> For clean Markdown of any page, append .md to the page URL.
> For a complete documentation index, see https://docs.nvidia.com/cuvs/llms.txt.
> For full documentation content, see https://docs.nvidia.com/cuvs/llms-full.txt.
> For AI client integration (Claude Code, Cursor, etc.), connect to the MCP server at https://docs.nvidia.com/cuvs/_mcp/server.

# User Guide

Use these guides when you are ready to apply cuVS APIs, benchmark algorithms, or integrate cuVS into a larger product.

## API Guide

- [API Guide](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides): find task-focused cuVS API examples for clustering, vector indexing, preprocessing, and supporting routines.

### Clustering Guide

- [K-Means](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/clustering-guide/k-means): partition vectors into a fixed number of clusters, often as part of scalable vector-search systems.
- [Single-linkage](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/clustering-guide/single-linkage): build hierarchical clusters from nearest-neighbor relationships.
- [Spectral Clustering](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/clustering-guide/spectral-clustering): use graph structure and spectral methods to identify clusters with more complex shapes.

### Indexing Guide

- [Brute-force](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/brute-force): run exact nearest-neighbor search by comparing each query with every vector.
- [CAGRA](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/cagra): build and search GPU-optimized graph indexes for high-throughput ANN search.
- [NN-Descent](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/nn-descent): build approximate nearest-neighbor graphs with an iterative algorithm.
- [IVF-Flat](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/ivf-flat): partition vectors into inverted-file lists while storing full-precision vectors.
- [IVF-PQ](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/ivf-pq): combine inverted-file partitioning with product quantization for compact indexes.
- [ScaNN](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/sca-nn): combine partitioning, quantization, and refinement for high-quality approximate search.
- [Vamana](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/vamana): build graph indexes for large-scale and disk-backed search workflows.
- [All-neighbors](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/indexing-guide/all-neighbors): compute all-neighbors graph structures.

### Preprocessing Guide

- [Binary Quantizer](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/preprocessing-guide/binary-quantizer): compress vectors into binary representations for compact storage and fast comparisons.
- [PCA](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/preprocessing-guide/pca): reduce dimensionality with a linear projection while preserving as much variance as possible.
- [Product Quantization](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/preprocessing-guide/product-quantization): split vectors into subvectors and encode each part with compact codebooks.
- [Scalar Quantizer](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/preprocessing-guide/scalar-quantizer): compress each vector dimension independently with scalar quantization.
- [Spectral Embedding](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/preprocessing-guide/spectral-embedding): create lower-dimensional embeddings from graph structure.

### Other APIs

- [Pairwise Distances](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/other-ap-is/pairwise-distances): compute distances between vectors for analysis, validation, or algorithm building blocks.
- [K-selection](/cuvs/user-guide/api-guides/other-ap-is/k-selection): select the top `k` values or nearest candidates from larger result sets.

## Benchmarking Guide

- [Methodologies](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/methodologies): compare vector indexes fairly with quality buckets, Pareto curves, and consistent reporting.
- [cuVS Bench Tool](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/cu-vs-bench-tool): start with the cuVS Bench guide for reproducible benchmark workflows.
- [cuVS Bench Installation](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/cu-vs-bench-tool/installation): install cuVS Bench with packages or containers, or build it from source.
- [cuVS Bench Usage](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/cu-vs-bench-tool/usage): configure algorithms, run benchmarks, and read build and search results.
- [cuVS Bench Datasets](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/cu-vs-bench-tool/datasets): prepare datasets, ground truth, binary files, and dataset descriptors.
- [cuVS Bench Backends](/cuvs/user-guide/benchmarking-guide/cu-vs-bench-tool/backends): understand and extend backend integrations for benchmark execution.

## Compatibility and Integration

- [Compatibility](/cuvs/user-guide/compatibility): understand cuVS release compatibility, ABI windows, and stable binary boundaries.
- [Integration Patterns](/cuvs/user-guide/integration-patterns): compare direct, offloaded, and service-oriented ways to integrate cuVS into products.
- [References](/cuvs/user-guide/references): cite the research papers behind cuVS vector search, preprocessing, clustering, and GPU primitives.