RAG Checklist

Ingestion

• Supported file types are defined.
• Parsing errors are handled.
• Document metadata is preserved.
• Duplicate documents are handled.
• Ingestion is repeatable.

Chunking

• Chunking strategy is documented.
• Chunk size and overlap are justified.
• Section titles or hierarchy are preserved.
• Tables and lists are handled intentionally.

Retrieval

• Vector search works.
• Keyword or hybrid search is considered.
• Metadata filtering works.
• Access control is enforced before context construction.
• Reranking is tested if needed.

Answering

• Answers include citations.
• Unsupported answers are refused or qualified.
• Context length is controlled.
• Prompt injection in documents is tested.

Evaluation

• Retrieval precision is measured.
• Retrieval recall is measured.
• Answer correctness is measured.
• Faithfulness is measured.
• Citation correctness is measured.