!function(){function t(t){document.documentElement.setAttribute("data-theme",t)}var e=function(){var t=null;try{t=new URLSearchParams(window.location.search).get("docusaurus-theme")}catch(t){}return t}()||function(){var t=null;try{t=localStorage.getItem("theme")}catch(t){}return t}();t(null!==e?e:"light")}(),document.documentElement.setAttribute("data-announcement-bar-initially-dismissed",function(){try{return"true"===localStorage.getItem("docusaurus.announcement.dismiss")}catch(t){}return!1}())

[Skip to main content](#__docusaurus_skipToContent_fallback)

You are viewing the **preview** v0.2 docs. View the **stable** v0.1 docs [here](/v0.1/docs/get_started/introduction/). Leave feedback on the v0.2 docs [here](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langchainjs/discussions/5386).

[

![🦜️🔗 Langchain](/v0.2/img/brand/wordmark.png)![🦜️🔗 Langchain](/v0.2/img/brand/wordmark-dark.png)

](/v0.2/)[Integrations](/v0.2/docs/integrations/platforms/)[API Reference](https://v02.api.js.langchain.com)

[More](#)

*   [People](/v0.2/docs/people/)
*   [Community](/v0.2/docs/community)
*   [Tutorials](/v0.2/docs/additional_resources/tutorials)
*   [Contributing](/v0.2/docs/contributing)

[v0.2](#)

*   [v0.2](/v0.2/docs/introduction)
*   [v0.1](https://js.langchain.com/v0.1/docs/get_started/introduction)

[🦜🔗](#)

*   [LangSmith](https://smith.langchain.com)
*   [LangSmith Docs](https://docs.smith.langchain.com)
*   [LangChain Hub](https://smith.langchain.com/hub)
*   [LangServe](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langserve)
*   [Python Docs](https://python.langchain.com/)

[Chat](https://chatjs.langchain.com)[](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langchainjs)

Search

*   [Introduction](/v0.2/docs/introduction)
*   [Tutorials](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/)
    
    *   [Build a Question Answering application over a Graph Database](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/graph)
    *   [Tutorials](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/)
    *   [Build a Simple LLM Application](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/llm_chain)
    *   [Build a Query Analysis System](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/query_analysis)
    *   [Build a Chatbot](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/chatbot)
    *   [Build an Agent](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/agents)
    *   [Build an Extraction Chain](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/extraction)
    *   [Summarize Text](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/summarization)
    *   [Tagging](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/classification)
    *   [Build a Local RAG Application](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/local_rag)
    *   [Conversational RAG](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/qa_chat_history)
    *   [Build a Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) App](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/rag)
    *   [Build a Question/Answering system over SQL data](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/sql_qa)
*   [How-to guides](/v0.2/docs/how_to/)
    
