Design retrieval around evidence, not more context

Illustrative editorial sample. This draft describes a general workflow, not a current announcement, quotation or measured benchmark. It requires editorial review before publication.

A practical starting point

An illustrative retrieval workflow with clear source ownership and failure handling.

1. Define the boundary

Define the question types the collection is meant to answer. Track document origin, access rights and update time.

2. Inspect the evidence

Choose chunking and retrieval settings using representative queries. Inspect the actual retrieved passages instead of only the final response.

3. Make the decision explicit

Link answers to evidence that supports the claim. If a passage does not answer the question, allow the system to say so.

4. Test the failure path

Test stale, contradictory and inaccessible documents. Enforce document permissions before retrieval and before displaying citations.

Review before use

Adapt this checklist to your application, record the assumptions and verify any product-specific facts against primary sources. This sample does not provide a news report, legal opinion or performance guarantee.