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Service Verba
Track: gen-ai-rag
Category: apps
Default: VERBA_SOURCE=disabled
Verba is Weaviate's archived Golden RAGtriever UI. Atlas includes it as an opt-in, single-user RAG demo over the existing Weaviate and LiteLLM services. It gives a sample ingest/query path: upload content, let Verba create its Weaviate classes (such as VERBA_Document), and query the documents in a browser UI.
Upstream has discontinued and archived Verba, so it gets no upstream security fixes. Keep it disabled unless you want the reference UI.
| Surface | URL | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Kong route | http://verba.localhost:${KONG_HTTP_PORT} |
Protected by Atlas dashboard basic-auth/ACL and available only when VERBA_SOURCE=container. |
| Direct port | http://localhost:${VERBA_PORT} |
Ungated host port, intended for local development only. |
| In-network URL | http://verba:8000 |
Exported as VERBA_ENDPOINT for internal references. |
| Variable | Default | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
VERBA_SOURCE |
disabled |
container starts Verba; disabled scales it to zero and removes its Kong route. |
VERBA_IMAGE |
semitechnologies/verba@sha256:0947d289ebff2c9814941c8d4282ee994dc79598e76162ae82e6efda4682b0b7 |
Digest-pinned Docker Hub image. Upstream publishes latest but no matching v2.1.3 tag. |
VERBA_PORT |
topology allocated | Host port for the direct UI. |
VERBA_WEAVIATE_URL |
auto-managed | Passed as upstream WEAVIATE_URL_VERBA. Verba 2.1.3 reads it only for its Weaviate (cloud cluster) deployment. The default Docker deployment always dials weaviate:8080. With WEAVIATE_SOURCE=localhost, choose Custom on Verba's connect screen and enter host.docker.internal and WEAVIATE_LOCALHOST_PORT. The Verba container maps host.docker.internal to the host gateway (HOST_GATEWAY_IP), so the name also resolves on Linux Engine. |
VERBA_OPENAI_MODEL |
empty | LiteLLM chat model for Verba. Empty uses LITELLM_DEFAULT_MODEL. |
VERBA_OPENAI_EMBED_MODEL |
empty | LiteLLM embedding model. Empty uses LITELLM_EMBEDDING_MODEL. |
VERBA_DEFAULT_DEPLOYMENT |
Docker |
Forces Verba toward external Weaviate instead of embedded local Weaviate. |
Verba receives OPENAI_API_KEY=${LITELLM_MASTER_KEY} and OPENAI_BASE_URL=http://litellm:4000/v1, so it calls LiteLLM, not cloud providers. Atlas also sets OPENAI_CUSTOM_EMBED=true, because LiteLLM model names are often not OpenAI names.
Verba depends on Weaviate and LiteLLM. It stores data in its own Weaviate classes and does not reuse Atlas backend collections. This keeps Verba's data separate; upstream expects its own data shape, not arbitrary Weaviate data.
Docling is optional: use it to pre-process PDFs and Office files. Atlas has no automated Docling-to-Verba bridge, because upstream does not document Verba's API as a supported ingestion interface.
Open WebUI is the primary Atlas chat surface. Verba is a reference RAG UI for inspecting Weaviate and LiteLLM behaviour.
Support tier: experimental — Capability contract declared; no cited cold-start, workflow, or upgrade qualification run yet (evidence at v0.1.0).
| Capability | Status | Verification | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Reference Weaviate RAG workflow | partial | tested | Atlas wires the archived Verba UI to Weaviate and LiteLLM for isolated sample ingest and query. Atlas does not treat it as the primary maintained chat or RAG runtime. |
| Verba-managed data isolation | partial | documented | Operators are directed to Verba-owned Weaviate classes, but Atlas cannot enforce namespace separation if users manually target shared classes or cleanup operations. |
| Verba ingress authentication | partial | tested | verba.localhost is protected by Kong dashboard Basic Auth and ACL, while the host-published direct UI/API is ungated and intended only for local development. |
| Docling preprocessing integration | not-supported | documented | Docling is only a manual companion workflow because Atlas does not rely on an unsupported external Verba ingestion API. |
| Maintained secure production runtime | not-supported | documented | Upstream Verba is archived and receives no security fixes; Atlas keeps the digest-pinned reference UI disabled by default and does not certify it for production. |
| RAG service high availability | not-supported | documented | Atlas runs one Verba replica with a local data volume and configures no application failover, backup workflow, or horizontally shared UI state. |
- Enable the RAG track or explicitly start with
./start.sh --verba-source container --weaviate-source container. - Open
http://verba.localhost:${KONG_HTTP_PORT}. - Select Docker/custom Weaviate deployment if prompted and confirm it points at Atlas Weaviate.
- Upload a small text/PDF sample through the Verba UI.
- Ask a question about the uploaded content in the Verba chat view.
- Optionally inspect Weaviate for Verba-owned classes such as
VERBA_Document; do not mix those classes with backend/Open WebUI collections.
For better document extraction, convert the file with Docling first, then paste or upload the extracted text or Markdown in Verba's UI.
| Symptom | Likely cause | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Verba does not appear in Kong | VERBA_SOURCE=disabled |
Set VERBA_SOURCE=container or pass --verba-source container. |
| Bootstrapper rejects the configuration | Weaviate is disabled | Enable Weaviate or keep Verba disabled. |
| Model list is empty | LiteLLM has no usable model configured | Check that LITELLM_DEFAULT_MODEL names a model LiteLLM serves, or set VERBA_OPENAI_MODEL. |
| Imported data collides with other RAG demos | Reusing Verba classes manually | Treat Verba classes as namespaced/internal and keep other Atlas RAG collections separate. |
| Service | Category |
|---|---|
| weaviate | data |
| litellm | llm |
| Service | Category |
|---|---|
| kong | infra |
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