Back
Guides

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG): A Practical Guide

How RAG gives a language model access to your own information, each stage of the pipeline, and the design choices that decide answer quality.

Format
Guide · Intermediate
Level
Intermediate
Length
10 min read
Updated
Sep 2026
Topics
retrieval-augmented generation, RAG architecture, RAG pipeline

What RAG is

Retrieval-augmented generation gives an AI model relevant information from your own sources before it answers. Instead of relying only on what the model learned during training, the system searches your documents, passes the best passages to the model, and asks it to answer from them.

When to use it

RAG suits questions about information that is private, changes often, or must be cited: policies, product documentation, contracts, support history and internal knowledge bases.

Read the full guideGuide · Intermediate · 10 min read
Start reading