Build a RAG system by making trustworthy documents searchable, retrieving evidence for a question, and checking that the model stays within that evidence.
1. Prepare the corpus
Record document identifiers, versions, update times, permissions, and source owners. Remove duplicates and define how edits and deletions reach every derived index. Split documents into passages that preserve useful context and source references.
2. Test retrieval before generation
Create reviewed questions with known supporting passages. Measure whether relevant evidence is retrieved and whether permission filters remove unauthorized records. Inspect misses before changing the generation prompt.
3. Generate with traceable sources
Supply the selected passages with stable source references. Ask for an answer supported by those passages and an appropriate abstention when evidence is insufficient. Keep source content separate from trusted instructions.
4. Check claims and citations
Verify that each material claim is supported by the cited passage and that the source is appropriate for the question. Include outdated policies, conflicting documents, and missing exceptions in the test set.
5. Monitor changes
Record corpus and retrieval configuration versions alongside prompt and model versions. Re-evaluate when indexing, source content, or permissions change. RAG does not guarantee accuracy or prevent prompt injection.
References and further reading
Maintained by DriftRail. AI assisted the October 2026 content and template revision. Examples are illustrative; they are not measured product benchmarks. Suggest a correction.