Assets

How asset and file management works in the Bivariant platform — S3-backed storage, hierarchical folders, presigned URLs, and access control.

Assets are files and media stored on the platform. The asset system provides organized, secure file storage for documents, images, audio, video, and any other binary content used by your applications.

Storage architecture

Assets are stored on S3-compatible object storage, managed by the platform:

Layer	Responsibility
Asset service	File metadata, folder hierarchy, access control
S3 storage	Binary file storage, durability, availability
Presigned URLs	Time-limited, direct access to files without proxying

Folder hierarchy

Assets are organized in a hierarchical folder structure within each space:

/
├── documents/
│   ├── contracts/
│   │   ├── contract-2024-001.pdf
│   │   └── contract-2024-002.pdf
│   └── invoices/
│       └── inv-2024-03.pdf
├── images/
│   ├── logo.png
│   └── product-photos/
├── recordings/
│   └── call-2024-03-15.wav
└── exports/
    └── report-q1.csv

Folders can be nested to any depth. Each folder and file tracks:

Name and path
MIME type
Size
Created and modified timestamps
Creator (user or service account)

Upload and download

Uploading files

Files are uploaded through:

Dashboard — drag and drop or file picker
API — multipart upload for programmatic access
Flows — file output from flow actions (exports, generated documents)
Conversations — file attachments in messages

Downloading files

Files are accessed through presigned URLs — time-limited, authenticated URLs that provide direct access to the file in S3:

Request a download URL for the asset
The platform generates a presigned URL (valid for a limited time)
The client downloads directly from S3

This approach avoids proxying large files through the platform API, providing fast and efficient downloads.

Access control

Asset access follows the platform's permission model:

Permission	Allows
`assets:read`	View and download files
`assets:create`	Upload new files and create folders
`assets:update`	Rename, move, and replace files
`assets:delete`	Delete files and folders

Assets are scoped to spaces — files in one space are not accessible from another.

Integration with other features

Assets connect to several platform features:

Feature	Integration
Collections	File fields in collections reference assets
Conversations	Message attachments are stored as assets
Agents	Knowledge base documents are stored as assets
Flows	Flow actions can read from and write to assets
Datasets	Dataset files are stored in the asset system
Telephony	Call recordings are saved as assets

File processing

Certain file types trigger automatic processing:

File type	Processing
Documents (PDF, DOCX)	Text extraction for knowledge base indexing
Images	Thumbnail generation, metadata extraction
Audio	Duration detection, optional transcription
Video	Duration detection, thumbnail generation

Storage limits

Storage is allocated at the organization level:

Each organization has a storage quota
Usage is tracked across all spaces
Administrators can monitor usage in the dashboard

Collections — Fields and Types — file fields in collections
Agents — Knowledge Base — documents used for RAG
Conversations — file attachments in messages
Datasets — structured bulk data storage

Assets

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