    *   [How-to guides](/v0.2/docs/how_to/)
    *   [How to use example selectors](/v0.2/docs/how_to/example_selectors)
    *   [Installation](/v0.2/docs/how_to/installation)
    *   [How to stream responses from an LLM](/v0.2/docs/how_to/streaming_llm)
    *   [How to stream chat model responses](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chat_streaming)
    *   [How to embed text data](/v0.2/docs/how_to/embed_text)
    *   [How to use few shot examples in chat models](/v0.2/docs/how_to/few_shot_examples_chat)
    *   [How to cache model responses](/v0.2/docs/how_to/llm_caching)
    *   [How to cache chat model responses](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chat_model_caching)
    *   [How to create a custom LLM class](/v0.2/docs/how_to/custom_llm)
    *   [How to use few shot examples](/v0.2/docs/how_to/few_shot_examples)
    *   [How to use output parsers to parse an LLM response into structured format](/v0.2/docs/how_to/output_parser_structured)
    *   [How to return structured data from a model](/v0.2/docs/how_to/structured_output)
    *   [How to add ad-hoc tool calling capability to LLMs and Chat Models](/v0.2/docs/how_to/tools_prompting)
    *   [How to create a custom chat model class](/v0.2/docs/how_to/custom_chat)
    *   [How to do per-user retrieval](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_per_user)
    *   [How to track token usage](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chat_token_usage_tracking)
    *   [How to track token usage](/v0.2/docs/how_to/llm_token_usage_tracking)
    *   [How to pass through arguments from one step to the next](/v0.2/docs/how_to/passthrough)
    *   [How to compose prompts together](/v0.2/docs/how_to/prompts_composition)
    *   [How to use legacy LangChain Agents (AgentExecutor)](/v0.2/docs/how_to/agent_executor)
    *   [How to add values to a chain's state](/v0.2/docs/how_to/assign)
    *   [How to attach runtime arguments to a Runnable](/v0.2/docs/how_to/binding)
    *   [How to cache embedding results](/v0.2/docs/how_to/caching_embeddings)
    *   [How to split by character](/v0.2/docs/how_to/character_text_splitter)
    *   [How to manage memory](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chatbots_memory)
    *   [How to do retrieval](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chatbots_retrieval)
    *   [How to use tools](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chatbots_tools)
    *   [How to split code](/v0.2/docs/how_to/code_splitter)
    *   [How to do retrieval with contextual compression](/v0.2/docs/how_to/contextual_compression)
    *   [How to write a custom retriever class](/v0.2/docs/how_to/custom_retriever)
    *   [How to create custom Tools](/v0.2/docs/how_to/custom_tools)
    *   [How to debug your LLM apps](/v0.2/docs/how_to/debugging)
    *   [How to load CSV data](/v0.2/docs/how_to/document_loader_csv)
    *   [How to write a custom document loader](/v0.2/docs/how_to/document_loader_custom)
    *   [How to load data from a directory](/v0.2/docs/how_to/document_loader_directory)
    *   [How to load PDF files](/v0.2/docs/how_to/document_loader_pdf)
    *   [How to load JSON data](/v0.2/docs/how_to/document_loaders_json)
    *   [How to select examples by length](/v0.2/docs/how_to/example_selectors_length_based)
    *   [How to select examples by similarity](/v0.2/docs/how_to/example_selectors_similarity)
    *   [How to use reference examples](/v0.2/docs/how_to/extraction_examples)
    *   [How to handle long text](/v0.2/docs/how_to/extraction_long_text)
    *   [How to do extraction without using function calling](/v0.2/docs/how_to/extraction_parse)
    *   [Fallbacks](/v0.2/docs/how_to/fallbacks)
    *   [Few Shot Prompt Templates](/v0.2/docs/how_to/few_shot)
    *   [How to run custom functions](/v0.2/docs/how_to/functions)
    *   [How to construct knowledge graphs](/v0.2/docs/how_to/graph_constructing)
    *   [How to map values to a database](/v0.2/docs/how_to/graph_mapping)
    *   [How to improve results with prompting](/v0.2/docs/how_to/graph_prompting)
    *   [How to add a semantic layer over the database](/v0.2/docs/how_to/graph_semantic)
    *   [How to reindex data to keep your vectorstore in-sync with the underlying data source](/v0.2/docs/how_to/indexing)
    *   [How to get log probabilities](/v0.2/docs/how_to/logprobs)
    *   [How to add message history](/v0.2/docs/how_to/message_history)
    *   [How to generate multiple embeddings per document](/v0.2/docs/how_to/multi_vector)
    *   [How to generate multiple queries to retrieve data for](/v0.2/docs/how_to/multiple_queries)
    *   [How to parse JSON output](/v0.2/docs/how_to/output_parser_json)
    *   [How to retry when output parsing errors occur](/v0.2/docs/how_to/output_parser_retry)
    *   [How to parse XML output](/v0.2/docs/how_to/output_parser_xml)
    *   [How to invoke runnables in parallel](/v0.2/docs/how_to/parallel)
    *   [How to retrieve the whole document for a chunk](/v0.2/docs/how_to/parent_document_retriever)
    *   [How to partially format prompt templates](/v0.2/docs/how_to/prompts_partial)
    *   [How to add chat history to a question-answering chain](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_chat_history_how_to)
    *   [How to return citations](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_citations)
    *   [How to return sources](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_sources)
    *   [How to stream from a question-answering chain](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_streaming)
    *   [How to construct filters](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_constructing_filters)
    *   [How to add examples to the prompt](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_few_shot)
    *   [How to deal with high cardinality categorical variables](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_high_cardinality)
    *   [How to handle multiple queries](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_multiple_queries)
    *   [How to handle multiple retrievers](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_multiple_retrievers)
    *   [How to handle cases where no queries are generated](/v0.2/docs/how_to/query_no_queries)
    *   [How to recursively split text by characters](/v0.2/docs/how_to/recursive_text_splitter)
    *   [How to reduce retrieval latency](/v0.2/docs/how_to/reduce_retrieval_latency)
    *   [How to route execution within a chain](/v0.2/docs/how_to/routing)
    *   [How to chain runnables](/v0.2/docs/how_to/sequence)
    *   [How to split text by tokens](/v0.2/docs/how_to/split_by_token)
    *   [How to deal with large databases](/v0.2/docs/how_to/sql_large_db)
    *   [How to use prompting to improve results](/v0.2/docs/how_to/sql_prompting)
    *   [How to do query validation](/v0.2/docs/how_to/sql_query_checking)
    *   [How to stream](/v0.2/docs/how_to/streaming)
    *   [How to create a time-weighted retriever](/v0.2/docs/how_to/time_weighted_vectorstore)
    *   [How to use a chat model to call tools](/v0.2/docs/how_to/tool_calling)
    *   [How to call tools with multi-modal data](/v0.2/docs/how_to/tool_calls_multi_modal)
    *   [How to use LangChain tools](/v0.2/docs/how_to/tools_builtin)
    *   [How use a vector store to retrieve data](/v0.2/docs/how_to/vectorstore_retriever)
    *   [How to create and query vector stores](/v0.2/docs/how_to/vectorstores)
*   [Conceptual guide](/v0.2/docs/concepts)
*   Ecosystem
    
