Do I need RAG?
Words made simple
A few useful meanings before you read the explanation.
- RAG
- Find relevant information first, then give it to a model to help answer the question. The answer is only as reliable as the information and checks used.
- Ask whether the answer depends on external knowledge and whether the corpus is too large or variable to supply directly.
- Use RAG for private/changing knowledge with source references; use exact tools for live records.
- If a handful of permitted documents are already known, compare direct long-context processing.
Failure policy: no applicable evidence → abstain or search-only/staff path; search unavailable → report service failure, not a confident policy answer.
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Do I need RAG?
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Ask whether the answer depends on external knowledge and whether the corpus is too large or variable to supply directly. Use RAG for private/changing knowledge with source references; use exact tools for live records. If a handful of permitted documents are…
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Practice this conceptAdapted from 13_AI.MD · “3. Do I need RAG?”. Examples are study fragments; framework behavior can depend on your version.