Best Practices in Implementing Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) Applications

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) is a method that improves Language Model's responses and addresses hallucinations by providing context to the LLMs. RAG consists of several components, including query processing, context chunking, context retrieval, context reranking, and response generation. The best approach for each component leads to optimal RAG performance. Query classification helps determine whether a query requires context retrieval or can be processed directly by the LLM. Chunking techniques split long input documents into smaller segments, improving the LLM's granular context understanding. Vector databases store and retrieve relevant contexts efficiently. Retrieval techniques improve the quality of fetched contexts, while reranking and repacking techniques reorder and present the most relevant contexts to the LLM. Summarization techniques condense long contexts while preserving key information. Fine-tuning an LLM is not always necessary but can be done for smaller models to improve their robustness when generating responses related to specific use cases.