Export

An export is a single archive that holds a knowledge base: every document, the chunks Sim split it into, the tag definitions and values, and the chunking settings. Use it to keep a copy of a base outside Sim.

To export, right-click a base in the knowledge base list and choose Export, or open the base and click the Export button in the header. The download is named <base name>.simkb.zip.

What the archive contains

<base name>.simkb.zip
├── manifest.json
├── files/
│   └── <documentId>/<filename>
└── chunks/
    └── <documentId>.ndjson
  • manifest.json describes the export (format version 1): the base name, description, and chunking config; the embedding model and dimension and whether vectors are included; the tag definitions; and a document list with each document's filename, MIME type, size, enabled flag, tag values, entry paths, and chunk, token, and character counts.
  • files/ holds each document's original file, when it has one.
  • chunks/ holds one NDJSON file per document, with one JSON line per chunk: its index, content, token count, start and end offsets, enabled flag, and the vector when vectors are included.

The export includes every document a workspace member can read, its file and its chunk text. Documents synced from a connector export as plain documents: their text and, where Sim stored it, their file.

What stays behind

An export never includes:

  • Access-control lists
  • Connector links and credentials
  • Who uploaded each document
  • Internal storage keys

Organization-wide search indexes cannot be exported.

Vectors

Vectors are embeddings, the numbers a model produces so search can compare chunks. They are included by default. Each chunk's vector is stored as base64-encoded float32 values in its NDJSON line.

Vectors are only valid for a deployment that uses the same embedding model and dimension. The manifest records both for the base you exported. To skip vectors, set vectors=false on the API or pass --no-vectors to the CLI.

Limits and governance

A base with more than 2,000 documents cannot be exported. The request returns 413.

Organization admins can withhold export through the permission group setting Knowledge Base Export (enterprise). Every export records an audit event.

API

GET /api/v2/knowledge/{knowledgeBaseId}/export?workspaceId={workspaceId}&vectors=true

The response is the archive. See the API reference for authentication.

CLI

sim knowledge export <knowledgeBaseId> --output-file kb.zip
sim knowledge export <knowledgeBaseId> --output-file kb.zip --no-vectors
Chunking strategiesTables