The agent-access flag
Every file has a boolean agent access flag:| State | What it means |
|---|---|
| Agent Access (default off for privacy) | The file’s contents can be retrieved by agents |
| No Agent Access | The file exists in Files but is invisible to agents |
How indexing works
When you enable agent access:- ShingleAI splits the file into semantic chunks using a structural markdown chunker — sections, paragraphs, and other structural boundaries rather than fixed-size windows.
- Each chunk is embedded and stored in the retrieval index.
- When an agent needs information, it queries the index and receives the most relevant chunks back as context.
There is no UI indicator for index status today. Once you enable agent access, give the system a minute to finish indexing before relying on the file’s content in an agent chat.
Turning agent access on or off
Edit the file (via its detail page) and toggle Agent access. Turning it off removes the file from the index; turning it back on re-indexes.What content agents see
Agents see the file’s text — extracted from the document. Binary content (images, raw PDFs without OCR) isn’t indexed meaningfully; the indexer works best with markdown, plain text, and documents with recoverable text layers.Privacy
Agent-accessible files are scoped to your organization. Agents in other organizations never see them. Within your org, any agent that has the “read files” tool permission can retrieve content.Next steps
Uploading files
Enable agent access at upload time
Agents
Configure which agent reads which files