Glossary · Retrieval & generation

RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation)

A system pattern that retrieves evidence relevant to a request and supplies selected content to a generative model before it answers or acts. Retrieval can use lexical, vector, structured, or hybrid methods.

Why it matters

RAG can make current or private evidence available without encoding it into model weights, but retrieval and grounding must be evaluated separately.

Related terms

Grounding
Hybrid Retrieval
Reranker
Hallucination

Sources

Retrieval-Augmented Generation paper

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