> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.anonalabs.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Teach it your vocabulary

> Your domain has words that mean something specific. Extraction can be told, once, per space.

[← All use cases](/use-cases/overview)

<div className="uc-examples"><a className="uc-api" href="/api-reference/extraction-settings">API reference</a></div>

## The scenario

In your company a "run" is a manufacturing batch, not a jog. "Churn" means
something precise with a formula behind it. "The platform" is one specific
system, not a metaphor.

Default extraction reads your text as general English and stores general
English, which is why recall on domain-heavy corpora feels slightly blunt.

**What this recipe shows that no other does:** changing how text becomes memory
in the first place, rather than changing how you search it afterwards.

## Step 1 — See what a space does today

```python theme={null}
print(client.get_extraction_settings(space_id="ops"))
```

## Step 2 — Add guidance

`guidance` is additive: it rides alongside the default instructions rather than
replacing them, which makes it the safe knob.

```python theme={null}
client.set_extraction_settings(
    space_id="ops",
    mode="verbose",
    guidance=(
        "A 'run' is a manufacturing batch with an id like R-2214. "
        "Always keep batch ids and line numbers verbatim. "
        "'The platform' means the order management system, never a metaphor."
    ),
)
```

`mode` trades thoroughness for cost: `verbose` stores more per chunk, so it
costs more and recalls more.

## Step 3 — Replace the guidelines entirely, if you must

`custom_prompt` replaces the guidelines block rather than adding to it, and only
takes effect with `mode="custom"`. It is powerful and it is how people break
extraction — start with `guidance`.

## Step 4 — Undo

```python theme={null}
client.reset_extraction_settings(space_id="ops")
```

<Warning>
  **Reset clears the whole surface, not just your guidance.** If the space was
  created with a file-retrieval strategy, resetting drops that too and every
  later upload quietly degrades to default extraction. Prefer writing the fields
  you want over resetting.
</Warning>

## Evals

Extraction changes are hard to judge by feel, so measure:

1. Record twenty representative sentences in a scratch space with defaults.
2. `list_memories` and read what was actually stored — this is the step people
   skip, and it is the only direct view of extraction's output.
3. Apply guidance, record the same twenty into a **second** space, and compare.
4. Check the specific thing you asked for: are batch ids preserved verbatim?

Never tune extraction against the space you care about. Use a scratch space —
settings change future writes only, so an experiment leaves a permanent, mixed
corpus behind.

## Guardrails

* **Only future writes are affected.** Nothing re-extracts what is already
  stored; a change to guidance leaves a space with two eras in it.
* **Values are not validated, only field names.** A typo in `mode` is accepted
  and then ignored at use time, so the call looks like it worked and changed
  nothing. Check with `get_extraction_settings`.
* **More is not better.** `verbose` on a chatty space produces memories about
  pleasantries, which crowd out the ones that matter.