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

# graphrag init

> Initialize a new GraphRAG project

The `init` command generates a default configuration file and project structure for a new GraphRAG project.

## Usage

```bash theme={null}
graphrag init [OPTIONS]
```

## Options

<ParamField path="--root" type="string" default="current directory">
  The project root directory where the configuration will be created.

  **Aliases**: `-r`
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="--model" type="string" default="gpt-4.1">
  The default chat/completion model to use for entity extraction, summarization, and other LLM operations.

  **Aliases**: `-m`

  This will be written to the `settings.yaml` configuration file and can be changed later.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="--embedding" type="string" default="text-embedding-3-large">
  The default embedding model to use for generating vector embeddings.

  **Aliases**: `-e`

  This will be written to the `settings.yaml` configuration file.
</ParamField>

<ParamField path="--force" type="boolean" default="false">
  Force initialization even if the project already exists. This will overwrite existing configuration files.

  **Aliases**: `-f`
</ParamField>

## Examples

### Initialize with default settings

Create a new project in the current directory:

```bash theme={null}
graphrag init
```

### Initialize in a specific directory

```bash theme={null}
graphrag init --root ./my-project
```

### Specify custom models

```bash theme={null}
graphrag init --model gpt-4o --embedding text-embedding-3-small
```

### Force overwrite existing project

```bash theme={null}
graphrag init --force
```

## What gets created

When you run `graphrag init`, the following files and directories are created:

### Configuration files

* **`settings.yaml`** - Main configuration file with indexing and search settings
* **`.env`** - Environment variables file for API keys and secrets

### Directories

* **`input/`** - Place your source documents here (text files, PDFs, etc.)
* **`prompts/`** - Contains all prompt templates used during indexing and querying

### Prompt files

The following prompt templates are created in the `prompts/` directory:

* `extract_graph.txt` - Entity and relationship extraction
* `summarize_descriptions.txt` - Entity description summarization
* `extract_claims.txt` - Claim extraction (if enabled)
* `community_report_graph.txt` - Community report generation from graph
* `community_report_text.txt` - Community report generation from text
* `drift_search_system_prompt.txt` - DRIFT search system prompt
* `drift_reduce_prompt.txt` - DRIFT search reduce prompt
* `global_search_map_system_prompt.txt` - Global search map phase
* `global_search_reduce_system_prompt.txt` - Global search reduce phase
* `global_search_knowledge_system_prompt.txt` - Global search knowledge instruction
* `local_search_system_prompt.txt` - Local search system prompt
* `basic_search_system_prompt.txt` - Basic search system prompt
* `question_gen_system_prompt.txt` - Question generation system prompt

## Next steps

After initializing your project:

1. Add your API key to the `.env` file:
   ```bash theme={null}
   GRAPHRAG_API_KEY=your-api-key-here
   ```

2. Place your documents in the `input/` directory

3. Optionally customize `settings.yaml` for your use case

4. Run the indexing pipeline:
   ```bash theme={null}
   graphrag index
   ```

## Error handling

If you try to initialize a project that already exists, you'll receive an error:

```
Project already initialized at /path/to/project
```

Use the `--force` flag to overwrite the existing configuration.