ColBERT (Contextualized Late Interaction over BERT) is an advanced neural information retrieval model that enables efficient and effective passage search over large text collections, leveraging fine-grained contextualized late interaction. The library is currently at version 0.2.22 and receives regular updates, focusing on performance, bug fixes, and broader compatibility.
pip install colbert-aiVerified import paths — ran on the pinned version, not inferred.
This quickstart demonstrates the basic workflow for indexing a small collection of passages and then performing a search using a pre-trained ColBERT model. It covers the `Indexer` for creating a ColBERT index and the `Searcher` for querying that index. Ensure a ColBERT checkpoint is available, either by letting the library download it or by providing a local path.
Upgrade `colbert-ai` to version 0.2.22 or newer: `pip install --upgrade colbert-ai`. If upgrading is not an option, downgrade `transformers` to a compatible version (e.g., `transformers==4.35.2`).
Consider setting up your environment with `conda` for `pytorch` and `faiss-gpu` to ensure optimal and stable installations, especially for GPU acceleration. Refer to the official ColBERT GitHub README for `conda` installation commands.
Ensure CUDA drivers and `faiss-gpu` are correctly installed and configured. Monitor GPU memory usage during indexing. For very large collections, consider processing in batches or using more powerful hardware. Check for `nvcc` path errors if running on GPU.
Upgrade `colbert-ai` to version 0.2.22 or newer: `pip install --upgrade colbert-ai`.