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Faiss Agent Skill

Facebook's library for efficient similarity search and clustering of dense vectors. Supports billions of vectors, GPU acceleration, and various index types (Flat, IVF, HNSW). Use for fast k-NN search, large-scale vector retrieval, or when you need pure similarity search without metadata. Best for high-performance applications.

3k tokens
context cost
the whole folder, loaded on every use
2
files
instructions only
0
copies elsewhere
how many repositories repackaged it
11362
stars on the repo
on the repository, not the skill itself

Install

one command, takes just this skill from the repository
npx skills add https://github.com/Orchestra-Research/AI-Research-SKILLs --skill faiss

The instruction itself

17 sections, as written by the author

Facebook AI's library for billion-scale vector similarity search.

When to use FAISS

Use FAISS when:

  • Need fast similarity search on large vector datasets (millions/billions)
  • GPU acceleration required
  • Pure vector similarity (no metadata filtering needed)
  • High throughput, low latency critical
  • Offline/batch processing of embeddings

Metrics:

  • 31,700+ GitHub stars
  • Meta/Facebook AI Research
  • Handles billions of vectors
  • C++ with Python bindings

Use alternatives instead:

  • Chroma/Pinecone: Need metadata filtering
  • Weaviate: Need full database features
  • Annoy: Simpler, fewer features

Quick start

Installation

# CPU only
pip install faiss-cpu

# GPU support
pip install faiss-gpu

Basic usage

import faiss
import numpy as np

# Create sample data (1000 vectors, 128 dimensions)
d = 128
nb = 1000
vectors = np.random.random((nb, d)).astype('float32')

# Create index
index = faiss.IndexFlatL2(d)  # L2 distance
index.add(vectors)             # Add vectors

# Search
k = 5  # Find 5 nearest neighbors
query = np.random.random((1, d)).astype('float32')
distances, indices = index.search(query, k)

print(f"Nearest neighbors: {indices}")
print(f"Distances: {distances}")

Index types

# L2 (Euclidean) distance
index = faiss.IndexFlatL2(d)

# Inner product (cosine similarity if normalized)
index = faiss.IndexFlatIP(d)

# Slowest, most accurate

2. IVF (inverted file) - Fast approximate

# Create quantizer
quantizer = faiss.IndexFlatL2(d)

# IVF index with 100 clusters
nlist = 100
index = faiss.IndexIVFFlat(quantizer, d, nlist)

# Train on data
index.train(vectors)

# Add vectors
index.add(vectors)

# Search (nprobe = clusters to search)
index.nprobe = 10
distances, indices = index.search(query, k)

3. HNSW (Hierarchical NSW) - Best quality/speed

# HNSW index
M = 32  # Number of connections per layer
index = faiss.IndexHNSWFlat(d, M)

# No training needed
index.add(vectors)

# Search
distances, indices = index.search(query, k)

4. Product Quantization - Memory efficient

# PQ reduces memory by 16-32×
m = 8   # Number of subquantizers
nbits = 8
index = faiss.IndexPQ(d, m, nbits)

# Train and add
index.train(vectors)
index.add(vectors)

Save and load

# Save index
faiss.write_index(index, "large.index")

# Load index
index = faiss.read_index("large.index")

# Continue using
distances, indices = index.search(query, k)

GPU acceleration

# Single GPU
res = faiss.StandardGpuResources()
index_cpu = faiss.IndexFlatL2(d)
index_gpu = faiss.index_cpu_to_gpu(res, 0, index_cpu)  # GPU 0

# Multi-GPU
index_gpu = faiss.index_cpu_to_all_gpus(index_cpu)

# 10-100× faster than CPU

LangChain integration

from langchain_community.vectorstores import FAISS
from langchain_openai import OpenAIEmbeddings

# Create FAISS vector store
vectorstore = FAISS.from_documents(docs, OpenAIEmbeddings())

# Save
vectorstore.save_local("faiss_index")

# Load
vectorstore = FAISS.load_local(
    "faiss_index",
    OpenAIEmbeddings(),
    allow_dangerous_deserialization=True
)

# Search
results = vectorstore.similarity_search("query", k=5)

LlamaIndex integration

from llama_index.vector_stores.faiss import FaissVectorStore
import faiss

# Create FAISS index
d = 1536
faiss_index = faiss.IndexFlatL2(d)

vector_store = FaissVectorStore(faiss_index=faiss_index)

Best practices

  • Choose right index type - Flat for <10K, IVF for 10K-1M, HNSW for quality
  • Normalize for cosine - Use IndexFlatIP with normalized vectors
  • Use GPU for large datasets - 10-100× faster
  • Save trained indices - Training is expensive
  • Tune nprobe/ef_search - Balance speed/accuracy
  • Monitor memory - PQ for large datasets
  • Batch queries - Better GPU utilization

Performance

| Index Type | Build Time | Search Time | Memory | Accuracy |

|------------|------------|-------------|--------|----------|

| Flat | Fast | Slow | High | 100% |

| IVF | Medium | Fast | Medium | 95-99% |

| HNSW | Slow | Fastest | High | 99% |

| PQ | Medium | Fast | Low | 90-95% |

Resources

  • GitHub: https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss ⭐ 31,700+
  • Wiki: https://github.com/facebookresearch/faiss/wiki
  • License: MIT

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How to use it

Copy the folder

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Install what it needs

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