Improve RAG

Operation

Implement the requested coherent change at the owning source and update directly affected consumers. An earlier audit is optional when the user and repository already establish the target. Validate the changed behavior, then stop when the requested scope is complete.

Goal

Improve one coherent RAG surface across retrieval quality, source grounding, citation behavior, empty/low-confidence states, freshness, and validation. The diff should make the selected answer path materially more trustworthy, not merely tweak a prompt string.

Scope selection

• If the user named a feature, route, command, retriever, document type, answer bug, or query class, polish that surface and directly affected ingestion/retrieval/answer states.
• If the request is broad, inspect current RAG surfaces and choose the highest-confidence improvement with visible user or operator impact.
• Include related eval, fixture, telemetry, copy, source-rendering, and cache/freshness fixes when they belong to the same RAG behavior.
• Avoid provider swaps, vector DB migrations, broad reindexing, and model changes unless the repo/user evidence requires them.

Polish targets

• Query preparation, filters, metadata, top-k/rerank parameters, chunk display, answer prompt boundaries, and source/citation rendering.
• Empty, low-confidence, partial-ingestion, stale-index, deleted-source, permission-denied, loading, error, retry, and timeout states.
• Source attribution, user-safe uncertainty, generated-content labels, and claims that must be backed by retrieved context.
• Ingestion status, reindex triggers, cache invalidation, idempotency, and operator recovery when directly tied to the selected surface.
• Tests/evals that protect the changed retrieval, citation, ACL, or answer behavior.

Implementation principles

• Apply changes at the owner layer: loader/chunker/indexer/retriever/prompt/renderer/eval, not by duplicating local guards.
• Preserve existing model/provider/index architecture unless the task explicitly requires changing it.
• Keep answer claims truthful and traceable to current retrieved context.
• Do not log raw private documents, secrets, or unredacted user prompts.
• Update directly affected tests, eval fixtures, docs, and generated maps when the repo uses them.

Validation

Run relevant repository-native checks and any RAG eval/test script that protects the changed path. If live indexes, provider keys, or fixtures are unavailable, run the deterministic parts and state the exact gap.