accurate (TableFormer) or fast
do_code_enrichment	false	Specialized OCR for code blocks
do_formula_enrichment	false	Math formula recognition (LaTeX output)
do_picture_classification	false	Classify images by type (chart, photo, diagram…)
do_picture_description	false	Generate image descriptions via VLM
generate_picture_images	false	Extract detected images as separate files
generate_page_images	false	Rasterize each page as an image
images_scale	1.0	Scale factor for generated images (0.1–10)

Configuration

All configuration is done via environment variables. See .env.example.

Variable	Default	Description
CONVERSION_ENGINE	local	local (in-process Docling) or remote (Docling Serve)
DOCLING_SERVE_URL	http://localhost:5001	Docling Serve endpoint (remote mode only)
DOCLING_SERVE_API_KEY	—	API key for Docling Serve (optional)
CORS_ORIGINS	http://localhost:3000,...	CORS allowed origins (comma-separated)
UPLOAD_DIR	./uploads	File storage directory
DB_PATH	./data/docling_studio.db	SQLite database path
CONVERSION_TIMEOUT	600	Max seconds for a single Docling conversion
BATCH_PAGE_SIZE	10	Pages per batch (0 = process all at once)
MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB	50	Maximum upload file size in MB (0 = unlimited)
MAX_PAGE_COUNT	0	Maximum number of pages per document (0 = unlimited)
NGINX_MAX_BODY_SIZE	200M	Nginx request body limit — nginx format (200M, 0 = unlimited). Must be ≥ MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB.
RATE_LIMIT_RPM	100	Max requests per minute per IP (0 = disabled)

Upload Limits

Docling Studio enforces configurable limits on uploaded documents to protect the server against oversized files and long-running analyses:

• MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB (default 50) — rejects uploads exceeding this size. Validated at two levels: early Content-Length check and streaming byte count.
• MAX_PAGE_COUNT (default 0 = unlimited) — rejects documents with more pages than allowed. Useful on shared instances or Hugging Face Spaces to cap processing time.
• NGINX_MAX_BODY_SIZE (default 200M) — nginx-level body cap, applied before the request reaches the backend. Defaults to 200M so MAX_FILE_SIZE_MB is always the effective limit. Use nginx format (50M, 1G, 0 for unlimited).

Both application limits are exposed in the /api/health endpoint so the frontend can display them to the user before upload. Set either to 0 to disable the corresponding check.

Ingestion Pipeline (opt-in)

Docling Studio can optionally index extracted chunks into OpenSearch for vector and full-text search. This requires two additional services (OpenSearch + embedding) and is disabled by default.

To enable ingestion with Docker Compose:

docker compose --profile ingestion \
  -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.ingestion.yml \
  up --build

When ingestion is enabled, the UI shows:

• An Ingest button in Studio to push chunks to OpenSearch
• An OpenSearch connection status badge in the sidebar
• Indexed / Not indexed filters on the Documents page
• A Search page for full-text and vector search across indexed documents

Variable	Default	Description
OPENSEARCH_URL	—	OpenSearch endpoint (empty = ingestion disabled)
EMBEDDING_URL	—	Embedding service endpoint (empty = ingestion disabled)
EMBEDDING_DIMENSION	384	Vector dimension (must match embedding model)

Graph storage with Neo4j (opt-in)

Docling Studio can mirror the full DoclingDocument tree into a Neo4j graph: sections, paragraphs, tables, figures, pages, and chunks all become first-class nodes connected by HAS_ROOT, PARENT_OF, NEXT, ON_PAGE, HAS_CHUNK, and DERIVED_FROM edges. This enables queries that are impossible with a flat chunk store — navigating a document's outline, finding all tables under a given section, or tracing a chunk back to its source elements.

Enable Neo4j with the ingestion profile (it ships alongside OpenSearch):

docker compose --profile ingestion \
  -f docker-compose.yml -f docker-compose.ingestion.yml \
  up --build

The Neo4j Browser is available at http://localhost:7474 (user neo4j, password changeme by default).