    *   [🦜🛠️ LangSmith](/v0.2/docs/langsmith/)
        
    *   [🦜🕸️LangGraph.js](/v0.2/docs/langgraph)
*   Versions
    
    *   [Overview](/v0.2/docs/versions/overview)
    *   [v0.2](/v0.2/docs/versions/v0_2)
    *   [Release Policy](/v0.2/docs/versions/release_policy)
    *   [Packages](/v0.2/docs/versions/packages)
*   [Security](/v0.2/docs/security)

*   [](/v0.2/)
*   [How-to guides](/v0.2/docs/how_to/)
*   How to do per-user retrieval

On this page

How to do per-user retrieval
============================

Prerequisites

This guide assumes familiarity with the following:

*   [Retrieval-augmented generation](/v0.2/docs/tutorials/rag/)

When building a retrieval app, you often have to build it with multiple users in mind. This means that you may be storing data not just for one user, but for many different users, and they should not be able to see each other’s data. This means that you need to be able to configure your retrieval chain to only retrieve certain information. This generally involves two steps.

**Step 1: Make sure the retriever you are using supports multiple users**

At the moment, there is no unified flag or filter for this in LangChain. Rather, each vectorstore and retriever may have their own, and may be called different things (namespaces, multi-tenancy, etc). For vectorstores, this is generally exposed as a keyword argument that is passed in during `similaritySearch`. By reading the documentation or source code, figure out whether the retriever you are using supports multiple users, and, if so, how to use it.

**Step 2: Add that parameter as a configurable field for the chain**

The LangChain `config` object is passed through to every Runnable. Here you can add any fields you’d like to the `configurable` object. Later, inside the chain we can extract these fields.

**Step 3: Call the chain with that configurable field**

Now, at runtime you can call this chain with configurable field.

Code Example[​](#code-example "Direct link to Code Example")
------------------------------------------------------------

Let’s see a concrete example of what this looks like in code. We will use Pinecone for this example.

Setup[​](#setup "Direct link to Setup")
---------------------------------------

### Install dependencies[​](#install-dependencies "Direct link to Install dependencies")

tip

See [this section for general instructions on installing integration packages](/v0.2/docs/how_to/installation#installing-integration-packages).

*   npm
*   yarn
*   pnpm

    npm i @langchain/pinecone @langchain/openai @pinecone-database/pinecone @langchain/core

    yarn add @langchain/pinecone @langchain/openai @pinecone-database/pinecone @langchain/core

    pnpm add @langchain/pinecone @langchain/openai @pinecone-database/pinecone @langchain/core

### Set environment variables[​](#set-environment-variables "Direct link to Set environment variables")

We’ll use OpenAI and Pinecone in this example:

    OPENAI_API_KEY=your-api-keyPINECONE_API_KEY=your-api-keyPINECONE_INDEX=your-index-name# Optional, use LangSmith for best-in-class observabilityLANGSMITH_API_KEY=your-api-keyLANGCHAIN_TRACING_V2=true

    import { OpenAIEmbeddings } from "@langchain/openai";import { PineconeStore } from "@langchain/pinecone";import { Pinecone } from "@pinecone-database/pinecone";import { Document } from "@langchain/core/documents";const embeddings = new OpenAIEmbeddings();const pinecone = new Pinecone();const pineconeIndex = pinecone.Index(Deno.env.get("PINECONE_INDEX"));const vectorStore = await PineconeStore.fromExistingIndex(  new OpenAIEmbeddings(),  { pineconeIndex });await vectorStore.addDocuments(  [new Document({ pageContent: "i worked at kensho" })],  { namespace: "harrison" });await vectorStore.addDocuments(  [new Document({ pageContent: "i worked at facebook" })],  { namespace: "ankush" });

