A practical starting point
Work through these checks in order. Use the results to decide what needs to change in your own workflow.
- Measure how many passages are needed for representative questions.
- Remove duplicates and preserve useful source labels.
- Test complex questions that need multiple documents separately from simple lookups.
A one-rule question may need one passage, while a comparison may need evidence from several approved documents.
A mistake to avoid
Do not maximize context length simply because the model supports it.
How to check progress
Compare support accuracy, latency and cost at different context budgets.
Your action checklist
Use this checklist while reviewing your own setup. Checkmarks are temporary and stay in this open page.
Need the wider workflow?
This quick note covers one decision. For a worked example, decision table and a fuller implementation workflow, read When retrieval is the right addition to an AI assistant.
Further reading
Official background resources for this topic. The workflow above is general guidance, not a guarantee of a particular result.
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