Glossary
What is Bounded index?
Verified 21 September 2026
Unbounded indexes have unbounded costs. A bounded index sets a ceiling, competitively replaces weaker entries as better candidates arrive, and fills genuine gaps on demand rather than pre-emptively.
For agent retrieval the trade is favourable: a smaller curated index returns better context per token than a larger one full of near-duplicates. The obligation it creates is transparency — if you are deliberately excluding things, you should be able to say what and why.
How unlob handles this: How it works
Common questions
What is Bounded index?
A bounded index caps its own size, so admitting a new document means pruning or replacing an existing one rather than simply growing.
How does Bounded index work in practice?
For agent retrieval the trade is favourable: a smaller curated index returns better context per token than a larger one full of near-duplicates. The obligation it creates is transparency — if you are deliberately excluding things, you should be able to say what and why.
See it working
The free tier is 10,000 credits a month with no card — enough to test any of this against your own queries.