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RAG pipeline CLAUDE.md

CLAUDE.md for retrieval-augmented generation apps: chunking, embeddings, hybrid search, citations, and RAG evals.

Claude Code (CLAUDE.md)RAG & vector databases

How to use

Save this as CLAUDE.md in your repository root, commit it, and your agent will pick it up automatically. Edit the commands to match your project.

# CLAUDE.md: RAG pipeline

## Commands
`uv run pytest -q` · ingest: `uv run python -m rag.ingest --source data/` · evals: `uv run python -m rag.eval --suite core`

## Ingestion (`rag/ingest/`)
- Parse to clean text with structure kept (headings, tables as markdown). Store source URL/path, title, section and updated-at as metadata on every chunk.
- Chunk by structure first (headings, paragraphs), then by size (~300-800 tokens with small overlap). Chunking params live in config, not code.
- Embedding model and dimension are config values; store the model name with each vector. Changing the model means a full re-embed into a new index/collection, then switch.
- Ingestion is idempotent: content hash per chunk; skip unchanged, delete removed.

## Retrieval (`rag/retrieve.py`)
- Hybrid search (vector + keyword/BM25) with metadata filters (tenant, permissions, language). Apply access-control filters in the query, never after generation.
- Retrieve more (k≈20-50), then rerank to the top few. Log retrieved ids and scores.

## Generation
- Prompt includes only retrieved chunks with ids; require citations like `[doc-12]` and an "I don't know" path when context is missing.
- Treat document text as untrusted (prompt injection); it can't change instructions or trigger tools.

## Evals
- Keep `evals/` with questions, expected sources and answers. Measure retrieval recall@k and answer faithfulness. Any change to chunking, embeddings, k, or prompts must report eval deltas.

## Don't
Don't re-embed the whole corpus or call paid APIs in tests without asking.