    [ "77b8f174-9d89-4c6c-b2ab-607fe3913b2d" ]

The pinecone kwarg for `namespace` can be used to separate documents

    // This will only get documents for Ankushconst ankushRetriever = vectorStore.asRetriever({  filter: {    namespace: "ankush",  },});await ankushRetriever.invoke("where did i work?");

    [ Document { pageContent: "i worked at facebook", metadata: {} } ]

    // This will only get documents for Harrisonconst harrisonRetriever = vectorStore.asRetriever({  filter: {    namespace: "harrison",  },});await harrisonRetriever.invoke("where did i work?");

    [ Document { pageContent: "i worked at kensho", metadata: {} } ]

We can now create the chain that we will use to perform question-answering.

    import { StringOutputParser } from "@langchain/core/output_parsers";import { ChatPromptTemplate } from "@langchain/core/prompts";import {  RunnableBinding,  RunnableLambda,  RunnablePassthrough,} from "@langchain/core/runnables";import { ChatOpenAI, OpenAIEmbeddings } from "@langchain/openai";const template = `Answer the question based only on the following context:{context}Question: {question}`;const prompt = ChatPromptTemplate.fromTemplate(template);const model = new ChatOpenAI({  model: "gpt-3.5-turbo-0125",  temperature: 0,});

We can now create the chain using our configurable retriever. It is configurable because we can define any object which will be passed to the chain. From there, we extract the configurable object and pass it to the vectorstore.

    import {  RunnablePassthrough,  RunnableSequence,} from "@langchain/core/runnables";const chain = RunnableSequence.from([  RunnablePassthrough.assign({    context: async (input, config) => {      if (!config || !("configurable" in config)) {        throw new Error("No config");      }      const { configurable } = config;      const documents = await vectorStore        .asRetriever(configurable)        .invoke(input.question, config);      return documents.map((doc) => doc.pageContent).join("\n\n");    },  }),  prompt,  model,  new StringOutputParser(),]);

We can now invoke the chain with configurable options. `search_kwargs` is the id of the configurable field. The value is the search kwargs to use for Pinecone

    await chain.invoke(  { question: "where did the user work?" },  { configurable: { filter: { namespace: "harrison" } } });

    "The user worked at Kensho."

    await chain.invoke(  { question: "where did the user work?" },  { configurable: { filter: { namespace: "ankush" } } });

    "The user worked at Facebook."

For more vector store implementations that can support multiple users, please refer to specific pages, such as [Milvus](/v0.2/docs/integrations/vectorstores/milvus).

Next steps[​](#next-steps "Direct link to Next steps")
------------------------------------------------------

You’ve now seen one approach for supporting retrieval with data from multiple users.

Next, check out some of the other how-to guides on RAG, such as [returning sources](/v0.2/docs/how_to/qa_sources).

* * *

#### Was this page helpful?

  

#### You can leave detailed feedback [on GitHub](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langchainjs/issues/new?assignees=&labels=03+-+Documentation&projects=&template=documentation.yml&title=DOC%3A+%3CPlease+write+a+comprehensive+title+after+the+%27DOC%3A+%27+prefix%3E).

[

Previous

How to create a custom chat model class

](/v0.2/docs/how_to/custom_chat)[

Next

How to track token usage

](/v0.2/docs/how_to/chat_token_usage_tracking)

*   [Code Example](#code-example)
*   [Setup](#setup)
    *   [Install dependencies](#install-dependencies)
    *   [Set environment variables](#set-environment-variables)
*   [Next steps](#next-steps)

Community

*   [Discord](https://discord.gg/cU2adEyC7w)
*   [Twitter](https://twitter.com/LangChainAI)

GitHub

*   [Python](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langchain)
*   [JS/TS](https://github.com/langchain-ai/langchainjs)

More

*   [Homepage](https://langchain.com)
*   [Blog](https://blog.langchain.dev)

Copyright © 2024 LangChain, Inc.