Schema at a glance

graph TD
    D[Document] -->|HAS_ROOT| SH[SectionHeader]
    D -->|HAS_CHUNK| C[Chunk]
    SH -->|PARENT_OF| P[Paragraph]
    SH -->|PARENT_OF| T[Table]
    P -->|NEXT| T
    P -->|ON_PAGE| PG[Page]
    T -->|ON_PAGE| PG
    C -->|DERIVED_FROM| P
    C -->|DERIVED_FROM| T

Example Cypher queries

Find all "Methods" sections across documents (impossible in vector-only stores):

MATCH (d:Document)-[:HAS_ROOT]->(:Element)-[:PARENT_OF*]->(s:SectionHeader)
WHERE toLower(s.text) CONTAINS 'method'
RETURN d.title, s.text, s.level

Get the parent section and sibling elements of a chunk (context for RAG):

MATCH (c:Chunk {id: $chunk_id})-[:DERIVED_FROM]->(e:Element)
MATCH (e)<-[:PARENT_OF]-(parent:Element)-[:PARENT_OF]->(sibling:Element)
RETURN parent, collect(sibling) AS siblings

List all tables from documents ingested from an invoices/ path:

MATCH (d:Document)-[:HAS_ROOT]->(:Element)-[:PARENT_OF*]->(t:Table)
WHERE d.source_uri CONTAINS 'invoices/'
RETURN d.title, t.caption, t.cells_json

Variable	Default	Description
NEO4J_URI	—	Neo4j Bolt endpoint (empty = graph storage disabled)
NEO4J_USER	neo4j	Neo4j username
NEO4J_PASSWORD	changeme	Neo4j password

The in-app Graph tab (under Results) renders the per-document graph with Cytoscape.js (see ADR-001 for the library choice). Documents with more than 200 pages return HTTP 413 from GET /api/documents/{id}/graph; pagination ships in v0.6.

Live Reasoning (opt-in, R&D)

Docling Studio can run docling-agent's Chunkless RAG loop against an analyzed document and return a full reasoning trace — the path the agent walked through the document outline, with the section reference / rationale / answer for each iteration. The trace is overlaid on the document graph so you can see how the agent navigated the structure.

Disabled by default — pulls heavy deps (docling-agent, mellea, ~60 MB) and needs a reachable Ollama instance with the target model already pulled.

Enable

export REASONING_ENABLED=true
export OLLAMA_HOST=http://localhost:11434      # default
export REASONING_MODEL_ID=gpt-oss:20b           # any model already pulled in Ollama
# Optional, future-proof — only "ollama" is realizable today (see Architecture below):
export LLM_PROVIDER_TYPE=ollama

Then pip install docling-agent mellea (or use the local Docker image which bundles them) and restart the backend. The frontend reads reasoningAvailable from /api/health and hides the Reasoning sidebar entry when the runner isn't wired — so users never click through to a 503.

Variable	Default	Description
REASONING_ENABLED	false	Master switch — true to enable the live runner
OLLAMA_HOST	http://localhost:11434	Ollama daemon URL
REASONING_MODEL_ID	gpt-oss:20b	Default model id (per-call override allowed via the API)
LLM_PROVIDER_TYPE	ollama	LLM backend selector — only ollama is supported today

Architecture

The reasoning subsystem is wired through a ReasoningRunner port (document-parser/domain/ports.py) and an LLMProvider abstraction:

• domain/ports.py defines ReasoningRunner, LLMProvider, ReasoningParseError (no third-party imports)
• domain/value_objects.py defines LLMProviderType, ReasoningResult, ReasoningIteration
• infra/llm/ollama_provider.py implements LLMProvider for Ollama
• infra/docling_agent_reasoning.py implements ReasoningRunner using docling-agent + mellea — all upstream coupling is here, including the _rag_loop workaround tracked at docling-agent#26
• api/reasoning.py consumes app.state.reasoning_runner — zero coupling to docling-agent

This makes alternate LLM backends a question of adding new LLMProvider adapters once docling-agent (or a replacement) supports them upstream.

CI / Release

GitHub Actions pipelines (see .github/workflows/):

Workflow	Trigger	What it does
CI	push to main, pull requests	Lint + type check + Backend tests + Frontend tests + build
Release	push tag v*	Build & push two multi-arch Docker images (remote + local) to ghcr.io
Docs	push to main (docs changes)	Build & deploy MkDocs to GitHub Pages

We follow Semantic Versioning with a simplified Git Flow. See CONTRIBUTING.md for the full release process.

Performance & System Requirements

Document type	Pages	Approx. time (CPU)
Simple report	5–10	~30s–1 min
Research paper	10–30	~1–2 min
Large document	100+	~2–5 min

Docker Desktop settings

	Remote image	Local image
Image size	~270 MB	~1.9 GB
Memory	2 GB	6 GB (recommended 8 GB+)
CPUs	2	4 (recommended 8+)

Platform support

All Docker images are multi-arch (linux/amd64 + linux/arm64). No GPU required.

Tech Stack

• Frontend: Vue 3, TypeScript, Vite, Pinia, DOMPurify
• Backend: FastAPI, Docling 2.x, SQLite (aiosqlite), pdf2image
• CI: GitHub Actions
• Infra: Docker Compose + Nginx

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

License

MIT — Pier-Jean Malandrino